Hello all,
What a wonderful forum I discovered here! So I thought about introducing myself:
I have always been a water enthousiast. I live at the northsea in belgium, I used to be at the beach every day in summer. I loved to swim, snorkel, fool around in the water.
I am in a wheelchair because of a muscular dystrophy. This means my muscle strength deteriorates over time, I am now 24 years old and can't really swim a lot of distance anymore (let's say max 50m horizontally in one go). So I am always trying to find new stuff that is possible for me.
Since a couple of years, I have developed an intrest in static apnea, every summer on holidays I practice my apnea's in the swimming pool. Not really serious, just little friendly competitions against my dad (who is an experienced north sea wreck diver (not freediver)). I always thought I was quite good at this because I could win most of the time
2 years ago I started doing this every week in our local swimming pool, and my record then was 3:00min.
Partly because of my condition, I have a lot of problems swimming in cold water, the little strength I have is affected a lot by cold, so I did these apnea's in the jacuzzi bath which is nice and warm.
The last year I have not done much excercise anymore, because going to the swimming pool is quite hard for me, changing clothes and having cold afterwards etc...
This week I have seen a youtube video ([ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQITWbAaDx0]YouTube - Guillaume Nery base jumping at Dean's Blue Hole, filmed on breath hold by Julie Gautier[/ame]) which has really got me interested again in apnea/freediving. I then remembered I could go to the nemo33 swimming pool (which is also nice and warm) in brussels and try and reach the bottom. I soon realized this is not really realistic after reading some posts on this forum and watching some youtube videos about those depths.
But I do want to train more, who knows, maybe I can reach 10m or even 15m? The deepest I have gone was only 5m, which was obviously no problem, but it was the max depth of the pool.
This seems a really good excercise for me, physically it's not that challenging for my muscles, but I do train my lungs and my heart, which is important for me.
My record was 3:00min, but I think I can do much more. I read about the CO2 and O2 tables in the beginners guide in this forum, and had no problems in completing them.
I saw most freedivers want to be buoyant on -10m, so they can easily swim up and down. I can't really do that, I normally use a heavy lead-belt (does this has a particular name in english?) which takes me to the bottom, there I let go of the belt and go back up. I am very buoyant, it is almost impossible for me to go under without lead, so I go up very easily (and fast) when I let go of the belt. Could this be a good way to dive to 10-15m?
Does someone has experience with freediving, while not being able to swim independently down and up?
Greetings,
Jen
What a wonderful forum I discovered here! So I thought about introducing myself:
I have always been a water enthousiast. I live at the northsea in belgium, I used to be at the beach every day in summer. I loved to swim, snorkel, fool around in the water.
I am in a wheelchair because of a muscular dystrophy. This means my muscle strength deteriorates over time, I am now 24 years old and can't really swim a lot of distance anymore (let's say max 50m horizontally in one go). So I am always trying to find new stuff that is possible for me.
Since a couple of years, I have developed an intrest in static apnea, every summer on holidays I practice my apnea's in the swimming pool. Not really serious, just little friendly competitions against my dad (who is an experienced north sea wreck diver (not freediver)). I always thought I was quite good at this because I could win most of the time
2 years ago I started doing this every week in our local swimming pool, and my record then was 3:00min.
Partly because of my condition, I have a lot of problems swimming in cold water, the little strength I have is affected a lot by cold, so I did these apnea's in the jacuzzi bath which is nice and warm.
The last year I have not done much excercise anymore, because going to the swimming pool is quite hard for me, changing clothes and having cold afterwards etc...
This week I have seen a youtube video ([ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQITWbAaDx0]YouTube - Guillaume Nery base jumping at Dean's Blue Hole, filmed on breath hold by Julie Gautier[/ame]) which has really got me interested again in apnea/freediving. I then remembered I could go to the nemo33 swimming pool (which is also nice and warm) in brussels and try and reach the bottom. I soon realized this is not really realistic after reading some posts on this forum and watching some youtube videos about those depths.
But I do want to train more, who knows, maybe I can reach 10m or even 15m? The deepest I have gone was only 5m, which was obviously no problem, but it was the max depth of the pool.
This seems a really good excercise for me, physically it's not that challenging for my muscles, but I do train my lungs and my heart, which is important for me.
My record was 3:00min, but I think I can do much more. I read about the CO2 and O2 tables in the beginners guide in this forum, and had no problems in completing them.
I saw most freedivers want to be buoyant on -10m, so they can easily swim up and down. I can't really do that, I normally use a heavy lead-belt (does this has a particular name in english?) which takes me to the bottom, there I let go of the belt and go back up. I am very buoyant, it is almost impossible for me to go under without lead, so I go up very easily (and fast) when I let go of the belt. Could this be a good way to dive to 10-15m?
Does someone has experience with freediving, while not being able to swim independently down and up?
Greetings,
Jen
