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Goals Need Help

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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JPPLAY

Student Spearfisherman
Apr 7, 2005
405
25
68
42
This is my first season as a freediver. I should be spear fishing about every one to two weeks and hopefully training in a pool one day a week. With static practice every two to three days. Also swim practice 5 days a week.

Goals

30m dives Comfortably for spear fishing
40m Dive

These are really just ideas and I need help setting my goals.
 
Generally your comfort depth (no spearfishing) is half your max. Your spearfishing depth will be less than half of your max.

So if you pull off 40m max, then your comfort would be 20m, and spearfishing 15m.

Likewise, if you wanted a spearfishing depth of 30m, you would need a comfort depth of 35-40m, and a max of 70-80m.
 


What do you figure is a good goal for my first season of freediving? By season I mean tell the end of October at latest.
 
Reasonable goals for your first season depend on:
- Quality of your gear
- Amount of dry land training
- Amount of in-the-water training
- Presence of competent and knowledgeable buddies
- Number of deep line diving sessions to build technique & confidence
- Total time in the water
- Quality of diet/sleep, etc....

With good gear and experienced divers to help you, some divers who concentrate on pure depth (diving on a line) can reach over 50m in their first season; however 30-40m is more common. This converts to a comfort depth of 15-25m.

In my first season I had no one to help me and I didn't understand the dangers. I did some unsafe dives but luckily I pulled through. After my deepest dive of my 1st season (33m), I found I was comfortable diving for fun in 15-18m. It really helps to have someone there who can already dive to the depths you are aiming for.
 
How much should I be able to do dynamic with fins (mono most likely but will be using normal fins too) to do a 30-40 m dive?
 
It is kind of pointless to compare dynamic with cw, even though "formulas" for converting dynamic to cw have been developed, it depends on so many factors.

But I'd say from personal experience, that 30-40m converts to about 75-100m in dynamic. But it depends on your ability to equalize, relax in the freefall and finding etc etc...

One simple exercise you can do for cw in the pool is this:
Swim about 5-6 kicks (mono) very fast, then go limp and let your self glide. When you come to a stop just hang there for 20-30 sec. Then sprint back to where you started.

This is to simulate the cw dive:
-Hard swimming in the beginning (leaving the surface, fighting you buoyancy)
-Glide/static (freefall or sinking phase)
-Sprint back to starting poing (ascend to surface).

Important mental training is, that you never come up early, you always return to where you started. You should plan your dive so, that this is always possible.

And of course, never do this alone, risk of BO being fairly high...
 
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Approximate formula to convert CW to Dynamic:

DYN = 4/3(CW) + 22

i.e. 80m CW:
DYN = (4/3)*80 + 22 = 128.6m

40m CW:
DYN = (4/3)*40 + 22 = 75.3m

30m CW:
DYN = (4/3)*30 + 22 = 62.0m
 
Hi Eric,
I think this formula favours CW too much when you start looking at big figures. When you look at Herb & Martin, they are (roughly) around the 200m dynamic, and 100m constant mark. In my case it's also closer that constant is half dynamic. (ie 75-80m CW, 150-160m dyn)

Perhaps need a revised formula with a curve ?
But this may get a little complicated :duh

Cheers,
Wal
 
I think the deeper you go, the more variation there is to the formula, because going deeper get's more and more complicated. It's not purely about being able to hold your breath and having the energy to swim the distance. Different types of narcosis, psychological issues, equalization troubles, lung squeeze etc come to play.

I think the formula Eric presented is the theoretical ratio, in terms of oxygen consumption if the CW dive is flawless and not hindured by the aformentioned factors. Thus it is also less and less useful the less experience the diver has (the factors having more effect than on a seasoned diver).

If you could just directly apply it, I would be training to break 80m instead of 40m
 
I also think that besides technical problems like equalization it has a lot to do with what you train = how experienced and comfortable you are with the discipline, especially if it comes to converting DYN to CW. So I guess there is no way around simply giving it a try IRL .

Veronika
 
I have met our friend JPPLAY recently, and we hit the 5m deep pool with 'feign' from DBlue. JP is a competitive swimmer, and his comfort level in the water was obvious as soon as he did his first duck dive. He's adjusting to the long fins quickly despite the years of freestyle training.
Looking forward to hitting the lakes with you JP. If we go in this weekend, it will be COLD as there's still some ice on, no matter what gear we've got on. But still fun
Cheers,
Erik Y.
 
For me an 80m CW dive feels like a 130m dynamic, and I can imagine a 155m dynamic being similar to a 100m CW dive. Carlos Coste has done 105m in CW and yet I don't think he has gone over 150m dynamic.

Of course equalizing & psychology play a role in CW. But if you are having leg failure on the ascent in CW, and you can swim huge distances in dynamic, it tells me that you don't have good phosphate stores in your legs. After all, the main difference in CW vs. dynamic is that in CW, there is very little blood in the legs on the ascent from a deep dive, whereas in dynamic there is always the possibility of pumping blood into the legs (at least more than in CW).

In Herbert's case, my understanding is that the longest dynamic he has done with a waterway fin is in the 170m range. His 180m+ dynamics were done with one of those floating neoprene expensive monofins which don't work for constant weight, so it shouldn't be directly compared using the formula.
 
I Think that one can definately travel a longer distance on a CW dive than on a DYN dive.

I belive that Erics formula is not far from the truth, maybe a little in favour for CW for some divers.
 
Hey Wal
Since this 'game' is all in your head anyway, why don't we just presume that Eric is correct (I wish he'd tell me where that 22 comes from). Let's see ......

3/4*(150-22)=96.

According to the figures (figures never lie) all you need is some practice and you'll be ready for a shot at Martin's new record. Congratulations on the no fins work.

Hurry up here. The mother/daughter team is acting more like competitors than teammates. If they keep it going at this pace, world records are in jeopardy.

Aloha
Bill
 
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The formula doesn't work for dynamic with no fins, because the formula assumes a general ease in overcoming negative/positive buoyancy, which is NOT the case when diving without fins.
 
I'm pretty sure Martin did close to 200m with normal plastic bi-fins, well maybe he doesn't count.

Well the formula varies depending on wether or not you are better at Dynamic or Constant. If you look at perhaps what the formula was modelled on it makes more sense....
The US and Canadian divers for a long time have been way better at Constant compared to dynamic, even more so for the men. Some of the 70-80m divers were/are barely doing 100m dynamics.
On the other side of the coin, the European divers like Stig, Peter P and Tom Sietas are doing dynamics 200->215m. Less access to the ocean, being able to equalise ect is a big part of why they aren't doing as well in constant.
Still it seems to me this isn't explanation enough. Another part of it maybe that for dynamic with a monofin, having really good "Classic" form, tight streamlining helps big time. For constant classic form doesn't work as well and has to be modified. I think for constant you can get away with much sloppier technique.
 
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