Solo Pool Training

[loopy]

My lack of a buddy at the moment has left me in an awkward predicament with regards to pool training - obviously, I can't push any of my limits unsupervised, but at the same time I'd like to be able to do something that will help my freediving. Does anyone know of any good training (or at least training that will help) that is possible to be done solo, ie without a buddy?

At the moment, I basically just throw some small rubber fins on and do 25m sprints with a dolphin kick. I used to do laps of 25m unassisted, but they were really sub-maximal, and I don't know how much (if any) effect they would have.


Thanks in advance,

Brad

 

[jimbodiver]

what if you did dry dynamics instead (walking over soft ground)? It seem that if you alternated doing those, with basic (non-apnea) lap swimming at the pool to build endurance, leg muscles, etc, and then added in doing static tables (A & B) at home (with your PC), you could make some progress without any risk of samba or BO at the pool without a buddy there to snag you. Don't know if this responded exactly to your question....hope it's helpful.

 

[derelictp]

I do 50m and 100m max surface swims with small rubber fins and a frontsnorkel. I use dolphin kick since my training is for monofin constant weight.

I also swim longer distances.

This training is my basic for "off season" (october-december).

 

[naiad]

If I don't have a buddy, I do 20m dynamics with short surface intervals. There have never been any problems with this. I don't push the limits at all.

Hope this is ok.

Lucia

 

[Kars]

There is so much to train without doing big breathholds.

Like mentioned above,

- Technique, turning, monofinning, posture, streamline
- endurance
- you can also make a 2 neckweights, and balance them out, one for competition (with packing) one for pracatice (without packing)

For monofin technique you can use various exercises:

1) Always start with stretching, I bought a big ball to help stretch my back trough the week. In the pool I use several yoga stretches.

2) a decent warmup, where my trainer advises against using breststoke, for the frogkick is a bad prep for monofinning.

3) after the warmup, there are many variations to practice,
I find doing 'opposites' are working pretty well with me. For instance, do a 100m monostroken on my belly, than 100m on my back. This brings up many mistakes. Also variations in speed help me to 'record' the movement in my body. (I've great trouble in remembering the right movement)
These can also be done underwater in short lanes, let's say 25m (one pool length), I can do a 50m easily, 100m is my 12 month old PB (Need to change that soon!)

Train though a bit more if you'are beginning to feel tired, my trainer sais that THEN the real training starts because most can show a good stroke when they are fresh.

We use bifins in a great deal of the training, trainer sais that you'll learn faster using small fins instead of going to the mono strait away. You can even do the monofin stroke NO-fins, and you'll quickly discover the difference between a good and bad stroke.

Have a drinking bottle on the edge of the pool, because one swett's and looses moist in the water.

4) after the intence training perform a cooldown.

5) have a well deserved nice warm shower!


Tip: take a monofin with you when you go to the pool, even if you're planning to use only bifins. Your monofin will attract people and you may find a nice buddy to train with! (have also some business cards for easy address/phonenumber exchange )


Ok, good luck with this, there is lot's to improve and I hope you find a buddy soon!

Kars

 

[neshamah]

hola

Hola Brad you have to create a foundation first and see how your body is funtioning at certain distance - if your foundation is 25 meters start working with that ( the same way for building a house)


all this you can do by taking your pulse and difficulty

0-----------50------------100

try to work around 50 percent for a time until you see is very easy for you -- so now you will know is time to add some meters-

and create the base in those meter ,,


never do your max or the minimun

saludos

 

[loopy]

Hey - cheers for all the replies! I'll try to answer each one:

Jim - I'm getting back into static tables now, but one thing I haven't really had much success with is apnea walking. Is this something you do, and if so, has it helped much? I tried it a bit a couple of years ago, and I didn't notice one iota of difference (apart from hitting the grass a few times ).

Peter - Max swims with a snorkel... do you mean breathold? Or the longest you can swim flat-out monofin style on the surface? That's kinda what I was doing - I don't have a mono, so I've just been doing the 25m sprints which I know I can handle pretty comfortably no matter how I feel. I still like to practice the dolphin kick, both cause if I ever do end up buying a mono, I'll have the foundations, and also because sometimes on ascent I use it, more on my deeper dives.

Lucia - This is sort of what I was getting at. I can keep up doing 25m unassisted all day with short rests, but what I'm wondering, is it actually helping? Am I getting any benefit out of it, or would I be better doing something else? A question for you though - do you find that this gets you hypercapnic? And a general question for either yourself or anyone else; is it safe to do CO2 tolerance training solo in the pool? The way I understand it at the moment, a higher level of CO2 leads to a longer breathold period, but if its uncomfortable....

Kars - Again, this is sort of what I've been looking at, trying to improve technique. Apart from the sprints, one other thing I tried was short intervals unassisted with max packing, just below the surface. I don't normally use packing on depth dives (that'll change soon though ) so being shallow and still trying to keep streamlined with max packing is both stretching me out and helping with technique. I agree with the tired comment as well - it takes me a real concious effort to stop my stroke falling apart when I get worn out.

Daniel - This is what I was getting at before. Do you find that this type of training (ie sub-maximal) helps at all? The only prob for me that I can see with training for X% of my max is that as my max increases, I won't know what it is without a buddy I like your point on heart rate - why do you place a big emphasis on that? Do you find that the correlation between your heart rate and saturation stays pretty constant from day to day? (ie do you find that your heart rate is always say at 40bpm after about a 50% effort?)

Thanks heaps for the replies, I'll keep working at it and see f I can devise the ultimate solo program

Cheers,

Brad

 

[naiad]

Originally posted by loopy
Lucia - This is sort of what I was getting at. I can keep up doing 25m unassisted all day with short rests, but what I'm wondering, is it actually helping? Am I getting any benefit out of it, or would I be better doing something else? A question for you though - do you find that this gets you hypercapnic? And a general question for either yourself or anyone else; is it safe to do CO2 tolerance training solo in the pool? The way I understand it at the moment, a higher level of CO2 leads to a longer breathold period, but if its uncomfortable....

I think it does help, and it does get me hypercapnic if the surface intervals are not too long. This could be because it is a long distance for me - my PB without fins is 33m, so 20m is a long way!

I'm not sure about the safety aspect - I have done solo CO2 tolerance training many times without problems, and people I know have done the same, but I wouldn't go out and recommend it as a great thing to do. The best thing is still to always have a buddy. However, I can't always find someone to train with, so I'll keep on doing some solo training.

I only do pool training, whether solo or with a buddy, during diving sessions, not during public pool hours.

I hope this helps

Lucia

 

[derelictp]

loopy,

I do max sprints 50m / 100m breathing through the snorkel.

I do this short distances because my ascent time on a CW dive is 40-50 sec and I want my muscles to work in the same range of time when I train. This is most anaerobic excercise but also some aerobic on the 100m.

I fokus really hard on the technique.

 

[lungfish]

consider hypoxic training on surface

When I was a competitive swimmer we trained hypoxically by simply breathing on every other side on every other stroke(if we were doing freestyle). If we wanted to increase the stress we would breath every third, fifth or seventh stroke. Doing this over the course of a five hundred creates a significant oxygen debt but at the same time you aren't doing apnea and risking your life on the alertness of a lifeguard. You can try this techinique with sprints of fifties or 100s or you can apply it to longer swims. I am certain that if you simply practiced this technique alone it would improve your apnea skills....

 

[loopy]

Thanks again guys - big help

Lungfish - I'm not sure what you're counting as a stroke, but my normal breathing pattern is breathe every four strokes (ie left right left right - breathe). I tried a bit of this training the other day, but I was trying it with distances instead of breathes. Basically, in the 25m pool, I'd try to do one lap in two breaths, and keep that up continuously. That's when I started wondering about the safety aspects of being hypercapnic (see Lucias reply above) and stopped. Thanks for the help

Cheers,

Brad