overtraining & rest days in static

[turtle]

hi all,

have tried searching through the old threads and have only found occasional references to this, but no ideas or science, so would appreciate everyone's thoughts on what constitutes overtraining in static apnea.

i.e. what is getting overworked in the body, what the effects of overtraining are from personal experience, and how to gauge adequate resting periods vs sufficient workloads to push the body to improve hypoxia & hypercapnia tolerance.

For the last 2 weeks i have been doing, twice daily, dry static tables, each time going up to 80-90% of max, with most of the holds in 60-70% of max region. In any other sport this would be unfeasible and would certainly lead to injury...

Cheers,
Fred

 

[efattah]

hi all,

have tried searching through the old threads and have only found occasional references to this, but no ideas or science, so would appreciate everyone's thoughts on what constitutes overtraining in static apnea.

i.e. what is getting overworked in the body, what the effects of overtraining are from personal experience, and how to gauge adequate resting periods vs sufficient workloads to push the body to improve hypoxia & hypercapnia tolerance.

For the last 2 weeks i have been doing, twice daily, dry static tables, each time going up to 80-90% of max, with most of the holds in 60-70% of max region. In any other sport this would be unfeasible and would certainly lead to injury...

Cheers,
Fred

The test for static overtraining is clear; each session your apneas should be easier, and longer, or, at worst, the same difficulty and the same length as before. If you do not improve after 2 weeks, or if you get worse, you are overtraining.

The hypoxia creates lots of free radicals. You can accelerate recovery from static by eating lots of antioxidants.

You also need iron and blood nutrients.

 

[polishpower]

I've heard from a nutrition doctor that it's better to not take antioxidants and to train less than continue with with the same amount of training and take antioxidants. And thats because the training effect goes away if the body is not effected by the gain in free radicals when taking antioxidants or something like that...
I would say that it's best to eat good food with iron and other minerals other than that listen to your body. But antioxidants can help you maybe if you have a stressfull period in life right now and when you have more time to relax you cut out antioxidant pills and food because the body can manage it.

 

[Simos]

Antioxidants can be in food, you don't necessarily have to take supplements... If you are static training as Eric mentioned, there are more free radicals created as a result of hypoxia (or actually if I'm not wrong as a result of the 're-oxygenation' process).

As an aside (for anyone that might be affected by this): I have Gilbert's Syndrome and I was once told by someone that has studied apnea-gilbert's syndrome that it actually helps deal with the free radicals produced by apnea... Useless fact of the day for most i guess

 

[Bill]

'In any other sport this would be unfeasible and would certainly lead to injury...'

Training for bike races used to be five hours at 75% with six 30 second periods over 85, 3-4 times a week and hard training days in between. At your pace I'm more worried about psychological aspects than the physical. It takes about 7 years to reach your potential and most will give up before they get close. Enjoy the journey, any way you can.

 

[Mullins]

It takes about 7 years to reach your potential

Who came up with that figure?

 

[Kars]

Who came up with that figure?

It could be read from the bible, 7 the number of completion

 

[efattah]

The really important question is this.

$1,000,000 question:
What is better:
A) A 100% maximum static attempt, 4 days per week
or
B) 4-10 reps of 60-80% max per day, 4-5 days per week (perhaps with one max per week)


Training (A) is more specific, but lacks training volume. Training (B) has higher volume, but is less specific.

Which do you think is better?

 

[Simos]

I would have thought that there would be a more optimum combination of the 2 eg a version of B involving 3 max attempts each week.

I'd think that 1 max a week is not enough... I think you might see quicker improvements with B but will plateau at some point. A might take longer but could lead to a better performance eventually.

Of course, I am just talking rubbish lol
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[Simos]

So I guess what I am saying is that for a beginner/intermediate diver B would be more beneficial and once the plateau is hit, switching to A will be best
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[buddha]

In my humble opinion I'll choose A. As Sebastian wrote on "Bloodshift", don't train more, train smarter... The more the specificity is, the biggest the adaptation. But probably not anyone could handle this in the beginning, right?

 

[Simos]

Actually I'll modify it a bit - use training plan B and then as the competition date draws nearer, switch to A for the last weeks...
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[Mullins]

Eric - you could always do a 100% static followed by whatever you could manage without blacking out. E.g. 100, 90, 90, 90, 90. This is kind of how I structure my DYN sessions, though I don't often start with a genuine max.

Speaking of which, here's a question for those who train statics very hard: how much lower is your repeatable max than your 1-off max? In DYN I couldn't follow up a 100% dive with a 90% dive, but I expect something like this might be possible in STA.

 

[Simos]

Eric - you could always do a 100% static followed by whatever you could manage without blacking out. E.g. 100, 90, 90, 90, 90. This is kind of how I structure my DYN sessions, though I don't often start with a genuine max.

This was my initial reaction too but I don't think it should be taken for granted that subsequent attempts to the 100% max will be always beneficial.

At least from other sports like climbing, one school of thought would be not to try hard routes towards the end of your training session when you are tired as it can cement bad technique/habits and I think also might not mentally help either. Also knowing that hard attempts will follow will mean that mentally you won't be able to go for 100% on the first...

Not sure how to translate the above to freediving but one idea would be to go for 100% max DYN and then work on shorter comfortable distances but focus on technique instead...
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[turtle]

thanks for all the responses everyone.

eric, option A sounds like it is training the DR & option B is working on your resistance to hypercapnia/hypoxia etc. I'm fairly sure maximising the DR is the key to really opening up your potential in freediving, but would also imagine that resistance to low oxygen and high cO2 is something like a foundation that is required before the "shock therapy" begins!

just to be clear - in your opinion the thing that would constitute physical overtraining would be excessive production & exposure to free radicals?

i find it fascinating that the litmus test for training the correct amount should be that your results are getting continuously better, as most training programs for sports will have you overloading yourself (and consequently performing worse in the short/immediate term) in order to rebuild and improve during a rest cycle.

personally, i am enjoying myself immensely & not feeling any stress at all following this current schedule. i'm not so interested in pushing my maxes much higher, but rather in building a very strong foundation within my existing times.

cheers,
f

 

[efattah]

Well, if you want to run a fast 100m dash, then doing four or five single reps of 100m at 100% max speed will not produce much results at all. Similarly in bench press, one single rep max 4-5 days per week won't do much except injure you.

In most sports, intensity is reduced and volume is increased.

In static, I find that it is possible to consecutive max statics of almost the same time, one after another. However, such a series results in instant over training on the following days.

Prior to Monaco (2005) I did five wet statics in a row, something like 7'22", 7'29", 7'26", 7'27", 7'58", with about 8 minutes between each, strangely the last was the longest, all were borderline recoveries.

Herbert is famous for attempting the static record 50+ times in the same day, and finally making it on the 50th attempt (example 9'04"...)

 

[Simos]

Have a look at various periodization models - there are many. Never given much thought on what would apply to freediving... Static is a funny one but for DYN they should apply...

An example taken from climbing:

Call It What You Want, Periodized Training Works. Climb Strong
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[Simos]

Herbert is famous for attempting the static record 50+ times in the same day, and finally making it on the 50th attempt (example 9'04"...)

I've been told about that before from guys that know Herbert - seems counter intuitive that this works, why do you think that is? Is it a mental thing?
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[turtle]

Simos, not sure the climbing world is the place to look for any scientifically principled training! (I speak from experience )

eric, those examples would seem to point to the idea that static does not "behave" like any other sports really, so the idea of overtraining (as per most sports) may be quite misplaced in this case.
What then would lead to a reduction in performance from overtraining? The excess of free radicals? Energy production in the cells becoming inefficient? I wonder because the thing that gives way first is usually the thing that you are really training the most.
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[Simos]

Simos, not sure the climbing world is the place to look for any scientifically principled training! (I speak from experience )

Periodization models don't come from climbing as far as I know, nor they are specific to climbing - in fact as far as I know they apply to all sports from athletics to weight lifting etc.

The reason I mentioned them is that different models address (or at least aim to address) the classic "volume vs intensity" type questions, which is basically (at least in my understanding) what Eric had posed as a question.

I am no expert but the different models have to do with how you vary volume with intensity... (linear, undulating etc).

I think it could also bear direct relevance to your question about over-training turtle, although admittedly I am not too sure if it will apply to static for sure (as it's not exactly 'muscular training').

But in many ways I think you can view static training in similar ways to muscular training - the way I see it, apart from the mental aspect etc, you are essentially training your blood (am I completely off the mark here?) and aiming to build the 'right' type of blood over time by stressing it in different ways.

I don't know the answer on what it would be that would lead to over-training in static but not sure how that would be helpful (apart from varying rest/diet which you probably know already) - you can treat it as a 'black box' and just accept that there is such a thing as over-training and adjust your training accordingly?

The general symptom I have seen quoted often is fatigue and like all other over-training, loss of performance...