Preparing for a freediving trip - best way to get ready for depth?

[tcrusson]

I cannot really dive deep where I live. Basically 25m is easy to find, any deeper than that is a mission.
I did a few trips to get some real depth, and I still haven't found the best way to get ready to be able to dive deep quickly. Take someone with an office job, a classic holiday of 2 weeks onsite, best case 4. You don't really want to be spending 10 days diving "shallow" before being ready.

At the moment, for a few weeks before leaving on a trip, I do:
- FRCs&exhales
- going down to 20-25m and mouthfilling
- uddiyana bandha every morning
- pool stuff (which I think is completely useless but keeps me occupied).

All trips I have done so far have resulted in the same progression:
- In the first 9 days, I get pressure contractions, and my diaphragm is not completely flexible despite previous FRC/exhale work. I can dive to 60/70m, but the mouthfill is a bit forced, I tend to lose it partly to pressure contractions, and I have no air left to equalise at the bottom plate.
- On the 10th day, my diaphragm suddenly "releases" - when doing the uddiyana bandha in the morning I feel like the diaphragm goes up way higher. When diving, it doesn't matter how deep I dive, I can get to 80/90m with plenty of air left to equalise.
- This stays like that for a while until I get too tired (usually after 3/4 weeks) and then the diaphragm loses flexibility again. Time to rest.

I don't know either how much of it is mental, i.e. my head suddently accepting I can go deeper versus me trying to make it happen. But I'd be quite keen to find a way to fast track the first 9 days with prior preparation to have the opportunity to do more deep dives.

Any tips from deep guys&gals? I've heard stories of Herbert just rocking up to Dean's and diving 100 on his first day - not too sure if that's an urban legend or not, but if not there may be hope...

Cheers,
Tanguy
Blog: Splash

 

[Fondueset]

Out of my depth, as it were, but:
Are you reverse packing with Uddiyana?
I would think also that FRC dives in the 25m range would be tremendously helpful.

 

[smellsfishy]

Do you practice mouthfills on your FRC/exhale dives ?

 

[Fondueset]

I think he just posted to brag

 

[tcrusson]

Brag about what, pressure contractions? I thought that was fairly common.

So:
- yes, reverse packing with the uddiyana bandha
- I already do FRCs in the 25m range
- yes, using the mouthfill, I wouldn't really know how to do it otherwise

Others have suggested doing more exhales, which woild make sense to help the diaphragm release with pressure instead of resisting.
I'm actually wondering if doing variable dives the first couple of days with deep hangs for adapting to depth could help

 

[Fondueset]

I was kidding.
From what you are saying it does sound more like just deep relaxing than anything else. If thats the case then hangs sound like a great idea. You're already doing pretty much everything I could think of. Maybe ask Mullins or Will T.

 

[watts]

Interesting about pressure contractions. How many people get those?

 

[tcrusson]

Nathan: to qualify what I mean by pressure contraction: a very strong, single contraction, comes without warning, very different feeling from a CO2 contraction (which is preceded by all this mental bullshit CO2 gives you). I consider myself ready for depth when they stop happening. Don't you get them?

The dive would be like:
- fin down, mouthfill, start gliding
- one pressure contraction, 40m or so in the first days and then progressively deeper in the next few days (50, 60, 70, gone)
- nothing else till the bottom
- then at the bottom or some time in the ascent: CO2 contractions, unmistakable (oh shit factor)f

 

[trullalla]

hey m. le frenchman
i dont really believe in pressure contractions. for me they are just a way of the body to tell you know that your mind is not ready for what you want to do. it's not about training, it's about relaxation and mental acceptance of depth.

i think that the only thing you can do is to get yourself fired, take a plane and lose the return ticket
of course that's just my opinion.

linda

 

[tcrusson]

Hi Linda, you may be right that it's a question of being ready mentally or not - I can tell the difference between a day where I'm ready for depth and a day where I'm not as soon as I wake up, the diaphragm is an indication but my mental state as well.

And I definitely get your point on going training without a return ticket, how Dahab of you to say that But that is off topic, the question was: imagine you only had between 2 and 4 weeks holiday at a time, how can you best maximise it to put in as many deep dives as possible? It's not about how far you can go - for this, yes, a long trip would be the best way - but about how to maximise the time you spend doing fun deep dives in a typical-office-person-time-boxed-holiday, by shortening the adaptation time.

I just don't want to believe there's nothing you can do as a preparation, even for the mental aspects. It may be impossible, but if I could cut the depth adaptation time in half I'd be a happy frenchman!

 

[laminar]

tcrusson,

I enjoyed reading through your blog. Some interesting posts. Thanks for sharing.

For me FRC works and would be the best way to know when you're "ready" (even if that's an individual thing).

But rather than think of only using FRC as part of a warm up for a deeper dive on any given day, you could try the following, although there's a chance you'd feel impatient with it!

Week 1: FRC to 20-35m until it feels joke easy. 10-12 dives per session minimum, super slow descent rate, mouth fill from 8-10m, every day if possible. When it feels really easy, you could try a little bit less air (FRC is subjective). 3-4 sessions minimum.

Week 2: FRC from 30-45m until it feels joke easy as above. Start diving deeper, but easy depths for you (50-65m?), to start rehearsing your deep diving routine. 3-4 sessions minimum.

Week 3: Deep diving, with at least two days of 20-35m FRC. The FRC sessions should not be stressful at all. A recovery and maintenance dive session. Rest days as needed, of course.

Week 4: Deep diving as you like.

I certainly experienced the profound changes in depth readiness with a full body relaxation (especially in the torso), very slow descent dives on FRC on a consistent basis.

It's one of the reasons I choose to dive FRC for fun all the time as I stay flexible even when limited to 20-30m. The trick is not to overdo it and push too hard.

The first time I tried FRC way back with Eric, we dove completely limp, sinking from the surface with very bad posture (ie. frankenstein - it was funny to watch but felt great) so as to let our chest compress as easily as possible. The results were pretty awesome, as before that session I was limited to about 8m on a full exhale and then after two and half weeks (only 5 sessions), went down to 15m on a full exhale. (this was many years ago)

I still do not believe in negative pressure dives for improving flexibility for most people, especially newer divers. It's too much too fast. FRC works just as well and is less likely to hurt a diver.

Given your personal best dives and great past results, I imagine that patience would be a real challenge for you, given what you're likely to expect from yourself. Isn't that the curse of being landlocked? How do you manage to keep yourself from pushing too hard?

Pete

 

[tcrusson]

Yes, thank you, that would work really well on a long trip. If you have only 2/3 weeks it's a tad impractical though ;-)

Let me clarify expectations: I'm not really looking for pushing or breaking PBs on a 2 to 3 week trip - just to have as many dives in the 80's as I possibly can (these are the dives I prefer, they're really fun: i'm not going for a PB so limited stress, long glides, bit of narcosis, etc.). Last September I did a 4 week trip and got 7 dives past 80 in the last 2 weeks, that was a great trip. I just came back from a 2 week trip and only got one, as the rest was adaptation (and an encounter with the local bacteria, can't really help that). So my question is what, if anything, can be done to accelerate adaptation.

I'll summarise what I understand from what you guys are suggesting here, and what some divers on Facebook suggested, on top of the usual FRC/uddiyana bandha/pool training:
- more exhale work prior to the trip (no negative)
- sled dives as well as deep hang for adaptation to pressure without burning energy in the first days of the trip, instead of CWT
- more yoga/pranayama
- mental training, but no real indication of what that would be (meditation? visualisation? coaching? auto suggestion? LSD?)

 

[tcrusson]

Hey btw Linda, one reason I think pressure contractions are not 100% linked to your body telling you that your head is not ready for what you're trying to do: if I stop diving for about a month and go back in the water, I do get them at about 20m for the first few dives in a session, and 20m is really not particularly challenging, neither physically nor mentally. Which leads me to think there must be an element of physical adaptation to pressure, which can be worked on.

 

[trullalla]

i would like to eat as much saucisson as i can without getting fat, a bottle of chianti a day without getting drunk (french wine sucks), and i'd really, really like to be rich without having to work... but i'd end up fat, drunk and poor

anyways: frc dont make any difference to me, so i stopped them and my pressure adaptation didnt change at all (but that's me, im not saying that i think it's the same for everyone).
vwt is cool and doesnt make you tired, but you shouldnt do more that 1 dive a day anyways, so i guess it would help more on a mental aspect (which again i think it's the main aspect) because the dives feel easier.

pressure contraction at 20 meters sound really strange to me. does that happen to you when you are doing a "deep" dive or during the warm ups?

 

[maui400]

All kinds of physical (frc dives, yoga, etc.) as well as mental preparations are surely the best you can do. As I read from your posts and blog, you already seem to do pretty much all which others suggest.
I guess you are a bit disappointed that your trip hasn't fulfilled your expectations. But what can you expect from such a trip when you were sick before and during it, especially when you had to take antibiotics? To me it sounds that you already did most out of your holidays.
I just made a similar experience: A good month ago I was making very fast progress in deep diving when I got bitten by a tick. The bite looked so bad that I had to take antibiotics for 3 weeks (ticks can transfer some serious diseases over here). First all was fine. But just before I stopped taking the pills my body and mind condition got so bad, that I could hardly go diving. Now it's 3 weeks since I stopped taking pills and I feel that my strength and confidence is coming back.
Thus I wouldn't underestimate your condition during your holidays and I'm sure you won't have trouble to go deep next time, so that you can stick to your original plan.

 

[Kars]

For your preparation, record your bottom times. I Think it has mostly to do with mental adjustment. So I would have frc and exhale dives that are slow, not very deep, but increasing longer times. I suspect there is a relation to the bottom time and comfort at depth.

 

[tcrusson]

pressure contraction at 20 meters sound really strange to me. does that happen to you when you are doing a "deep" dive or during the warm ups?

It may sound strange but it's still happening: it happens on snorkel dives to 20/25. Single, isolated, strong contraction, a while before the actual CO2 contractions start.

All kinds of physical (frc dives, yoga, etc.) as well as mental preparations are surely the best you can do.

Maybe. But I just don't think that with only 4 depth trips - and absolutely no coaching prior to trips - I've nailed it down so there's surely more that can be done!

Actually, while we're on the subject: what do you guys mean by "mental training"? What do you actually do?

 

[mattbigblue]

For sure there is some way to accelerate adaptation and Will T knows it. Last summer he was few months in Europe, training in Tenerife pool and gym stuff. He wasn't really deep diving for few months..I remember he came to Kalamata and his first dive was 81m FIM and next one was 85m CNF..

 

[Fondueset]

I have sort of a theory about the 20 meter pressure contractions. In my experience 20 meters is where I really begin to feel the transition to depth. To me the feeling in the chest is a bit like the physical component of an anxiety attack. While I've never experience a contraction during that phase, I do find it's when I really need to focus and, for me at least, it is generally the most 'psychological' part of the dive.

 

[ThomasB]

For sure there is some way to accelerate adaptation and Will T knows it. Last summer he was few months in Europe, training in Tenerife pool and gym stuff. He wasn't really deep diving for few months..I remember he came to Kalamata and his first dive was 81m FIM and next one was 85m CNF..

I think it might have to do with the fact he is been diving deep basically everyday for years