Arms Extended

[anthropisces]

I am working on shoulder flexibility. I feel like I am making good progress in making my shoulders and my torso overall more flexible. Extending my arms out above my head though is still not as comfortable as hanging them by my sides. In fact it can be quite uncomfortable and seems to take a lot of energy compared to letting my arms hang.

Straining to extend my arms above my head is the opposite of what I want to achieve in terms of relaxation.

In both the pool and in the ocean the bulk of my apnea swimming is done with my arms relaxed at my sides. In the sea I almost always have a speargun in one hand.

I've been experimenting with holding my arms against my sides (rather than leaving them dangling) to decrease the wetted surface area. That takes a bit of energy and I'm not seeing any advantage. I can though notice that water is not flowing over those surfaces when they are against my body though.

Are there any successful freedivers who achieve great depths without extending their arms?

I have run lots of computer analyses for flow visualization in the engineering work I do. It is not always obvious how geometries will affect viscous drag. At low velocities flows tend to be laminar and sticky.

So tell me what your experience is in this area please.

 

[dimitris33]

Good one.

In DNF after the arms stroke I have found that keeping the fingers straight like karate blades (ray's end surfaces are flat and thin) rather than relaxed and arms straight rather than touching my body, the glide is superior. It significantly slows down if I relax my fingers or my arms thus creating a fleshy rake. You can almost see what I mean at the second 25m lap. Never tried it at sea or at pool with bifins but I guess it must have a significant difference with less energy loss vs having arms above head. I also think that it depends to person's shoulder displacement. A muscular person with muscular shoulders have more drag than a thin shoulders person when they both have their arms side to body.

[ame=http://vimeo.com/24304254]Clear 100m DNF (Dynamic No Fins) HD on Vimeo[/ame]

 

[baiyoke]

Extending my arms out above my head though is still not as comfortable as hanging them by my sides. In fact it can be quite uncomfortable and seems to take a lot of energy compared to letting my arms hang.

Straining to extend my arms above my head is the opposite of what I want to achieve in terms of relaxation.

I'm with you a 100%... Takes the "free"-feeling out of freediving in DYN. I'm experimenting with this area myself. I'm quite muscular, so getting the arms extended makes a huge difference, compared to "almost extended" with elbows sticking out. At least it feels that way. However, that feeling can be slightly biased, because feeling the drag/resistance clearly, does not tell me exactly how big the difference is compared to when not feeling it.

Having my arms down the side is slow for me because of big shoulders. And I get the same problem of having to force my arms in to the body...

Anyway, I'm not very flexible, and allthough I've been working on it for ages, it just never get to a point where I'm relaxed...

The suit, and neckweight is a factor to consider also, they do not help. You need to have a flat kneckweight near shoulders for sure, if you are muscualar (I have almost no space inbetween neck and shoulder)...

Last night I tried something for the first time. Took a bicycle tube, and made it a loop (cut open and cut ½ with). Before DYN I wrapped it around the elbows doing a "8" shape... Just to see how it felt. It was a really nice relaxed feeling, and the glide just goes on forever (allthough getting a bit slow offcourse at the end). It is NOT handy in any way, and might be a problem if hypoxic, when getting out of water... Needs some product development, and only works for DYN...

Today I want to do the same thing on land, with a nylon-band when I stretch. To keep elbows in...

However I think it's a good idea also to stretch without support, to train muscles stronger, thereby making them slightly more relaxed when working during dive.. It is however a complete waist of O2 :-/

Anyway that's my experience until now...

 

[growingupninja]

You can be muscular and still achieve great flexibility, and while it helps to start young you can absolutely get better as an adult. You just have to work at it. Look up PNF stretching. For shoulders/streamline a great drill is kicking at the surface, face in the water, arms extended, hands on a kickboard. This is not how you typically see kickboards used, where the swimmer's upper body is supported entirely by the board and they have it tucked almost up to their armpits. This way, the bouyancy of the board will provide resistance to stretch against, and as it gets easier you can pulse your muscles against the board, forcing them to contract at their limit range of motion (central to PNF), and you can ultimately work up to where your hands/arms are crossed so you are stretching beyond streamline position.

 

[diddavetellyou]

I understand where your coming from. I usually feel much more into the dive when I’m relaxed arms at my sides.

I'm with you a 100%... Takes the "free"-feeling out of freediving in DYN. I'm experimenting with this area myself. I'm quite muscular, so getting the arms extended makes a huge difference,

I played a lot of rugby when I was younger, at first in the front row and later as a flanker because of this I acquired the typical Rugby body shape and it never really went away. By this I mean the big shoulders, Triangular neck and generally muscular up top. Now I’m not complaining of being to muscly but it can be uncomfortable with my arms above my head thus I am usually lazy at doing it.

By the sounds of it you have some sort of regime in mind but I hate training in a gym so I try to find another sport that compliments the attributes I want to train.

For example before I started freediving I was heavily into my climbing and still am. Climbing is all about core strength, flexibility and control not all in the same way in freediving but close enough to be beneficial, I climb a least once a week sometimes up to three times. To train core strength, balance and coordination for climbing I also got into slacklineing and now do it as an activity in itself.



by the way this guy is amazing and far better that I will ever be.

Then of course there is alway the standard response “yoga, yoga, yoga” I started yoga with the freediving club I joined and really enjoy it and see it as part of the warm up proses but its not for everyone.


If your looking for data or personal descriptions of arms up vs arm down then have a look at this blog by Tanguy the whole thing makes good reading imo.

Splash

This post is particularly relevent.

Splash: Err, can you repeat the question please?

I have run lots of computer analyses for flow visualization in the engineering work I do. It is not always obvious how geometries will affect viscous drag. At low velocities flows tend to be laminar and sticky.

Sounds like a cool job, with loads transferable info relevant to this community.

Hope this helps.

Diddavetellyou

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