cardiovascualr fitness?

[quasimoto]

Hi all

Is there a way to achieve some sort of cardiovascular fitness without a lot of cardiovascular activity? I know it sounds stupid, but while i am very interested in maintaining and improving my cradiovascular health and strengthening my heart, Eric Fattah and others have said that running long distances forms the wrong type of muscle and is generally not good for diving. i was just wondering if there was an alternative method to streangthen my heart and bring my resting heart rate down.
thanks
rory

 

[land shark]

just swim

jim

 

[Walrus]

I don't agree that cardio is bad for freediving. There are some negative effects, but doing no cardio also has negative effects on freediving. If you look at some of the worlds top freedivers there are some totally different approaches to training, and yet they all seem to work. For example Natalia M, does HEAPS of cardio, mostly swimming and finswimming. She just set 4 WR's in competition in a row, never been done by any freediver before. Probably also showing the biggest improvement and most consistent results, so you could argue that doing a lot of all round cardio and fitness type training is the best approach. :duh

Agree that swimming is one of the better thing you can do, even better is to to do at least some swimming with fins on. Then you are working the muscles more specifically for diving. To decrease the negative effects of cardio, just stop 2-4 weeks prior to competition. Then just focus on apnea and freedive training. Another thing is you can do a lot of dynamic training with short intervals. Doing 25m laps with 15s-30s rests, it is CO2 training but also works your fitness. It then has less of the 'negative' effect of Cardio.


Cheers,
Wal

 

[Paul Kotik]

Could somebody point me to Mr. Fattah's thesis that running long distances is bad for freediving fitness ? With Eric, it is important to make certain we mean the same thing by terms such as "running", "long", "bad for freediving" and others. Eric's metrics are often not the same as those of the general run of men.

Thanks in advance.

 

[quasimoto]

paul-

I am afraid i dont know which post exactly i read it in, but he said something to the effect that running longer distances (im assuming he means more then 3-4 miles) builds slow twitch muscle which is counter-productive to freediving. I may have misread it, but i think that was the gist of it.
thanks to the others for replying

 

[ADR]

Here are some Eric quotes from one of the threads on this topic...he has posted more than once on this. A search on EFATTAH and slow twitch or anaerobic gives you the posts.

PAUL K - Maybe I'm misreading your post, I for one find that Eric is clearer than most people on metrics and often goes to great lengths to describe them so that they are objective rather than subjective....If I read your post correctly I think you are off the mark significantly with your comments.


"Aerobic training teaches your muscles how to burn oxygen. Aerobic training increases your VO2 max. The higher your VO2 max, the faster you burn oxygen. Is that what you want? To burn oxygen at an extremely fast rate? If so, then do aerobic training. Examples of aerobic adaptations include:
- Increased growth of blood vessels and capillaries (to allow more blood to flow to the muscle, allowing more oxygen to be consumed per second)
- Increased level of aerobic enzymes (allowing more oxygen to be consumed per second)
- Increased quantities of slow twitch muscles fiber (the type of muscle fiber which is good at consuming oxygen at a fast rate)

Anaerobic/power training teaches your muscles to store as much energy as possible, relying on non-oxygen energy stores for power.

Perhaps now you can make your choice.
__________________
Eric Fattah
Canada
http://www.liquivision.ca "

 

[ADR]

Could somebody point me to Mr. Fattah's thesis that running long distances ......

Having read your comments again Paul I think using the phrase "Mr. Fattah's thesis" seems like you are having a go at Eric and this is disappointing given your position as a DB Editor. I'm not suggesting you have to agree with him but that you should (more than most) refrain from sly remarks.

 

[jome]

I think it's all about balance. Of course doing only long distance running as an exercise is not good. But neither is being in a average couch potato shape.

You take someone, who's been training all his life in different sports, and then picks up freediving. His heart is already very strong and he is in general good fitness. He may want to concentrate more on diving than running.

Then take someone who's not been very active in his prior life and wants to take up freediving. I would recommend that they get in shape too. Someone with no prior, or very little, background in serious training would in my opinnion benefit from regular, fairly long distance running, simply for a foundation of fitness for him to build on. Then, as he's fairly fit, he can slowly move towards other forms of exercise.

I think the kind of apnea swimming that for example Natalia Molchanova does, is a fairly different thing than running half marathons. If I understood correctly, she swims laps holding her breath every other 25m or half a lap or something like that, and does this 6 times a week for a couple of hours. In my opinnion this is very opposite to pure aerobic training. Instead of conditioning her self to draw up and burn oxygen as efficiently as possible, she is conditioning her body to move and do work as much as possible, with a more or less constant oxygen debt. Very different indeed...

Anyway, what is absolutely clear and I have no doubt about, is that you need to have a longish break from jogging to hit your best apnea performance. The effect is not so dramatic for static, but it's very dramatic for dynamic/cw.

It makes obvious sense that too much aerobic shape is not good. What it in essence means is good shape at "drawing oxygen from your lungs and burning it". I for example have been training way too much aerobic lately, and it's evident in the horrible 7:00/100m STA/DYN ratio I'm at currently (which I would guess has lots to do with slow/fast fiber ratio). However, I'm confident that once I stop running, I will make leaps of improvement within weeks.

That's how (to my knowledge) a lot of competitive divers plan their season. They indeed do loads of cardio, but during that time, they are well aware that their diving capability is reduced. But they take comfort in knowing, that switching training regimes weeks or even months before the competition will change that and they reap the benefits then. It's all about timing your "peak", just like any other sport. It's about planning a whole year of training in favor of hitting a week or two of optimal performance. It may well include half a year of serious aerobic training. Or then something completely different.

Personally I find that starting pure apnea training too soon will result in peaking too early, which means at the competition I'll be sloping down already, which really takes the edge off. Kind of like drinking. 1.0 promilles is much more fun when it's going up, that when it's coming down. But you're just as drunk on both But you cannot just maintain that 1.0 and be "happy happy joy joy" for hours. You must either drink more to become even more merry (eventually resulting in disaster), or call it a day and go to rest.

Finally, I think Paul's referring to "Mr. Fattah's thesis" is simply saying that his training is what most freedivers would call extreme and experimental. It does not necesserily apply to most divers at different levels as such. Even if it is fundamentally right, it applies different to divers in different levels of progression and general fitness. And who can honestly say that during the years there hasn't been some "out there" theories from Eric? I'm not saying this in a negative meaning, but it's just that some times he goes very far in the search for the ultimate apneist. Further than most average divers would be willing to follow.

 

[ADR]

Fair enough Jome and I like your your unconfrontational style in comparison

 

[samdive]

would anyone recommend a % of max heart rate that would be ok to work up to in the last couple of weeks before a comp?

not doing cardio for three weeks is gonna kill me.... if I can do something gentle that would help but I don't know how to judge what is gentle enough.....

S

 

[Bill]

Sam
In the old book. Old rules. 230 minus age (200 max) is max heartrate. 66-85% is aerobic. If you taper down to about 3 half hour sessions at 66% and stop 72 hours before competition, you'll get most of the benefit of quiting. All the new rules seem to be based on 99% training.
Aloha
Bill

 

[efattah]

In addition to the well documented effects of cardio (such as were quoted above), there may be even more reasons, in my opinion, to avoid it.

During cardio, your heart must pump blood very fast around your circulatory system. In order to pump blood fast, the blood must have a low viscosity (i.e. it must be thin like water, rather than thick like soup). Imagine trying to pump honey or yogurt through your circulatory system---difficult if not impossible to do at a fast rate.

As the number of red blood cells in your blood increases, your 'hematocrit' increases, which is the fraction of your blood which is composed of red blood cells. The higher the fraction of red blood cells in your blood, the more viscous your blood becomes. Seals, during dives, have hematocrits of up to 68%; such blood is as thick as soup, and has high viscosity, and cannot be pumped at a high rate through the circulatory system.

Yet, seals and whales do perform gentle cardio when they swim long distances. However, they have the advantage of having huge spleens. They store so many red cells in their spleens that they can reduce their hematocrit to 45% during aerobic swimming and just resting on land. When they start a dive, the spleen contracts and raises the hematocrit *dramatically*.

Humans have far smaller spleens and are only capable of changing their hematocrit by a few percent via splenic contraction.

There are numerous side effects of this. The prime one, in my opinion, is that an intensely trained freediver (such as Sebastien Murat), will have a higher 'resting' hematocrit than than a seal, although during a dive their hematocrits may be similar. This means that cardio for a well trained freediver would have a different effect than cardio for a seal, because while a seal can change its hematocrit dramatically (to accomodate either cardio or apnea), the human cannot change its hematocrit dramatically, and therefore must choose between cardio or apnea.

In the world of 'breathing' athletics, such as track or cycling, the highest hematocrit generally acquired is about 50% (at least acquired naturally). There have been some claims of hematocrits of 52% via natural cycling training, but the general agreement is that if you are significantly over 50% then you probably took EPO or did blood doping (both of which increase the viscosity of your blood to dangerous levels).

However, if cardio is eliminated, and powerful hypoxic training is done (along with iron supplementation), then a freediver can reach a hematocrit similar to a seal, and WAY higher than ANY person who does lots of hard cardio. This is because without cardio, your body is NOT constrained by blood viscosity.

To take an example, in Sebastien Murat's case, when he eliminated cardio and performed hard FRC training 3-4 times per week, with iron supplementation, his hematocrit soared to 63% (with hemoglobin an astonishing 21 g/dl).

Further, Sebastien's cardio ability DROPPED DRAMATICALLY during this period because of the high viscosity of his blood. Realize, however, that when hematocrit is increased naturally, the viscosity of the blood is still far less than 'unnatural' blood, which can be dangerous.

Sebastien noted that his VO2 max had dropped to something ridiculously low (27 ml O2/kg-min), when his blood had such a hematocrit. To give you an idea, a VO2 max of 27 is the equivalent of a couch potato. Most people in decent shape have a VO2 max of at least 40, whereas elite athletes can be in the 70-90 range.

Sebastien's 63% hematocrit allowed FRC (half-lung) dynamics over 150m using tiny training bifins....

I am currently attempting the same route.

I started with a VO2 max of about 52, a few years ago. I cut out cardio in late 2003.

I have started FRC training 3 days per week with iron supplementation (with NO cardio), and for the first time in years my hematocrit is increasing steadily, as well as my performances. Also, my aerobic ability continues to decrease, as expected.

However, even without cardio, my resting heart rate is decreasing.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is this:
- There is proof that you can increase your hematocrit to over 60% by doing apnea with no cardio
- There is huge evidence from the 'breathing' sports world that hard cardio will never result in hematocrits of over 52%

Now, hematocrit isn't everything. Aerobic training can increase the efficiency of your body. As someone said, if a fat couch potato wanted to take up freediving, even I would recommend that the person start with ONLY cardio and NO apnea until a 'standard' level of fitness is achieved. Then I would recommend dropping or reducing the cardio.

In my experience, cardio has a large effect on static apnea. So, if you are training primarily for static apnea, then cardio remains an option, although Tom Sietas also said that cardio isn't a big part of his program. Although cardio is still one of the better known methods for training static, I personally think a much better non-cardio method exists and is waiting to be discovered.

 

[samdive]

Thanks guys - Bill that gives me a max for the next 3 weeks of about 130 - which is exactly what I was doing in the gym last night before I read your post and felt right.

Given that I am not exactly going to get a static world record, and I think that to be honest even if I was I would care more about my general aerobic fitness than any freedive world record - I'm not too fussed about blood viscosity and haematocrit - seems more important to me to be able to get up and run around and live a normal life.. all that stuff is kinda scary. Last time I measured my haematocrit it was about 14....

S

 

[jome]

That was exactly my point. I have no doubt that the road that Eric and Sebastien are taking "works". It's just that it's so extreme, that most people would propably be safer in the "stay moderately fit, dive now and then"-approach.

For the average diver, 60% hematocrits sound (and should sound) scary.

But even the aerobic trainer should get a short term benefit from quitting for a while...A break in cardio to reap short term gain is different from quitting alltogether to adpot a totally different diving strategy. Most people would not be willing to sacrifice their hard earned aerobic fitness for "seal fitness". But some are and I find it incredibly cool...

A few weeks rest from aerobic training doesn't kill you, as long as you make sure you got the willpower to start training again after the event (which I often don't)

As for world records, I believe they will be still broken by traditional inhale divers for some time. But, as we've seen, they are approaching such levels that DCS and narcosis are becoming much larger problems than hypoxia...Obviously the seal diver is the only one who can go beyond those limits...

 

[Absolute]

Really interesting posts.

I wonder, what would be the caloric intake for someone training FRC with no cardio

 

[Jon]

Eric,

When did Seb measure his hematocrit levels? It was my understanding that most freedivers would score in the "blood doping" range after a half hour of freediving, or less if your doing FRC dives, becasue of the release of extra RBC's from the spleen after the dive refelx kicks in. That could make a huge difference in the numbers he gets.

Couldn't you train cardio to get a more efficient system and then kick in the dive reflex to up your hemotocrit level before the big dive by a few FRC dives as a warm up- which seems much more common and safer?

I also wonder about fluid intake and the effect on hematocrit levels. For trimix diving we always drink a ton of water before a big dive and often take a leek before we dive to check the color of our urine to make sure were "clear" and have less of s concern of micro-sludging of the RBC's which has been shown to be a cause of DCS. Maybe a combination of FRC training to up the hematocrit coupled with a lot of fluid to increase the blood flow followed by some warm up dives to release extra RBC's from the spleen to maxamize everything?


Part of this disscussion talks about "one-off" dives that are used in comps, but what about those of us who want to do 6-8 hours in the water spearing, photographing, or just playing around? Wouldn't a higher aerobic level benefit us more from just the immense amount of time we would be spending in the water vs. a quick record breaking dip?

More specifically, if I wanted to do repeated dives to 15-20 meters with bottom times in the two minute range with the quickest surface recovery possible, taking into account DCS protocol, which would seem to be the best way to attain good results- assuming that I can't just dive everyday?


Jon

 

[efattah]

Seb's numbers were dry land numbers without the effect of spleen contraction.

If you want maximal performance on a 'one-max' dive, you need to start the dive with an 'uncontracted' spleen and the spleen should contract during the dive, otherwise the spleen's precious blood will be burned during the normoxic phase instead of feeding the brain & heart in the later stage. This means no hypoxic warm ups.

A high hematocrit is ideal if you are doing repeated dives with at least a 1'00" recovery. If your recovery between dives is less than 1'00", then having a hematocrit of over 60% would be slightly detrimental. Seb found that during his time of thickest blood he had problems doing sets with 0'35" recoveries.

The highest hematocrit I've heard of from a 'normal' person after spleen contraction was 52%, which is just above the allowable level for cyclists.

Keep in mind that once the spleen contracts, it will de-contract and re-absorb blood within 10 minutes if no more hypoxia is present.

 

[rifmaniac]

hi
I really didn't find time to read everything before posting(I'll do it when I can).
My question is: what would be the effect of cardio training in apnea?
I've been training for 3months, 2hours*4-5 times a week, half my training being cycling at 120 to 140 bpm(heart rate) with short apnea times(from15 to 50 sec) and active recovery(from 5 to 30sec).
The only measurable effects I could notice were a decrease of my heart rate from 55 to 46, and an increase of the delay before first diaphragm contaction during stats (from 2' to 2'45), and maybe a greater hunting time in shallow water ( from 1'45 to 2'30-2'45).
So isn't this going against the idea of cardio training being bad for apneists??

 

[efattah]

rifmaniac,

What you are doing isn't cardio, it is apnea. Any exercise which involves periods of breath-holding is generally beneficial if done in moderation (too much will cause overtraining).

 

[rifmaniac]

ok, thanks for replying so fast.

But I think cardio training is any training which involves making the heart rate increase enough, whether aerobic or anaerobic.
But its just a not very important terminology problem.

I have many questions about my training, which is only based on some internet advice.
I'll post my training then ask the questions.