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Herbert did 95 constant!

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
haha, thanks for coming in Will! saved many of us trying some of the above!

Any words of wisdom at this stage for an effective pgm?
 
We've been putting some training tips on the Vertical Blue Facebook page (look in the notes section here) - haven't done many recently, but we will try and get back to it soon!
Otherwise for the full explanation of the program you'd have to enrol in a Vertical Blue course! (here)
Cheers, Will.
 
These are the answers I would give now:

- Exhale Pranayama (Inhale:exhale:hold in ratio of 1:2:4) Combines the yoga breath control with constant state of hypoxia.
Score 3 - I reverted to inhale pranayama, and this is the only exercise that has remained in my program from when I first started freediving 8 years ago. It's also a good lead into use of the bandhas and tongue to enhance MDR

- Hypoxic running (eg inhale 6 steps : exhale 12 steps) Constant hypoxia with physical work.
Score: 1 Specificity is better - a similar exercise swimming underwater in the pool would be preferable.

- RV apnea tables. Focussing on short recovery time so as to maintain hypoxia.
Score 5 - These are a great way to shortcut to hypercapnia (as you have less room in the lungs to off-gas the CO2)d

- RV statics at depth. To increase chest flexibility, train MDR etc.
Score 2 - good for depth acclimatization, but don't subsitute the real thing, and can be simulated in dry exercises.

- Diet: designed to build blood. An assault on red meat, especially liver, iron pills and multivitamins. Low SFA's, high protein:carbohydrate ratio, much vege and fruit. I long ago took your advice and saved my adrenals from caffeine, alcohol and monosaccharides, although I still gorge honey (that's Umberto's advice, and besides honey is mostly frutose, and has antibiotic value).
Score 4 - Diet is important, but I'm now vegetarian (other than fish), and I don't supplement with iron. I think the two keys are balancing the effects of apnea-induced tissue acidosis (fruit and veges), and ensuring glycogen storage (carb-loading) are the two most important factors.

- Suit. I train and dive only unassisted, & have had similar problems to David Lee when freefalling sans suit - drag is prohibitive. Swimmers such as Thorpedo wear 'sharkskin' suits that have the best known hydrodynamics, without affecting buoyancy or flexibility. Surely this is the way forward for freediving also?
Score 4 - the difference that an Orca Free or other speedsuit makes (minimal buoyancy, maximal hydrodynamics) is clear from the first dive.
 
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Reactions: Don Paul
Thanks Will, you and Carla have a safe comp with deep dives.

All the best, Don Paul
 
Reflecting on Will's original series of questions, his program was aggressively biased towards building better blood. Now, 8 years later, we know that good blood is not really required for deep dives. We also know that one max per day does not induce significant changes to blood.

We do know that repeated diving (i.e. deep spearfishing) is much more likely to create a change in blood.

Seals and whales have incredible blood. They do repeated deep dives.

The problem for humans is that we can't really do multiple deep dives due to DCS problems. However if someone could figure out how to do multiple deep dives (or even multiple middle depth dives) per day, the performance would likely improve beyond what people can do today.

Doing unrelated exercises to build blood seems to create blood with a different dynamic. This does not necessarily improve one-max performance. There seems to be a big specificity required in how the blood is built.

I would say that deep spearfishing (30-40m) does seem like an excellent training exercise, although dangerous. Davide Carrera is the best example of a spearo who knocks off 100m line dives with a mask like a joke, with minimal deep training.
 
if someone could figure out how to do multiple deep dives (or even multiple middle depth dives) per day, the performance would likely improve beyond what people can do today.

You can do big repeat dynamics in the pool? No volume change and no sudden hypoxia at the end, but they are a pretty close simulation.
 
I suspect the improvement is due to the pressure massage to the body.

Going on a total limb here...
I view the muscles like a sponge, pressure helps to massage the muscles and increase blood flow, from and too muscles. Allowing more blood to be 'blood shifted'.

Maybe the red blood cells are affected by pressure squeeze (shape).

What do you people think?
 
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