**Broseidon's Apnea Training Log**

[Broseidon]

In my log, I'm going to track my progress as I go from novice to 'not-so-novice' breath holder. I'm exceptionally landlocked, so most of my training will be 'dry', although I may be brave enough to endure the horrors of the local pool once in a while

The log is really just as a record for myself although I'd love people to comment and especially, give advice!

My favourite type of training at the moment is Apnea Walking although I will start doing some O2 / CO2 tables again!

I really like spearfishing, with my end breath-hold goal being the ability to make 2 minute dives.

If you've got any thoughts, ideas, criticisms, advice etc etc... just post it up!

PB's: - as of 19/07/09

Breath Hold: 3.35

Apnea Walk: 1.30

 

[Broseidon]

Training - July 19th 2009​

​

Apnea Walks

The weather was really horrific outside, pouring rain, but I wanted to get these done before lunch - a bit of water never hurt anyone - although it did kill one of my iPod headphones

Breathing was kept at 1.05 all the way through, untill the last hold where my head phone stopped working and I stopped to shake it, that last one was probably about 1.30.

10 holds with the aim to get between 1.15 and 1.20.

Holds:

1) 1.05
2) 1.00
3) 1.10
4) 1.15
5) 1.15
6) 1.20
7) 1.20
8) 1.25
9) 1.20
10) 1.20

After a bad start, really pleased over-all... I wasn't sure I'd actually be able to make it to the upper limit I'd set so 4 holds @ 1.20 and 1 @ 1.25 was great!

 

[azapa]

i'll bet there are some pools near to you? the great (only) thing about pool training is you master "aquacity" (sp) as well as improving apnea. Good apnea without extreme comfort in the water is nothing.

If you have no one to train with just do 25m apnea sprints and ask the life guard to watch. dangerous but better than nothing. Never try more than that in the pool without a specific safety.

If you have a dedicated watcher try 12x50m apneas, trying to do each one slower than the first.

good luck

 

[cdavis]

Here is another plug for pool training. As Azapa suggested, it ain't near as much fun as real diving, but it does have two very large advantages in addition to improved aquacity. First, it allows you to test out lots of things to find out what works for you (with a buddy , of course). The controlled conditions allow you to change one thing at a time and get a good feel for what actually improves your performance. Second, after a year or two of regular pool training, you will have a much better feel for what you body is telling you. You will get quite sensitive to what your body feels like when things are working well and be much quicker to identify exactly what is not working in real diving.

Connor

 

[Broseidon]

Massive thanks for the input guys - really appreciate it

I'll try and get down to a pool but as my local one has a ban on fins and any type of breath-hold activity... it'll probably be a long drive to another pool but I'll see what I can do

Training, Pt II, July 19th 2009​

Apnea Walks

Some more walks this afternoon - concentrating on short breathe up times. Aim was to breathe for 20 seconds and hold for 50 seconds for 25 holds.

Suprisingly I found this really easy and completed it with no fuss at all - will have to up my times tomorrow!

 

[Broseidon]

Training - July 19th 2009​

Apnea Walks

Had the most horrible session - decided to try and hit 1:30 with a 1:15 breathe-up - found it really hard - feeling a bit grim now

Decided to taper my hold up to the max time, starting at a minute, then 1;10, 20, 25, 30.... Went pretty much to plan:

1:00
1:10
1:20
1:25
1:28
1:27
1:30
1:30
1:30
1:30

The convulsion things were really bad - can someone tell me what they are? It feels like my diaphragm flexing?

 

[JennyWren]

They are called contractions. Basically your body is like "wtf? He's not breathing. Hm, let's get this machine started again" and so your diaphragm starts trying to force your lungs to breath. Try to relax and just 'let them happen'. Avoid tensing up when you have them as that wastes oxygen.

 

[Broseidon]

Lol - thanks Jenny - I decided the best bet was to squeeze the f8ckers into submission by tensing up - it didn't work!

I'll try and relax next time and let them pass

 

[azapa]

when you get the first contractions, you can suppress them by moving your diaphragm out a little, maybe its more mental?

in any case, contractions are a great diver reflex enforcer. Martin Stepaneck says in his courses that a good contraction is just the start of an apnea. Horrible rule of thumb to bandy around, and don't hate me if in your case it's totally wrong, but from the first contraction you should be able to go same time again before things go wobbly.

 

[Broseidon]

when you get the first contractions, you can suppress them by moving your diaphragm out a little, maybe its more mental?

Can you explain a little more how you can suppress them, I'm not sure how to 'move my diaphragm out'!

Horrible rule of thumb to bandy around, and don't hate me if in your case it's totally wrong, but from the first contraction you should be able to go same time again before things go wobbly.

Hmmmm.... when I'm doing my walks, contractions usually kick in around 1.10/15... my max time is 1:30.... with a good warm up I could probably go past 1:30, but I'd guess I'd pass out @ about 1:40/45... serious! As i said, I'm really inexperienced with this stuff! Interestingly, I've never had a single contraction doing a static breath hold.

Obviously you're a knowledgable guy, what kind of times do you think I'd have to be walking to be able to get maybe a 1:30 dive? I know that out of water training is very different to in water holds but could you make a rough guess? As part spearo, you know that quite often, we'll swim down (maybe 6-9m) and then keep quite still on the bottom, waiting for fish.

Also, how fast are the contactions meant to come, I quite often have them 1 per second, sometimes faster!

 

[cdavis]

What Azapa said sounds about right for me, just uncomfortable as hell. I don't go there by choice.

What determines the length of your dives is a combination of a lot of things. Walk duration doesn't say much about dive duration. What you train in ap walks is only a couple of them. IMHO, learning to relax, finding a relaxing breathup and getting efficient in the water, both in movement and weighting, building the intensity of your dive reflex and how fast it sets in are much more important than building your co2 tolerance through ap walks, not that they are useless, they can be quite useful, especially for a beginner.

Good luck with it

Connor

 

[Broseidon]

Thanks Connor - I can see what you're saying!

My problem is that as I'm so far from the sea, walks, breath holds and maybe a pool trip now and again are all i can do - especialy with the weather we've got over here at the mo! I just like to think that there's a little something I can do each day to help me on my way to becoming better!

 

[azapa]

try suppressing just the first few contractions, when you feel one "welling up" place a little pressure on your diaphragm, (like breathing in, or pushing your stomach out).

I find it hard to believe people who say they never get contractions (your static breath hold example) but it's more my ignorance. Maybe try to tune into what is happening a little more. Yes, at the end of a static i'll get them every couple of seconds to the point my whole body is trembling with them. I havn't been there much though as i'm lazy.

I would forget about focusing on long dives of x.xx minutes though, you'll never get far that route. For a start, dives over 1:15 are so, so exponentially more dangerous that you shouldn't being do them alone. Secondly, lets say you make it to 1:30, are you going to get more fish? what if you shot a biggy at 1:15, would you be able to surface it at the end of an apnea? How much fun are 1:30 dives spearing? I have many amazing spearo buddies who rarely dive over 1:15. They'll get more fish than all of us here on DB together because they know the waters, fish and how to hunt. A buddy recently shot his PB Grouper, at 30M deep, and swam it up in the one dive. His dive time was 1:00.

Longer dives will come, probably way more than 1:30. Let that be a nice surprise in the right conditions then a "must get there" goal. How long will that take? Add up real open water real spearing dive days. About 150 of those. I'm making stuff up again...

 

[Broseidon]

OK, the 'pushing the stomach out' method seems like a good idea - I can feel that will work!

You're probably right, I should just concentrate on keeping safe and improving myself as opposed to worrying about times! Again. HUGE thanks for your input!

 

[Broseidon]

NEW PB STATIC HOLD!

Just finished a set of CO2 tanbles and decided to have a bash at a max time, got 4.00!!!! Really pleased!

CO2 tables were a bit too easy - I set the level at 4.10 (using the iPhone App) All holds were 2.05 - breathe ups were:

2.30
2.15
2.00
1.45
1.30
1.15
1.00
1.00

 

[DafyddRees]

Great job Bro! I think I will hit 4minutes tomorrow aswell (my dearest mother put me off at circa 3.30 today...cheers Ma!)! Reckon tables are worth it Bro? Tempted by Pembrokshire on Thursday?! :t

(+rep)

 

[Broseidon]

Hey bud - I did mine in bed with the door closed, usually the cat will attack me other wise! The tables are pretty good, if you've got an iPhone, you can download an App which makes it all really easy!

Just been having a butchers at the weather - not looking all that friendly man... I recon shit might calm down a bit over the weekend... maybe making next weekend decently fishable... not to be a fun sponge but I think I'll leave it untill things clear up.

Good luck with your 4 min attempt - let me know how it goes!

 

[Arjen]

CO2 tables were a bit too easy - I set the level at 4.10 (using the iPhone App) All holds were 2.05 - breathe ups were:

2.30
2.15
2.00
1.45
1.30
1.15
1.00
1.00

If you want CO2 tables that are harder, try to shorten the breath ups drastically. With these long breath ups, you don't get a good build up of CO2 and you give yourself a lot of chance to hyperventilate.

I have two suggestions to make your CO2 table harder. Try breath ups of:
1:00
0:45
0:30
0:15
0:15
0:15
0:15
between holds. (this gives you 8 holds.)

An other favorite of mine is a one breath table. It's a kind of masochistic pleasure. You start with a hold and keep that for a number of seconds. About 30% of your PB. In your case about 70 seconds. After the 70 seconds (1:10) you breath out and breath in again. You hold to 2:20 (140 seconds. Breath out and in again to 3:30 (210 seconds). You keep that up for 30 minutes. You should get a few contractions that way. If it is to easy, just add 5 seconds to the hold. This gives you no chance to hyperventilate and guarantees a good CO2 build up. The first five may seem a little easy, but to the end of the 30 minutes the holds get really wicked. Contractions every second for about the last half of your hold. If you have less, you are not doing it right. And because you replenish your O2 there is no risk of a black out.

And remember: "Contractions are your friends."

And congrats on the PB.

 

[Broseidon]

Arjen - thank you SO much for this, really great stuff!

Someone else (apneaboy) sent me a message earlier pointing out that my CO2 table wasn't very good and gave me one very similar to yours - massively appreciate both of them! I will try them out tonight!

Really like the 'one breath' table! I might have to try thatb out today to!

 

[Arjen]

I will try them out tonight!

Really like the 'one breath' table! I might have to try thatb out today to!

Don't do to tables in one day. It is to stressful on your body and especially your mind. Better to do one good and difficult table a day and take a rest day every third day, especially if you only do dry training. If you mix in a day in the water, take a rest day every fourth day. Also, try to mix up different tables. Put an O2 table in your training schedule as well for some variation. If you do to much breath holding training in a short while, you run the risk that your breath hold will get worse in stead of better, it will become mentally very hard to complete your tables and you run the risk of loosing your enjoyment in training. It even helps a lot of the times when you just stop training for a week after some very intense training days and just enjoy the water. Even if it is only a pool.