This thread started off discussing supplements and such things. My personal view about this is that if we want to improve our performance in freediving, then we're far better off working on our technique in the water than trying to optimise supplement intake.
The gains we (may?) get from these would be insignificant to the gains made from improving technique to make it as O2-efficient as possible. Taking constant weight dives for example, having a more efficient descent will generate less CO2 in the body, which should help minimise CO2 narcosis too later in the dive...
Sea mammals have millions of years of evolution behind them to teach them how dive as efficiently as possible. Even the best freedivers only have perhaps a few hundred hours of dive time logged. Do we really believe that we can truly perfect a technique (for whatever discipline) in that amount of time? I don't think so.
Technique also applies to static too. In the early stages of doing a static, I often think: "ok, I'm relaxed now", then when I scan my body I actually find lots of tension, without even realising it was there. Sometimes, wastfeul muscular tension is obvious even to an observer, when you see someone clinging onto the side of the pool in a hunched position.
Same sort of thing applies to diving too... relaxing muscles that aren't actually being used for propulsion. This is something I always try to look out for when diving. It's not an easy thing to do though - it takes a lot of practice.
As well as striving for the most oxygen efficient technique, I think the equipment we use also has a massive bearing on performance, much more than supplements. There are lots of variables to experiment with, such as thermal protection, weighting, position of weights, monofin (or bi-fin) design... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt that any serious research has been done on these things to maximise performance for diving, for eg. academic standard fluid dynamics reasearch on monofin design. New equipment and designs are just waiting to be discovered! Fluid goggles and lenses being classic examples.
I think supplements have their place, but they're certainly no substitute for technique/equipment improvements and most importantly of all... spending time in the water.
"That's all I have to say about that"
alun
ps: On that note... I am now off for the weekend, when I'll be testing out my new Henx monofin. So far I use only Waterway monos, but I think this one will be very good for depth. I may post my initial thoughts about it next week.
The gains we (may?) get from these would be insignificant to the gains made from improving technique to make it as O2-efficient as possible. Taking constant weight dives for example, having a more efficient descent will generate less CO2 in the body, which should help minimise CO2 narcosis too later in the dive...
Sea mammals have millions of years of evolution behind them to teach them how dive as efficiently as possible. Even the best freedivers only have perhaps a few hundred hours of dive time logged. Do we really believe that we can truly perfect a technique (for whatever discipline) in that amount of time? I don't think so.
Technique also applies to static too. In the early stages of doing a static, I often think: "ok, I'm relaxed now", then when I scan my body I actually find lots of tension, without even realising it was there. Sometimes, wastfeul muscular tension is obvious even to an observer, when you see someone clinging onto the side of the pool in a hunched position.
Same sort of thing applies to diving too... relaxing muscles that aren't actually being used for propulsion. This is something I always try to look out for when diving. It's not an easy thing to do though - it takes a lot of practice.
As well as striving for the most oxygen efficient technique, I think the equipment we use also has a massive bearing on performance, much more than supplements. There are lots of variables to experiment with, such as thermal protection, weighting, position of weights, monofin (or bi-fin) design... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt that any serious research has been done on these things to maximise performance for diving, for eg. academic standard fluid dynamics reasearch on monofin design. New equipment and designs are just waiting to be discovered! Fluid goggles and lenses being classic examples.
I think supplements have their place, but they're certainly no substitute for technique/equipment improvements and most importantly of all... spending time in the water.
"That's all I have to say about that"
alun
ps: On that note... I am now off for the weekend, when I'll be testing out my new Henx monofin. So far I use only Waterway monos, but I think this one will be very good for depth. I may post my initial thoughts about it next week.
