Optimal Training Methods/Exercises for "Casual" Diver Improvement

[Ben_Jammin727]

Surely there are many great threads on here about training methods, exercises, routines, etc. But I am curious as to what your thoughts might be on the most beneficial for someone of my skill level / ability.

Background
I am what I would consider to be a pretty "casual" freediver. Mostly diving for spearfishing and photography. Typically we don't have to dive deeper than 20m here on the Florida Gulfcoast to be successful. In fact there are many times that we are able to stay as shallow as 10m. Typically my bottom times once warming up are around 1:00 to 1:30 with recovery being 2:00 to 3:00 minutes. I have only dove on a line a couple times, hitting a PB of 33m if I remember correctly.

Training
To give you an idea of my current training & fitness
Running - not fast generally for distance. Average would probably be around 20 miles/week.
Strength train - core and upper body 2 or 3 times/week.
Mobility - Daily stretching with deep breathing. Consisting of some athletic stretching and some yoga moves.
Freedive / Breathold Specific - NONE

Goals
My goals are to improve in a general sense with more comfort while diving, longer bottom times, and the ability to dive deeper if needed. I feel as though I am pretty spoiled by the local conditions, but I would really like to start taking dive trips to destinations where it may not be as "easy" diving so I feel preparing my body and mind is order.

Question
What exercises do you recommend for improvement in the various aspects above?

What type of training volume / intensity is appropriate for general improvement, but not "competitive" diving?


Thank you very much in advance for any advice. I really look forward to being more active on this board and learning from the community.
Cheers

 

[Nathan Vinski]

If you have the buddies and time, the best way to improve comfort, dive time, and depth abilities (equalization) is to do some line diving. Although not going to spear or take pictures might not be appealing to you the line is a very good place to "explore" yourself. The line removes all lot of variables and lets you concentrate on the most important things like relaxation, streamlining, finning technique, using buoyancy (+/-) to your advantage, internal sensations, places you might hold tension, equalization... All of the things that you can't do so easily off the line. If you master and fix all of those aspects while on the line they will directly translate into all other types of diving. Honestly 1:30 dive times with 2-3:00 intervals is quite strong (physically) and just tweaking some technical aspects (with the help of a line) could get you to 2:00+.

In terms of the actual training (conditioning), running regularly is not good, as it trains the muscles to use oxygen. core and upperbody strength training would help in CWT(mono fin) or FIM. if you are using bi-fins it won't help you. stretching is good.. but only to a certain point.

In terms of physical activity, some running/ cycling will help the very early stages of the dive, but the best would probably be HIIT training (mostly legs : 30 seconds steep hill sprint repeats for example). Not only will that help your muscles work without O2, it will increase your tolerance to high amounts of lactate buildup (more CO2 buffers = later contractions).

at this point any breath holding (classic CO2 or O2 tables, or even just doing 5x breatholds to 10 contractions) will help you. it doesn't have to be super intense or very frequent. Dry training cannot replace real diving, but if you can't dive 2-3 times per week is enough. something often overlooked when training dry is varying the lung volume on the breath hold.. do some at full inhale, some at full exhale, some at FRC (passive exhale).

 

[Ben_Jammin727]

Thanks Nathan. This is a great insight, I really appreciate the response.

I would love to start line diving, I think the biggest challenge will be finding buddies who are willing to go (hopefully I can get in touch with some folks on here as well). I really did enjoy diving on the line when I took a course.

I could very easily switch my shorter runs to HIIT and I look forward to trying it. I'm curious as to your thoughts on longer distance running, so I'd like to pose another question that perhaps you could elaborate on.

Although longer distance running trains your body to use oxygen (aerobic conditioning) and you suggest training in a high intensity (anaerobic) fashion, what are your thoughts on diving all day, lets say for example a long day of spearfishing or filming where I may log upwards of 50 dives? Do you think traditional aerobic endurance training such as running would be beneficial for longer days of diving?

Also what about diving on a spot in current? If a diver is finning at a moderate pace during a breath up; a strong aerobic ability would make for a more effective breathe up?

 

[Nathan Vinski]

So, I did a presentation on this topic for my AIDA instructor course and this is what I came across in my research: briefly.

First off, I do believe that a reasonable aerobic base will help with any physical abilities in any sport, including freediving but mainly because of its general health benefits.

Aerobic vs anaerobic? Natural diving animals take one of these paths. Some are fully anaerobic and have large ATP and creatine stores in their muscles. others are fully aerobic and have large myoglobin (O2 stores) in their muscles.

Increasing ATP + creatine will happen any time you train the muscle anaerobically (weight lifting, HIIT, freediving long and deep, cycling up hills...).

Increasing myoglobin requires exercising the muscles (slow twitch fibers) in a state of low O2. the only way to do this (looking at diving animals) seems to be to dive, get really blood shifted and then make a sustained long effort, many many times per day, every day. Exercise on land cannot mimic this and results in normal anaerobic training (fast twitch fibers).

So, how does this apply to humans? A diver with strong anaerobic fitness will derive a lot of energy from non-O2 energy. Taking the aerobic (myoglobin) route is very hypothetical and we aren't really sure that we can increase the stores enough to offset the lack of ATP + creatine. the most likely result of trying to achieve this is high proportions of slow twitch fibers (less ATP+creatine) with low myoglobin with the result of lots of burnt O2 in the muscles.

How does it apply to you? Ideally you want to do a full recovery after every dive, even on sessions that have 50 dives you should rest (longer than 3:00) to fully restore all muscle O2, ATP, and creatine stores. If you do this you will not need aerobic capacity to keep up with the volume of dives as you are fully recovered every dive. Yes aerobic exercise will help a lot with surface fining and if your diving mainly consists of doing recoveries in current then forget about anaerobic anything and just get good aerobic muscles for the current at the surface. Again, unless you are doing 50 deep (big blood shift) near maximal dives per day every day then there isn't much evidence to suggest that you will increase myoglobin to a level that it outweighs well training anaerobic muscles.

Don't forget that muscles energy stores is really only part of the story. Dry static training will benefit you. Being fully aerobic with low myoglobin but if you have a monster static will be better than being full anaerobic with a horrible static. Relaxation, technique, confidence... the list goes on with other factors that will help.. That being said, from the training that you are currently doing, assuming you don;t add any breath hold exercises, then I stand by my claim that HIIT will improve your breath hold a lot more than running or stregth training would.

 

[Ben_Jammin727]

Thanks for the thorough reply Nathan, very interesting and makes perfect sense. I'm looking forward to trying all of the above.

 

[growingupninja]

I think that myoglobin stores do increase, very slowly, to some extent in some divers and I think it is absolutely worth pursuing. Granted I rarely train it but my static ability is probably not much better than it was 5 years ago, however my ability to grind a deep reef (or do repetitive deep line dives) all day with limited surface time is some orders of magnitude greater than it was back then. I do a fair bit of anaerobic cross training but my fin sprint ability is not significantly different than it used to be either. My 2 cents.

I also am of the opinion that for 99% divers who want to enjoy the ocean and arent chasing numbers, there is absolutely nothing wrong with steady state cardio if they like doing it, this is based on my experience with students who come to me with zero dive experience but endurance exercise backgrounds. A diver who does nothing much between dives besides hang on a buoy for 3 minutes is rather weak in any other environment whereas a diver who is used to diving in currents or with minimum rest can easily adapt and crush it when given the opportunity to rest.

Endurance or HIIT will both be worthless beyond very beginner levels without some kind of breathhold, but I do not think steady state cardio is a necessarily a bad thing if a diver also incorporates hypoxic training.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

[Jamie Bell]

I should say I am by no means an expert, but I was under the impression that aerobic exercise was generally beneficial to diving, because it lowered the resting heart rate and increased efficient oxygen transfer. I can say for sure that when I'm exercising regularly my resting heart rate falls from low 60s/high 50s to low 50s/high 40s. My exercise regime is 30mins relatively intensive cardio (I can't use the treadmill due to back issues, but get about 460kcal out of a cross trainer at a maximum 185ish bpm). I then do 30mins of superset resistance (that keeps heart rate quite high as well as being reasonable anaerobic exercise) followed by 15mins of stretches. 3 times a week.

That said, the consensus seems to be that HIIT works better to develop anaerobic capability. My problem there is that the cross trainer doesn't get my heart rate up quickly enough for this to work well (or at least I can't seem to get it to work).

Would be interested in views of people with more experience. My sense has been that unless you're looking to break the 4-minute mile, any aerobic regime is likely to come under the heading of "good residual fitness". I'm pretty shagged out after 30mins of the cross trainer at 15+ kcal/m, and consider myself (perhaps naively) fitter than most 45 year olds, but I was under the impression I wasn't doing anything aerobically that would actively hamper my anaerobic fitness. It's not like I'm Usain Bolt trying to run the Olympic 10k. Am I deluded in this? And is there a HIIT regime that works for people with back issues?! Rowing and running are pretty much no-goes for me - I've had surgery once...

More questions than answers, sorry.

 

[Nathan Vinski]

As I said in my 2nd response.. Yes, a certain level of aerobic fitness is helpful to all sports including freediving. However in the case of freediving it is not the most helpful thing to do, high intensity anaerobic activity is.

My original response was directed to Ben's question and would have been different if the question was asked in general. In his case, already doing significant physical training, having a good aerobic and anaerobic base, and considering that he does no breath hold training outside of diving, in his case HIIT would help most.. 1 by training the muscles to increase ATP/Creatine stores and having more available energy for the dive. 2 by exposing himself to super high levels of lactate his body would produce more blood bicarbonate (CO2 buffers) and result in a better tolerance to CO2 allowing for more comfort and later contractions, without doing CO2 tables.

• I did an experiment with this Increased buffers idea.. Day 1: I did no warm up FRC Static (contractions @ 1:10). Then I did sets of 20 burpees with 1:00 recovery until I vomited (6 sets) to get a super High level of waste products in my body. Day 2: with the exact same prep. I did no warm up FRC static (contractions @ 2:15). I was also less tolerant to hyperventilation and 3 deep breaths made my hands tingle, evident of a big increase in Blood buffers..

Back to the ATP-PC system vs aerobic (myoglobin), yes myoglobin will increase with exercise but not by a significant (%totalO2 stores) amount that would be enough to replace the lost O2 due to decrease blood flow from the bloodshift. Slow twitch fibers will fail during ascents with bloodshift when fast twitch (high ATP-PC) muscles wont.

Again, if you could break freedive training into its components (physical conditioning, breath hold training, technique, and relaxation). There can be debate about the order of importance of the last 3, but physical conditioning is by far the least important. realistically if you have x amount of hours per week to train and all you want to improve is your diving you are wasting your time if you do more than what is needed to stay healthy. if thats a super easy 30 min jog, or 50 pushups per day then thats enough.

If you just want to enjoy your time in the water then just do that. Get rid of the dive computer and forget about depth and time. Just have fun and don't worry about improving, improvements come as they do, with time.

 

[Ben_Jammin727]

Good points. Like many non-professional athletes out there training is often a matter of optimizing the precious time you have to gain the most benefit in the event/sport you are training for. I guess in many cases it probably comes down to identifing your weaknesses and formulating a training plan to fix them.

In my case I think fitness is not the problem, just the lack of specified breath hold training. I personally know many divers who I could put preform in HIIT cardio, endurance cardio, weight lifting, and probably most “athletic” activities. But they could crush me when it comes to depth and bottom time.

For me getting out to Dive whether it be spearfishjng, filming, or on a line is only feasible 1 maybe two times per week. So my goal in this thread is to figure out how to maximize my training on the days I can’t get out to Dive.

I still intend to train at least 1 kind endurance session per week as I think the mental benefits are really good for me personally. But I will most definitely start experimenting with HIIT cardio rather than steady state and see how it effects my performance and report back.

Getting back to the other point about maximizing time I don’t think there is really much better than actually diving as it gives you a chance to work on physical conditioning and technique in one session.

 

[Ben_Jammin727]

I am also curious as to what form of cardio mimics finning with long blades the most. I would think running stairs/hills or steep elliptical training for those who don’t want the impact would target similiar muscle groups.

Anyone have experience with this?

 

[Jamie Bell]

I am also curious as to what form of cardio mimics finning with long blades the most. I would think running stairs/hills or steep elliptical training for those who don’t want the impact would target similiar muscle groups.

Anyone have experience with this?

I know this sounds obvious, but I would have thought your best bet would be crawl laps with the fins - as you will not only be building muscle tolerance, but also finning technique. And you would be doing it in a partially anaerobic environment. I got calf cramps quite regularly a the beginning. I was tempted to think this was anaerobic tolerance but the truth is it was at least 50% lousy finning technique.

 

[cdavis]

Ben, where are you located? We line dive Warm Mineral Springs for training purposes (its otherwise not a very appealing place), Its in North Port, just south of Venice.