Training alone

[Svingen84]

This one is about training alone.
(Not from a safety point of view but from a progressive and technical one)
(The safety is not an issue or problem)

I am a retired freediver and AIDA instruktor with a 2-3 year career,
after many years of inactivity i have desided to take upp apnea again.
It will be mostly pool due to climate and location, so it will be DYN DNF and STA, and offcourse deep diving in summertime..

Living in a city with "NO" freedivers..how would training from a progressive and compedetive piont of view work out ?
Offcourse i will visit courses, competitions and training camps alot.
But the main and hard core training will be done mostly alone..

Techniqe swimming..Dry static.. apnea walking..UW rugby..yoga..
+ Maxing in water maybe once a week (i have kompetent family for safety)...

So please share your thoughts about this..not about safety but about the progression of abillity and personal bests...is training alone (with knowledge) and maxing once a week enough to take it far ?

Can you train alone and show upp for competitions and expect to do great ?

Long thread i know...but i think some other divers have simlar situations..

WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE THIS IS DANGEROUS AND STUPID SO DONT TRY THIS IF YOU DONT HAVE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT APNEA...

 

[Chris_C_NZ]

Personally I think that if you realise that training alone is stupid then training alone is stupid. No if's, but's or maybe's. Thats just me.

 

[ReefTroll]

I have to agree with Chris. Training alone, as you readily admit, is dangerous and stupid.
There is no miracle solution to remove the possibly life threatening dangers of training alone. Well, there is one, it's called a partner.

 

[watts]

What are you training for? General overall improvement? static, dynamic training for just depth?

 

[Svingen84]

You guys dont really understand my questions...

The activity is swimming for better technique and all apnea traning will be done on land....+ 1 UW rugby + 1 max or series of apnea a week (all supervised and safe).....

so the issue is not safety at all it is progression as an athlete without the help / talk / motivation of other "real freedivers"

and yes my goals are DYN DNF and static all pool....deepdiving will be done in summertime when i maybe travel somewhere

Thanks///

 

[pingshui]

I am training alone (not meaning unsupervised) as well most of the time, there is no club around here. It is at times hard to find the right motivation and of course it would be better to have some other divers around. That is why I register for comps once in a while so I have at least a goal to work for Maybe keeping records of your training would help to observe progress.

My training looks the same as yours. A lot of UWR, dry tables, some Yoga and dyn/dnf training in those seldom cases when I am lucky to have a buddy or someone who has been instructed what to do. I have not tried apnea-walks yet, but probably should.

 

[uw_ikarus]

Training alone (anyway not without supervision) sometimes cannot be avoided. Mixing swimming sessions with apnea exercises (small fins, DNF) can be an option, for instance doing 25 m DNF (or even less) with many repetitions in a short time.. I'd prefer it to dry apnea, which is boring to me.

 

[hteas]

I am in the same position, although without any pretense of being competitive.
I push statics only dry.
In the pool I work on conditioning and technique, never distance.
How far can I go on one frog kick in DNF?
How few kicks or arm strokes to get 25 m?
How relaxed can I be during a 25 m length?

My only chance to push is that most winters I get a couple of weeks in Hawaii, where I link up with the Kona rope crew (Anabel and friends). With them watching, I can be comfortable pushing toward the edge. The rest of the year I'm just trying to stay in shape and be more comfortable. I'm sure you can neve be too comfortable in the water. There's always something you can smooth out.

At the same time, technique is much more difficult to improve on without feedback from a buddy, or even better, several of them. The best I can do is take the suggestions from the Kona crew (and what i lear here) and work on them for the rest of the year.

 

[efattah]

In my e-coaching program I offer a specialized program for this type of situation. I personally used it in 2003 and reached astonishing results. It is possible to reach amazing results with minimal in-water apnea. However I do *not* recommend apnea walking.

 

[ReefTroll]

You could patent the "Eric Fattah Apnea Walking Helmet"

 

[Svingen84]

In my e-coaching program I offer a specialized program for this type of situation. I personally used it in 2003 and reached astonishing results. It is possible to reach amazing results with minimal in-water apnea. However I do *not* recommend apnea walking.

Why not apnea walking ??...is a crosstrainer better ?

 

[Simos]

Although i know it's not what you want to discuss, safety is probably the main issue you need to find ways of dealing with in your situation. ie not having any freedivers around will not allow you to do any attempts where you'll challenge yourself in any meaningful way so you need to find a way of splitting the apnea work from the swim technique and do all apnea work dry (as Eric mentioned) while focusing on swimming technique, gliding etc in the pool with no real apnea work.

I don't train too seriously and have done very little dry training but I believe it should be perfectly possible to progress A LOT with no apnea in water. In some ways I would go as far as say that with a great dry training regime you could progress even more as you can do/device a lot more dry apnea exercises that train different aspects.

The second main issue will be motivation in my view. Training with others helps a lot in this aspect: the 'social' side of things is one thing and then there is the healthy competition. Having some people that are better than you always helps you up your game even if you are not competitive. The alternative to this would be to start getting motivated by 'numbers' themselves and then use competitions as opportunities to see how you compare against others.

In terms of information/advice etc i don't think that having a few more freedivers in your town would have helped unless they were REALLY good. Otherwise you can get an amazing amount of info from DB. Even in a local club, surely you can learn from the experiences of another 20-30 people (for most clubs) but on DB you can share and learn with hundreds and hundreds, including many top freedivers.

 

[Simos]

Also just a tip: training at public swimming pool helps with motivation I found (esp if you are lucky enough to find one that allows you to wear fins). Being surrounded by others who are training (ie swimmers) helps you in not feeling that you are training alone. I often use mental 'games' eg say I am doing 'sprints', I race against various swimmers (without them knowing) etc

Also, if you manage to find someone who can film you with an underwater camera from time to time, then you can see what you are doing and improve technique and even post it on here and get others to comment.

 

[Svingen84]

Thanks guys for all the possitive comments...
Especially the ones from "SIMOS"...thanks...

As we all agre the main goal is to separate the different aspects of traning
for example...Swimming technique...apnea walking...dry static...CO2 tolerense and all other things...
Offcourse an induvuduall who is going through such a regime should have god knowledge off the sport and be werry safety minded...

 

[Haydn]

In my view, there is a great deal to be said for training alone. Forget the issues regarding safety, when you train alone these should be disregarded (otherwise you simply dont train). NEVER train anywhere near danger level if you are alone, and you will therefore never be placed in danger (as far as apnea is concerned), because if you are training alone , you never train apnea. Instead, train technique, speed, style. If you use a monofin, get a front snorkel and swim a few miles in the sea. If you use bi fins, swim a whole day, just kicking with a float. When you can swim a ten miles with your head up, you will be surprised how easy it is to swim 150 meters head down. Just put in the miles, alone.

I am afraid, I always train alone simply because there seems to be nobody in the UK doing what I do. Tell you what though, I really miss freediving a line. But because I have no buddies, I kind of don't freedive anymore. So I do what I do, and dont hold my breath.

Of course, other dangers raise their head. But they wont be any thing to do with apnea.

 

[Pelle31]

Stay out of the water as much as possible. Train as much as possible. Be on soft ground as much as possible. Train as good as possible.

Write down.Compare.Change.Do again.Watch.Write down.

Don't need water to freedive.
It's all in your head.

 

[KAZE456]

Like Pelle just said "Write down.Compare.Change.Do again.Watch.Write down." i aswell think writing down stuff is a very good way to improve, espacially without a trainer.

Use a notebook every training and write down your thoughts and questions about the training you just did.

*That way you can start the next training where you ended last time.

*When something does'nt feel right you can go back and check what similar problems you've had in the past and how you solved them.

*When you come home you can look what questions poped up in your head during the training and ask them here.

Hopefully this would compensate for not having someone coaching you.
I'm a freediving newbie, but this have worked for me in other sports ^^

Lycka till!

 

[Haydn]

Training alone is great for the best of all reasons, you dive you own dive, unencumbered with the ideas of your fellow freedivers who share a training session. You deal simply with yourself and no one else. When it comes to a competition, you know exactly who and where you are.

Training with mates is also good and does add value and roundness, but that does not mean that training alone is less so. In my view, training alone is better and the best reason to add mates, is for variety, and freshness and not to add a competitive advantage.

Safety is another matter entirely and doing a max effort relies on others to assist.