Question about lactic acid and repetitive dives

[Triton1715]

Hi All!

I've been reading on here about lactic acid build up during longer dives and competitions and am curious: Is this something that divers only deal with during training or one-off competitions or do any of you do repeated dives (for example spearfishing) with the lactic feeling on each/many of the dives?

The reason I ask is that I'm just curious if lactic acid build up is dangerous to repeated dives? Are you depleting stores of energy that are not easily/quickly replaced? I almost never dive long enough to feel lactic as I try to play it as safe as possible . . which means that my dives rarely last longer than 1:20 and are usually just 0:45-1:00, though I'm typically actively swimming throughout that entire time. I've noticed that if I feel the urge to breathe and come up, it is usually well in advance of any sort of lactic feeling (at least relative to dry experimentation). This also means that I can't go past a 70-75yds DYN (typically though 60yds is about my max "comfortable" DYN where no desire to breathe is felt) as I will otherwise start to feel lactic and don't want to push into that territory at all figuring that it isn't as safe to do so.

Can anyone offer me some insight on this? Thanks!

 

[cdavis]

Most serial divers pretty much stay away from strong lactic conditions because it takes so long to recover. You get much more total bottom time if you come up before you get lactic. Sometimes you need a burst of work, fighting a fish, or stay too long, etc, that can get you into lactic territory, but then you are stuck with a long recovery. Ignore it at your peril. I think it was Eric Fattah that said something like "too short surface intervals are a pact with the devil". Diving 1/2 lung without pushing it seems to provide a good compromise. You get a strong DR ,quickly, which leads to "empty" feeling legs, a sign that your legs are operating at or near anaerobic conditions, but not enough to burn with lactic acid. Result is a long dive with a reasonably fast recovery.

That said, there some divers, diving deep and long, do get into lactic conditions during serial diving. They need a long recovery. Being in very good cardio condition helps here.

Nothing you are doing should lead to being able to feel lactic. Given enough surface interval, you are being conservative.

Note: lactic recovery is not the only store that is replenished during the surface interval. You still need adequate surface time, even if it doesn't feel like it.

 

[Triton1715]

Thank very much for the response and input CDavis!

I really appreciate the help. I've been struggling lately with how to proceed from a training perspective and have been plagued with a host of little issues that have been making it really difficult to make any headway. For example, my latest problem involves experimentation with FRC diving. If I've understood things correctly, you dive and do a short static while you wait for the DR to kick in, then begin the active portion of the dive. Unfortunately for me, my DR kind of all happens at the same time. . Sort of. From the moment I first feel any contractions coupled with an urge to breathe (usually at 0:45-1:15 if I'm active), vasoconstriction and the lactic feeling are usually just 15-20 seconds behind. It kind of hard to describe though because I often get contractions at 0:30 or so. They are extremely soft and gentle and I can pretty much turn them off or start them up if I want and they are not accompamied by any specific desire/urge to breathe. Almost like a Pavlovian response to breath holding. It's usually at around 0:50ish that I start getting ones that are slightly more forceful, but require more effort to control and are accompanied by a definitive urge to breathe in the lungs (that burning/vacuum feeling). When those ones arrive, I can feel vasoconstriction just 10-15 seconds behind at the most. For FRC diving, should I be waiting just for those first gentle contraction to start to begin the active portion or should I be waiting for the full-on vasoconstriction and all that? Ugh. I feel like I'm getting lost in a freediver's maze lately and just can't make headway, but have been pretty good about walking in circles.

Thanks again!

 

[cdavis]

Kind of depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Max distance and you might what to static until strong contractions, but, as you found out, its darn uncomfortable. I'm more into comfortable dives. If it hurts its not for me. Try a static until mild contractions just start, then swim,slowly at first. Don't try to speed up until a fairly strong urge to breathe. You will probably find that the urge to breathe goes away for30+ yards. When it comes back, contractions will be stronger. Cut the dive off when you feel like it. In the latter stages of the dive, you will probably have legs that feel "empty", but not strongly lactic. Swim fast and you might get some lactic burn. Depends on how strong your DR is.

You may not recognize or feel it, but, when diving exhale, the body is going into DR mode slightly before you feel any contractions. It gets strong enough to feel, much later.

Training and time help with DR and contractions. Keep training regularly like that and the mild contractions will come later, like a minute.

 

[growingupninja]

If you cross a sort of lactic threshold, you will need exponentially longer surface times to recover. Most people won't ever cross this threshold when spearfishing, it becomes counter productive. With training you can expand the threshold--in a pool, or dry, just aim to do sets where you are less than 1:1 UW/SI. Adding a sprint component makes it much, much harder. If you have the luxury of training on a line in open water, then do stuff like carry weight up from depth (ie dangle a 10lbs weight at 100', wear your normal spearing weight, dive to the weight, kick it up, repeat to failure). Also, you have to kinda watch yourself--if you get to where you can easily do 2:1 UW/SI in a pool for DYN swims, when you move to the ocean and go deeper you can get bent.

I do a lot of dry training, but I think it's most useful for CO2 tolerance. Without water+dive response it is difficult to reach the same level lactic build-up.

This is my baseline DYN set for deep spearing; if I can get through this one then I'm in shape to go to warm clear water and pound out 90'+ dives all day...
10x50M on the 1:30
8x50M on the 1:20
6x50M on the 1:10
4x50M on the 1:00
All are done continuous; no breaks between, in a long course (50M) pool. Typically I aim to finish each 50M in about 42 - 45 secs, so I'm doing over 30 mins of continuous UW swimming at 1:1 or less. The last 4 50's are usually done at near full effort. If the lactic load gets too heavy I mix in some dolphin kick. If I go faster 42 secs per 50M, I start to cross into unrecoverable lactic territory. If you can get the space, doing longer distances (ie sprint 75M sets) is better but we usually have to share space with surface swimmers in a lap lane so 50's on an interval is really the only option for us.

 

[Apneaddict]

Swimming up from -30m with an extra 10 lbs is great advice - if you want to have ppl blackout and die!

Not cool.

 

[growingupninja]

Swimming up from -30m with an extra 10 lbs is great advice - if you want to have ppl blackout and die!

Not cool.

I suppose one man's suicide is another's training... It's an advanced exercise and in my mind it's a given that if you are doing line training you have active safety. When we do this drill the safety diver shadows from -20M to the top, and if the diver carrying the weight is in trouble, they just drop the weight--they're holding it, voluntary. We haven't had a samba (ever) on our line training but in the case of samba, the diver doing the drill would likely not even be able to hold the weight. The other thing with this drill is that you experience what lactic load does to your breath hold... failure usually happens before you even get to the weight; ie for an advanced diver 100' may be no biggie but after a few of these even trying to make -50' feels like reaching -150'.

 

[Triton1715]

Thank you very much for the advice growingupninja! My lactic threshold seems to come up fast and hard so I suffer from longer recovery times if I explore into very much at all. It's really kind of strange, it only takes me 15-20 seconds or so after vasoconstriction to really feel heavily lactic and just wiped out. While it's obviously all dependent on my activity level, the funny thing is that even doing statics causes this effect to come on pretty darn hard and fast. It's really quite frustrating, but I your training suggestions seem likely to help once I adapt them to my more mediocre level. Thanks so much for the help!

On a side note about dry training. . .I dunno. With regards to lactic build up, I've experimented with various exercises that I try to squeeze in when they come to mind such as an impromptu breathhold while walking down the drive to get the mail and it's amazing how exhausted my legs are when I'm done. All in all, the breathhold is no more than a minute or so, but I don't do any prep whatsoever for it. . no relaxation, no breathing techniques, etc. Just hold and walk. Man though, when I'm done I would've guessed that I just sprinted a half mile or so. I'm just not used to those sensations without having expended a great deal of physical effort to get them via rigorous exercise. That level of exhausted, if I were to do it diving, would create some seriously long recovery times. Thus far it seems, dry vs. wet training doesn't really affect my one way or another then. It all pretty much sucks.

 

[growingupninja]

The thing with serial diving (and/or interval training) is that your body's sensitivity to CO2 and hypoxia become blunted over the course of a session, and of course there is also spleenic contraction coming into play with repeated apnea. So that apnea walk that is killing you initially will be easier if you become easier once you are warmed up to apnea.

However, in the case of marathon spearing days, etc, depending on your activity level, conditioning, whether you are feeding yourself, your training and nutrition over the past week etc, you can also burn through the glycogen stores in your muscles at some point. Depends on the individual, but your body can go into ketosis, where it begins burning more fat for energy instead of glucose. This metabolic pathway generates less CO2 but requires a little more O2. So you can get into trouble there; dives cost a little more O2 but between blunting of the dive response and less CO2 generation your urge to breath is greatly depressed.

Moral for serial deep diving is basically to really stay on top of hydration/electrolytes/nutrition throughout the day. Have at least a couple servings of Muscle Milk or Ensure every 3-4 hours minimum if you are going to be doing 12 hours spearing. If you are working especially deep (for you, whatever that is be it -30' to -120') you may also want to supplement with amino acids, multivitamin, creatine.

 

[Triton1715]

Thank you very much everyone! I just returned last week from a dive trip to Grand Cayman and thanks to all of your help, something finally "clicked" with me. Midway through the trip, my dives suddenly began lasting 1:30-2+ (this is foreign territory for me, so I figured it would be best to play it safe and surface, but I think I could've comfortably done another :30 without much issue). I've had a goal of wanting 1:30+ dives for some time now and it felt great to have it finally all come into place and happen effortlessly. Thank you all very much once again!