Pararescue training

[pjcone]

Right now I am going through the indoctrination course for USAF Pararescue. The most dreaded event is water confidence for most of everyone. I am pretty good but could always use help. Water con consists of 25m subsurface with a 25m sprint back. This is done 5 times on a 1:30 interval. Another event is the width of the pool (20m) sub surface swim climb out do 1 push up and dive immediately back in subsurface to the other side and do 2 pushups on and on up to 10 if not more. So you become winded and hypoxic. We start sub surface swims with our uniforms on next week and different things like that.

My question is would any dive tables help and which type... And different out of pool breath holding that would help?

Also how long can you last once you get the gaging in your throat? Is that good I get that? How do I prolong that feeling and craving for 02? Any answers would be great... David

 

[Simos]

Hi David - are wearing any fins during these attempts? I am guessing not?

Is the sprint back on the surface? (ie front crawl while breathing?)

We do exercises involving pushups etc, if you are reasonably fit a few pushups won't make much difference as long as you stay relaxed when getting in and out of the water (and during the pushups if that makes sense) make sure you breathe properly while doing all this.

You can do some CO2 tables on dry, they should help

 

[growingupninja]

Right now I am going through the indoctrination course for USAF Pararescue. The most dreaded event is water confidence for most of everyone. I am pretty good but could always use help. Water con consists of 25m subsurface with a 25m sprint back. This is done 5 times on a 1:30 interval. Another event is the width of the pool (20m) sub surface swim climb out do 1 push up and dive immediately back in subsurface to the other side and do 2 pushups on and on up to 10 if not more. So you become winded and hypoxic. We start sub surface swims with our uniforms on next week and different things like that.

My question is would any dive tables help and which type... And different out of pool breath holding that would help?

Also how long can you last once you get the gaging in your throat? Is that good I get that? How do I prolong that feeling and craving for 02? Any answers would be great... David

Heh, those sound like great sets. In swim team we used to 'get out swims' sometimes where you would sprint a length, haul yourself out of the water as quick as you can then dive back in and sprint another length, ad nauseum. I actually liked them because over the course of the set I could beat a lot of the older/better guys at this. Shame it wasn't a real event.

I agree with Simos, CO2 exercises would probably help, and you will get more out of your tables if you combine some kind of movement exercise--jogging, pedaling, etc. If at all possible to train in a pool, try to do laps with an aggressive stroke count--ie if you usually breathe every 3, force yourself to breath every 7+. Do 100's on an interval, going at brisk but not all out sprint pace. Do tables where during the work portion you do burpee push-ups on a half-lung. That would also be good...

 

[Walrus]

Hi David,
I don't think doing static CO2 tables will be of any use since what you need to do requires working with an elevated heart rate. Best to do dynamic CO2 training, such as dynamic swims under water, with decreasing rests, or the same short rest repeated 10 - 20 times. ie try doing 10-20 underwater laps of a 25m pool with a 30 sec rest. If that's too easy, next time try 25 sec rest, too hard try 40sec

Also doing the tests themselves are probably the best preparation, but you can work up to them. For example the one you mentioned an a 1:30 interval, try it with 2 minutes to start with, next time do 1:50. This way it builds your confidence as well as training you physically.

Cheers,
Wal

 

[Simos]

Hi David,
I don't think doing static CO2 tables will be of any use since what you need to do requires working with an elevated heart rate. Best to do dynamic CO2 training, such as dynamic swims under water, with decreasing rests, or the same short rest repeated 10 - 20 times. ie try doing 10-20 underwater laps of a 25m pool with a 30 sec rest. If that's too easy, next time try 25 sec rest, too hard try 40sec

Also doing the tests themselves are probably the best preparation, but you can work up to them. For example the one you mentioned an a 1:30 interval, try it with 2 minutes to start with, next time do 1:50. This way it builds your confidence as well as training you physically.

Cheers,
Wal

Agree with doing the actual exercises themselves Wal - that would be best but it's not dry breath hold training which I thought was what pjcone wanted.

I am not a big fan of CO2 tables but out of curiosity, why do you think they won't help?

When doing similar exercises myself I definitely felt that the difficulty was managing the urge to breathe due to the high CO2 (or maybe I assumed this was the reason), I was definitely not getting hypoxic as at times I was feeling a strong urge to breathe even after 10-15m.

I would have thought that being able to deal with high CO2 levels would really help.

Not doubting, just curious to know why you think CO2 tables won't work...

 

[Walrus]

Sorry Dave & Simos,
didn't spot the bit about dry training, but seriously in water training will be a lot more effective. So going along with what growingupninja said, CO2 work with walking, exercise bike, rowing machine etc will be better training then static.

Simos - dynamic training will improve both Dynamics & Statics, Static training will help with statics but probably not as much with dynamics. Also the tests Dave describes are swimming ones so training whilst moving will be more specific and effective for that. Perhaps if Dave is completely new to it static CO2 tables will be of some help, I would still work more on moving training then static ones.

My PB static was done after 6 weeks of depth training, no static training for a year or 2. I added 1 minute to my PB on my first try.

Wal

 

[pjcone]

My day starts at 0400 with a 4 or so mile run then 2 hours of weight training and functional fitness. Then to the 50m pool for 2.5 hours of laps with jet fins on, lead arm trail arm and combat recovery stroke. Then lunch and then a 2.5 hr water confidence training. That is my average schedule with some variables 5 days a week. We do march a lot here with rucks so what would be some good warm up breath holding while rucking to water con on our 2 mile daily march?

 

[trux]

The best warm up for breath-holding is taking a day off and just resting. Better yet a week You need to get rid of the lactic acid in your body, and restore your oxygen stores. Freediving competitors practise so called no-warm-up, which literally means that they do nothing at all before their start in the competition, just lay on the ground, then enter the water and go ahead with their dive without any warming up.

 

[Haydn]

So there is no concern on fitness or athletic performance. The question will therefore be related to confidence in ability to continue the excercise. I would suggest normal sprint swimming and maintaining a long term period of being totally puffed out. Your fitness will probably allow you to sprint 200m or 400m. So try sprint swimming, breathing every stroke, but keeping the head down for say three strokes into and out of the flip turn. Maybe four strokes if three are easy, or relax the stroke rate to get your breath back a litte. You just need confidence to maintain the effort of holding your breath when you are gasping. Ensure you get a good strong dive and glide to save the effort of additional strokes.

 

[trux]

Personally I would advise a bit different strategy: the apnea swims use the anaerobic metabolism producing a lot of lactic acid. If the lactic acid is not evacuated/burned during the surface swim, your blood will not oxygenate sufficiently, your next dives will be more and more difficult and you risk blacking out. So I would reduce the speed of the surface sprint slightly, to avoid swimming in anaerobic mode (which is normally the case at sprints). When swimming in aerobic mode, with maximal breathing possible, the lactic acid produced during the dive will be metabolised down, blood sufficently oxygenized, and your next dive will be fine. Of course, you have to avoid flipping into the other side - hyperventilation, where you would breathe much more than the body uses for the swim. That could have a negative impact too. So you have to find the right speed for the swim, where you swim slow enough and breath fast enough to be in aerobic mode, but not being too slow and breathing faster/more than you consume.

 

[Simos]

Personally I would advise a bit different strategy: the apnea swims use the anaerobic metabolism producing a lot of lactic acid. If the lactic acid is not evacuated/burned during the surface swim, your blood will not oxygenate sufficiently, your next dives will be more and more difficult and you risk blacking out. So I would reduce the speed of the surface sprint slightly, to avoid swimming in anaerobic mode (which is normally the case at sprints). When swimming in aerobic mode, with maximal breathing possible, the lactic acid produced during the dive will be metabolised down, blood sufficently oxygenized, and your next dive will be fine. Of course, you have to avoid flipping into the other side - hyperventilation, where you would breathe much more than the body uses for the swim. That could have a negative impact too. So you have to find the right speed for the swim, where you swim slow enough and breath fast enough to be in aerobic mode, but not being too slow and breathing faster/more than you consume.

I've done similar exercises many times (like others no doubt) and the intensity of the sprint makes a big difference, as well as how much you can breathe during the sprint. Try to glide as much as possible during the sprint, go as slowly as allowed and breathe as much as you can as Trux said.

Also, I don't recommend this BUT it does make things a lot easier if you do find things hard on the day of the test: I tried several breathing strategies and some hyperventilation really helps (well breathing deeper and faster, it might not necessarily lead to HV). Especially in our case, after swim-pushups-swim we do a static and breathing deep and fast in the few seconds between the second swim and the static really makes a massive difference in the ease of the static..

Forgot to mention - it also helps me breathing a lot during the pushups...

 

[growingupninja]

Personally I would advise a bit different strategy: the apnea swims use the anaerobic metabolism producing a lot of lactic acid. If the lactic acid is not evacuated/burned during the surface swim, your blood will not oxygenate sufficiently, your next dives will be more and more difficult and you risk blacking out. So I would reduce the speed of the surface sprint slightly, to avoid swimming in anaerobic mode (which is normally the case at sprints). When swimming in aerobic mode, with maximal breathing possible, the lactic acid produced during the dive will be metabolised down, blood sufficently oxygenized, and your next dive will be fine. Of course, you have to avoid flipping into the other side - hyperventilation, where you would breathe much more than the body uses for the swim. That could have a negative impact too. So you have to find the right speed for the swim, where you swim slow enough and breath fast enough to be in aerobic mode, but not being too slow and breathing faster/more than you consume.

I could be horrendously out of touch but I think for healthy young men, given this distance they are swimming (5x50M total on a 1:30, with only 20M underwater) black-out is a complete and total non-issue, and hyperventilation only barely an issue--ie, once beginning the set, you would kind of have to work at it to over-ventilate during your rest interval. In full uniform it would obviously be much, much harder but I still think there is no danger of going drop-dead sprint pace the whole way. The set would build-up a lot of CO2 quickly though, which is very uncomfortable to tolerate without training, but no real O2 deficit; ten year old competitive swimmers, racing a 50M, breathe less. If their sets were significantly longer it could make a difference.

 

[Mullins]

It's reasonable to think that, yeah. But there are healthy, fit young men out there who would BO doing those dives (of course most would be fine).

 

[Simos]

I could be horrendously out of touch but I think for healthy young men, given this distance they are swimming (5x50M total on a 1:30, with only 20M underwater) black-out is a complete and total non-issue, and hyperventilation only barely an issue--ie, once beginning the set, you would kind of have to work at it to over-ventilate during your rest interval. In full uniform it would obviously be much, much harder but I still think there is no danger of going drop-dead sprint pace the whole way. The set would build-up a lot of CO2 quickly though, which is very uncomfortable to tolerate without training, but no real O2 deficit; ten year old competitive swimmers, racing a 50M, breathe less. If their sets were significantly longer it could make a difference.

I think you might be confusing a bit the two exercises:

1. 25m apnea, 25m surface swim back, 1:30 rest (x5) - not clear if this is with fins? If with fins, I think this one is doable reasonably easily with a bit of practice, assuming you don't kill yourself during the 'sprint' and breathe as much as you can. I'm only stating this because it's one of the warmup exercises we do at training so I've seen many new people do it - most get the hang of it in 5-6 sessions, but the good swimmers etc can do it right away. People like me take longer lol

2. 20m apnea, 1 pushup, 20m apnea, 2 pushups etc etc up to 10 pushups - not clear if there is rest or fins but if not, I personally think this set will be A LOT harder. Basically 10 x 20m apnea and instead of rest, do pushups of increasing intensity. I think lots of beginners (like me) would find this set quite hard. I'd try to breathe as much as I could and try to stay relaxed during the pushups as it's effectively your 'recovery' time!

 

[growingupninja]

I think you might be confusing a bit the two exercises:

1. 25m apnea, 25m surface swim back, 1:30 rest (x5) - not clear if this is with fins? If with fins, I think this one is doable reasonably easily with a bit of practice, assuming you don't kill yourself during the 'sprint' and breathe as much as you can. I'm only stating this because it's one of the warmup exercises we do at training so I've seen many new people do it - most get the hang of it in 5-6 sessions, but the good swimmers etc can do it right away. People like me take longer lol

2. 20m apnea, 1 pushup, 20m apnea, 2 pushups etc etc up to 10 pushups - not clear if there is rest or fins but if not, I personally think this set will be A LOT harder. Basically 10 x 20m apnea and instead of rest, do pushups of increasing intensity. I think lots of beginners (like me) would find this set quite hard. I'd try to breathe as much as I could and try to stay relaxed during the pushups as it's effectively your 'recovery' time!

I was confused in that I didn't realize that the first set was 1:30 REST (more of a freediver style interval--time of swim is meaningless), I thought the set was 'on the 1:30' which in swimming means you start the next rep every 1:30--faster swim means more time to rest. But yeah, for trained swimmers this would be child's play although I am not experienced with apnea teams or beginners so I guess I will take Mullins' word for it that some people could be in danger of BO on something like that.

But yes, the second set would be signficantly harder. In my opinion what is tiring about get-out swims is the getting out of the water portion--more than push-ups--since you are shifting from a cardio/VO2 exercise (even with 25M apnea nobody should be actually hypoxic--that is like a 25 sec breathhold?!) to a plyometric (power/strength) exercise. I would think this is very good training for soldiers; it is very similar in focus to much hand-to-hand fight training (MMA), where a large portion of the round is just high intensity cardio (ring/cage movement) but with random explosive plyometric exercises (strikes/takedowns). One of the fundamental exercises with MMA is shadow boxing with a sprawl... the athlete does rounds of shadow boxing but at random intervals the trainer screams 'SPRAWL!' and you have to drop to the ground hips first (as if defending a takedown) then spring back up and keep going... grueling... burpees are terrific for this stuff though--you can also do them with some jumping jacks during the standing portion (jumping jacks, drop to the ground, push-up, then jump back to standing and repeat). I read somewhere that military minds have described the 'physically perfect soldier' as someone who can run a marathon while doing occasional gymnastics (cardio endurance + plyometric).

 

[pjcone]

THis is all with out fins, I can't take a day off cause this is spec ops selection course I am in right now. On top of that the 1:30 is on the 1:30 so the faster you get back the more rest you get of the allotted 1:30. I was just wondering if I should start hyperventilating or slow deep breaths, weekends I have off should I do static apnea c02 tables? and during the week while in bed at night?

 

[growingupninja]

THis is all with out fins, I can't take a day off cause this is spec ops selection course I am in right now. On top of that the 1:30 is on the 1:30 so the faster you get back the more rest you get of the allotted 1:30. I was just wondering if I should start hyperventilating or slow deep breaths, weekends I have off should I do static apnea c02 tables? and during the week while in bed at night?

Ok so on the 1:30. If you are winded by the set then breathe as your body wants and then when (if?) you catch your breath I would do a couple purge breaths before the next one. Even though you get more rest if you swim faster, sprinting generates a lot of lactic acid and although everyone's physiology is different, it is probably not linear--say if you do a drop dead sprint and finish in 35 secs you might end up still more fatigued after 55 secs than if you did your 50m in 50 secs and only had 40 secs rest...

If you are anxious about it get to a pool whenever you can and do laps--aggressive stroke count between breaths or like Haydn said, no breathing in or out of turns.. CO2 tables would be better than nothing but not as good as swimming. You can do leg lifts or something while you do the CO table. More effective with some exertion..

 

[Simos]

THis is all with out fins, I can't take a day off cause this is spec ops selection course I am in right now. On top of that the 1:30 is on the 1:30 so the faster you get back the more rest you get of the allotted 1:30. I was just wondering if I should start hyperventilating or slow deep breaths, weekends I have off should I do static apnea c02 tables? and during the week while in bed at night?

Although I mentioned it, I wouldn't HV on purpose or until you've tried - to be honest, when you do the exercises your body will want to breathe a lot naturally so just breathe as much as needed, don't try to slow down breathing on purpose etc

If you can get to the pool with a buddy, your best bet is to do the exercises themselves.

If you can't find a buddy, maybe you can still do the exercises a few times but with a normal surface swim instead of apnea to at least get used to the format, find out how fast you should be swimming, how it's best to get out of the pool etc

In addition, just an idea, you could perhaps even do some dry simulations of the exercises with apnea walks between two set points, doing pushups, then apnea walk to other end of the 'pool' etc. You'll need a buddy too and best to do it on a soft surface, obviously you'll need to adjust the distance..