Hi. Here's another question re static tables: do you do a breathup before each breathhold, or do you just breath normally and then stop breathing?
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I don't know the tables you're using, but the ones I use have a specific breathe up time before each hold. How I breathe up really depends on the amount of time I have, and how long the previous hold was, and where I am in the overall table. If it's my first breathe up for an O2 table, and have 2:00 to breathe up, I'll do my normal breathe up for a regular static hold (basically, a few slow exhales/quiet breaths, then some careful, relaxed, "light" purging starting at ~45 secs to go).
But, if I'm doing a CO2 table, and I'm my 7th hold, and I only have 15 secs. to breathe up for 3:30, then I'm doing whatever I can to get as much CO2 off as quickly as possible. It's kinda chaos.
Everything else is really just a variation somewhere in between these two extremes.
The thing is, you're not really trying to "beat the tables." You're trying to train your body to better handle apnea. So, as long as you do a consistent breathe up (i.e., consistent from one session to the next), you should get a decent sense of whether or not you're improving.
I train with the tables, and I think it's basically worthwhile, especially if you're not lucky enough to have easy access to a place to train or a partner to train with. They're also just kinda nice and "formal", to give you something to just do some nuts-and-bolts training with. Also, for me so far, wet apnea is much easier than dry, and I always like the feeling of getting into the pool and having my targets feel relatively easy.
