overtraining

[Michael]

How often do you train apnea? I had been training like crazy. I was doing apnea walks both to and from work, and training static at my desk three days a week, and underwater hockey sometimes twice a week. However, my static times were terrible. I was unable to break four minutes (after about six weeks of training). I thought perhaps I had small lungs, but had a spirometer test (6.56 liters) which was better than expected.

Then, I took a week off, just some basic cardio. I tried a static yesterday, and didn't even get any contractions until four minutes (which had been my personal best). I quit at five minutes, altho I could have gone longer, because I was so pleased my PB had improved so dramatically. I believe that I had just been overtraining.

At the clinic I attended, they told us not to train the static tables more than once a week. Do you agree with this advice? Would this include all apnea training, including apnea walks and pool training? Does apnea training cause more cumulative fatigue than cardio training?

Any suggestions on how often to train apnea (including static tables) while avoiding overtraining would be appreciated.

 

[Alun]

yes, it sounds like overtraining to me...

i haven't done statics for well over a year (apart from just a couple I did 6 months ago for an experiment). i don't think static training is an important element (or even necessary) element of freediving training. that's my personal opinion!

there's no better training than spending time in the water, actually diving...

 

[donmoore]

Michael,
My PB is 5:10, but has been very inconsistent. Sometimes I can’t get 3:00. After reading Luc’s post in the static PB thread, who by the way is my new static hero, I decided I needed more frequency. I have also found that if I really pushed it one day, it was harder the next few days.

I recently set a modest goal of at least one 3 minutes hold per day. I have done that for two weeks now and it getting pretty easy so I plan to increase it to 3:30 until that is easy too. The plan is to slowly increase.

I also found that hard vigorous aerobic activity, but short, only 6 to 8 minutes seems to work the best for me.

The key for me seems to give my body time to recover from hard apnea training, but at least keep some up everyday so my body will become accustomed to it and react more consistently.
don