How to work on increasing "dynamic bottom time"?

Hello all,

I would like some tips / ideas / suggestions on something quite specific.

I started freediving recently, did courses and I'm currently working on getting comfortable with AIDA4 / Molchanovs Wave 3 requirements.

However my ultimate freediving goal is time at depth, rather than distance, depth or static time.
I'd love to have more comfortable dive time in a 0 to 30m depth range, and be able to use that time.

Ultimately, I'm not really interested in going deeper than 40 meters, or doing more than 100m in dynamic in a pool for instance, or long statics, but would really like to extend the time I can spend comfortably at a relatively shallow depth, to film or take pictures.
I come from a scuba background, and while I love the physicality and introspection of diving on a line, my main motivation, is also to be able to explore and evolve in the marine environment I am in on breathold.

I guess this is closer to a spearfisher's approach, but without the spearing...

If I were visualise an "ideal dive", it would be a smooth duck dive to the planned depth, let's say 20m, and a nice and comfortable time moving around exploring and filming neutrally buoyant at that depth, let's say 1 to 2 minutes... At the moment I'm more in the 30 second zone before the urge to breathe kicks in with a purpose.

There are so many aspects to training that I'm a little lost on what to focus on to improve let's say "dynamic bottom time".

Would you have any tips on what to focus on? At the moment I'm doing mostly dynamic in the pool (but only have access to a 10m pool), and apnea walks.

Thanks!

Ben

cdavis said:

What worked for me was FRC, diving with slightly more than 1/2 a lung full. Increased my dive time from 1.5 to 2 minutes. Slower descent means you don't get the full 30 seconds at depth, but still a major increase. I dive much like you want to, so it might work for you. If you are interested, there are some good threads on the subject that I can point you to. Generally, search FRC or exhale diving for a lot of threads.

You can also make a substantial difference by tweeking your surface dive, weighting, relaxation and general technique. I'd already worked on much of that before discovering FRC. Softer fins help some.

Apnea walking is pretty good, but hard to keep it up.

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Thanks for the tip cdavis, I'll definitely give that a go, even if I also still have a lot to work on in terms of technique and relaxation
I've only tried FRC in the pool so far, but will have the chance to try on the line tomorrow, since I'm doing standard depth training in the morning.

I'm curious to try this out in a less formal setting with my buddy as well, hopefully sometime next week.

cheers

b