Pool Training legalities

[Carmen Dawson]

Anyone had issues with apnea training being banned at public swimming pools and have any advice on avenues to get around this?

The town pool at Geraldton Aqua Arena. WA, where I live, does not allow freedive training and say this is due to risk of shallow water blackout.

 

[growingupninja]

Most public pools in the USA have banned any sort of breathhold or apnea training for liability reasons.

You can possibly organize a group of dedicated divers, take out an insurance policy, and approach the pool management with a plan to rent a lane and insure it under your own group policy. People I train with have done this here in LA but it is a lot of work and expect pool management to attach a lot strings.

If you actually swim, you can also just go to regular lap swims and do swim workouts with an emphasis on apnea (lots of over/unders, skip breathing sets, short distance fin sprints, or interval training with short recovery in fins). I typically do this and find it beneficial, and I don't get grief from lifeguards since much of this is part of traditional competitive swim training. In the LA area most pools will allow lap swimmers to do up to 25M at a time underwater. If you are stacking laps up with just one breath at the wall you can get a workout but it is mostly a CO2 exercise and not the same as being able to do long distances.

Finally you can just find a pool with no lifeguards where management assumes no risk whatsoever--typical of many private health clubs and country clubs. Depending on where you live, some of these pools can be very nice.

Or just swim in the ocean.

For all freediving activities you need to have proper safety and buddies.