Hallo thin-
I was doing also walking apnea last year (during a complete year). I understood that your pb walking was 1: 15 to 1:30 min. and I’m not sure (sorry if I mistake) but I’m afraid that you are doing only one kind of exercise (long recovery apneas). By doing only one kind of exercise you will get bored very quickly and it will drive to you to a very poor and long in time improvement.
Let me share with you my personal experiences in walking workouts. One advice for my friends in the forum, this schedule is for medium grade apneists (4min static’s, 75 m. pool dynamic, 40 m. cw). This is not adequate for beginners.
I think that the most important think in all kind of workouts it’s to be structured in short and long term recovery series of hipercapnic and hypoxic exercises which makes longer (physically and physiologically supportable) all the phases of the apnea: phase I (pleasant), phase II (hypercapnic), phase III (exit).
I use to start my training with 5 min. of heating: chest stretching, abdomen relaxation and some calm and deep breaths (abdomen-chest-collar bone-back breaths). That will make your ventilation more efficient. And then 45 min of different series, walking always at the same rhythm, and (very important) in a flat area, otherwise you will not be able to standardize the training series. Use a pedometer or you will get used to trick lowering the walking rate when you feel the CO2 beating your legs. Here you have my series:
- First exercise (20 min): 30 sec. reps. minimum recovery:
Take a single breath each 30”. Repeat this eight times and then breathe during 1 minute but keep walking. Repeat this cycle 4 times:
4 x [(30” single breath x 8 times = 4 minutes) + (1 min. ventilation)] = 20 min.
. The PPCo2 increases with each repetition, we feel contractions in the last 3 – 4 reps and we get trained to be in a constant hypercapnic situation which is the aim of this exercise because that makes us prolong the phase II of our apnea which starts moments before contractions appear and finish seconds before we break our apnea (phase III), going further means BO. Also your legs get used to afford very lactic situations. Tension in the abdominal muscles is a natural reflex of our body to hypercapnea situations so, in all kind of exercises, but especially on this, use the apneic time between breath and breath to relax your abdomen otherwise you will not be able to perform a good breath in the next rep. (and here you only have 1 breath/rep.!!!!). During the first week it is very important to fix your walking rate. Don’t walk so quickly that you break your serie before the repetition number 8 or so slow that you finish the repetition number 8 being able to make one more. Balance this with the rhythm of your walk; it must be constant during the 20 minutes. One pedometer can be useful. When you fill comfortable after weeks of training increase the difficulty of the exercise by increasing the walking rate but don’t modify the timing of the exercise. Don’t try to stay the complete 20 minutes making single breathings each 30 seconds because for that you must lower so much the walking rate and that’s means lowering your heart beats/min rate. So increasing the difficulty of this exercise means increasing your walking rate but keep fix the number of repetitions and his timing. Don’t run please.
- Second exercise (20 minutes): one serie of 20 reps of medium term recovery:
20 x (40” apnea + 20” ventilation) = 20 reps x 1 min. = 20 min.
Adjust your walking tempo in the way of being able to reach 40” in apnea during your first week of training. When comfortable, increase the difficulty of the exercise by adding 1 second more to de apneic time and taking one second less to the ventilation time from (40” apn + 20” vent) to (50” apn + 10” vent). Keep at least 2 weeks in each step, otherwise your progress will never be consistent. The aim of this exercise is to go further in prolonging the end of the phase II. You will see that your feelings will be completely different to the exercise number one.
- Third exercise (10 minutes): one serie of 10 reps of long term recovery:
5 x (1.10” apnea + 50” ventilation) = 5 reps x 2 min. = 10 min.
Adjust your walking tempo to be around 1.10” your pb in the first week. Increase the difficulty idem second exercise. Don´t stop walking when you start breathing just after breaking your apnea, I know it is really very tough but keep walking. The real prolonging of the apneic time in this exercise has arrived to me by training short recovery series (exercises number 1 and 2) not because number 3 by himself. The main purpose of this exercise is get psychologically used to long dynamic apneas, recognise and realize the sensations you feel when you are just entering phase III (I personally call phase III to the 5 or 7 seconds before you get BO) and cope with them till the exit point. I have never been able to prolong consistently phase III by doing walking walking workouts so I personally don’t recommend making more than 5 long term recovery series.
- Fourth exercise: 6 minutes of 2 (hypoxic + hypercapmic) series.
9 x (5” full inspired + 5” apnea + 5” full expired + 5” neg. apnea) = 9 x 20” = 3 min.
3 x (30” vent + full exhale + 30” neg. apnea (doing neg carps to empty more)) = 3 min
Apneic dives has not to be necessarily hypoxic if we never cross our barriers and if our ventilating patterns are appropriated to each kind of situation, but I think it is necessary we know what a hypoxic situation it is and the sensations you feel when it arrive because are completely different to the Hypercapneic ones.
All this must be in a weekly and monthly program. I personally recommend for this medium level training each week: 3 days apnea workouts, 2 days hard cardio training (footing, cycling, swimming, etc but not in apnea) and to days rest, for a minimum of 6 months/season. log daily the things you feel, the conquers you make, were your walls are, the days you train the days you don’t. This is very important because it will give to you a realistic point of view of your performance. If somebody starts with this program and needs some help to “crash the walls” which don’t let him progress let me know, I have some advices that works.
I hope this to be useful for thin-air and all the friends in the forum interested in out of water workouts. I would like to read your own experiences. All remarks are welcome.
Guss
I was doing also walking apnea last year (during a complete year). I understood that your pb walking was 1: 15 to 1:30 min. and I’m not sure (sorry if I mistake) but I’m afraid that you are doing only one kind of exercise (long recovery apneas). By doing only one kind of exercise you will get bored very quickly and it will drive to you to a very poor and long in time improvement.
Let me share with you my personal experiences in walking workouts. One advice for my friends in the forum, this schedule is for medium grade apneists (4min static’s, 75 m. pool dynamic, 40 m. cw). This is not adequate for beginners.
I think that the most important think in all kind of workouts it’s to be structured in short and long term recovery series of hipercapnic and hypoxic exercises which makes longer (physically and physiologically supportable) all the phases of the apnea: phase I (pleasant), phase II (hypercapnic), phase III (exit).
I use to start my training with 5 min. of heating: chest stretching, abdomen relaxation and some calm and deep breaths (abdomen-chest-collar bone-back breaths). That will make your ventilation more efficient. And then 45 min of different series, walking always at the same rhythm, and (very important) in a flat area, otherwise you will not be able to standardize the training series. Use a pedometer or you will get used to trick lowering the walking rate when you feel the CO2 beating your legs. Here you have my series:
- First exercise (20 min): 30 sec. reps. minimum recovery:
Take a single breath each 30”. Repeat this eight times and then breathe during 1 minute but keep walking. Repeat this cycle 4 times:
4 x [(30” single breath x 8 times = 4 minutes) + (1 min. ventilation)] = 20 min.
. The PPCo2 increases with each repetition, we feel contractions in the last 3 – 4 reps and we get trained to be in a constant hypercapnic situation which is the aim of this exercise because that makes us prolong the phase II of our apnea which starts moments before contractions appear and finish seconds before we break our apnea (phase III), going further means BO. Also your legs get used to afford very lactic situations. Tension in the abdominal muscles is a natural reflex of our body to hypercapnea situations so, in all kind of exercises, but especially on this, use the apneic time between breath and breath to relax your abdomen otherwise you will not be able to perform a good breath in the next rep. (and here you only have 1 breath/rep.!!!!). During the first week it is very important to fix your walking rate. Don’t walk so quickly that you break your serie before the repetition number 8 or so slow that you finish the repetition number 8 being able to make one more. Balance this with the rhythm of your walk; it must be constant during the 20 minutes. One pedometer can be useful. When you fill comfortable after weeks of training increase the difficulty of the exercise by increasing the walking rate but don’t modify the timing of the exercise. Don’t try to stay the complete 20 minutes making single breathings each 30 seconds because for that you must lower so much the walking rate and that’s means lowering your heart beats/min rate. So increasing the difficulty of this exercise means increasing your walking rate but keep fix the number of repetitions and his timing. Don’t run please.
- Second exercise (20 minutes): one serie of 20 reps of medium term recovery:
20 x (40” apnea + 20” ventilation) = 20 reps x 1 min. = 20 min.
Adjust your walking tempo in the way of being able to reach 40” in apnea during your first week of training. When comfortable, increase the difficulty of the exercise by adding 1 second more to de apneic time and taking one second less to the ventilation time from (40” apn + 20” vent) to (50” apn + 10” vent). Keep at least 2 weeks in each step, otherwise your progress will never be consistent. The aim of this exercise is to go further in prolonging the end of the phase II. You will see that your feelings will be completely different to the exercise number one.
- Third exercise (10 minutes): one serie of 10 reps of long term recovery:
5 x (1.10” apnea + 50” ventilation) = 5 reps x 2 min. = 10 min.
Adjust your walking tempo to be around 1.10” your pb in the first week. Increase the difficulty idem second exercise. Don´t stop walking when you start breathing just after breaking your apnea, I know it is really very tough but keep walking. The real prolonging of the apneic time in this exercise has arrived to me by training short recovery series (exercises number 1 and 2) not because number 3 by himself. The main purpose of this exercise is get psychologically used to long dynamic apneas, recognise and realize the sensations you feel when you are just entering phase III (I personally call phase III to the 5 or 7 seconds before you get BO) and cope with them till the exit point. I have never been able to prolong consistently phase III by doing walking walking workouts so I personally don’t recommend making more than 5 long term recovery series.
- Fourth exercise: 6 minutes of 2 (hypoxic + hypercapmic) series.
9 x (5” full inspired + 5” apnea + 5” full expired + 5” neg. apnea) = 9 x 20” = 3 min.
3 x (30” vent + full exhale + 30” neg. apnea (doing neg carps to empty more)) = 3 min
Apneic dives has not to be necessarily hypoxic if we never cross our barriers and if our ventilating patterns are appropriated to each kind of situation, but I think it is necessary we know what a hypoxic situation it is and the sensations you feel when it arrive because are completely different to the Hypercapneic ones.
All this must be in a weekly and monthly program. I personally recommend for this medium level training each week: 3 days apnea workouts, 2 days hard cardio training (footing, cycling, swimming, etc but not in apnea) and to days rest, for a minimum of 6 months/season. log daily the things you feel, the conquers you make, were your walls are, the days you train the days you don’t. This is very important because it will give to you a realistic point of view of your performance. If somebody starts with this program and needs some help to “crash the walls” which don’t let him progress let me know, I have some advices that works.
I hope this to be useful for thin-air and all the friends in the forum interested in out of water workouts. I would like to read your own experiences. All remarks are welcome.
Guss
