How often to train statics and dynamic

In my personal experience, it's most useful (for me, this will be individual to each person) to do statics in series of 3-4 days, and then rest 2-3 days. I'm speaking in terms of performance. It may not be useful to your general health, be vary of that.

The biggest leaps in performance seem to come after a long training period followed by a relatively long rest period. For example training really hard for 2-3 weeks, then rest one week and once I start training again, boom, pb's shattered. So make sure you take some time resting totally once in a while.

I think once or twice a week will bring great improvement. But you have to try different things and see what works. One week you might do them in a row (mon, tue, rest of week resting), another week rest in between etc.

If you try more than 2 statics per week, make sure you rest well (sleep enough) and eat healthy. Also listen to your body. After a particularly long stint I at least start having trouble sleeping, my stomach starts acting up, lowered immunity etc...If you keep going, these get worse and worse until you find that the lack of sleep, proper nutrition and dehydration or whatever (caused by the stomach problems) will lead to a state of "static burnout" and you can't keep going anymore.

On pool sessions I usually train first static, then dynamic. This is because of limited pool time: if I was able to train in the pool say 4 times a week, then it would seem more beneficial to do them in separate sessions.


This is a matter of personal preference. I simply like doing static more (and am better at it, these two things not being totally unrelated) than dynamic. Someone more inclined to dynamic might want to do them in the opposite order.

I do most of my static training dry though, in the pool only once or twice a week...

I think with a normal person's schedule (ie not completely dedicated to freediving), it's pretty hard to train both to maximum. You simply have to pick which one you prefer to improve more for each season. I think I'll try to concentrate more on dynamic next season, loads of improving to be done there...

I'm talking about the pool season of course, which for me is october-april. The "open water season", I mostly dive cw or recreational, with the odd dry static here and there.

I feel that training statics are like weight lifting. You should train every second day with a rest day in between. If you have enough sleep and rest this should be fine but you need to listen to your body. Other thing you could be doing will effect how often you can train them. Static like a muscle in some ways you stop training it you lose it so I don't agree with long rest periods.
At the start no matter how you train basically your statics will increase at a high rate but once you get better they will be much harder to improve.

I think it's pretty hard maintaining a good level of training if you go to the gym every other day and then apnea every other.

A lot of people have had success with separating "fitness cycle" and "apnea cycle" totally.

Let's assume you have a competition in 3 months. Then you might concentrate on power and fitness training for the first 2 months (no hard apnea training, only technique laps etc). Then for the last month, quit all power and fitness training and only concentrate on apnea (max static and dynamic training, trying to break your pb, gaining confidence).