Your freediving progress

[Andrew the fish]

Do get you get better at this? i´d call this progress too, for sure.

no, didn't get much better at this. I still look at the bottom times and get upset when times are short. Once in a while I even struggle through contractions. Man can't have no ambitions at all I guess. And, sadly, there is no progress if all my diving is happy and enjoyable.

 

[esom]

And, sadly, there is no progress if all my diving is happy and enjoyable.

luckily (or happily?) you are not in this state. lol ...i knew it was a dumb question :duh

 

[sai]

My personal progress is kind of slow, purely a result of non-competitive type I am. I enjoy freediving and decided long time ago to do away with no push for performance and make this sport enjoyable at all times. I don't know if this makes sence at all. I still don't know what my true PB is for dynamic and static, I can do close to 5 minutes dry static. My dives usually just over 1 minute at first and then I could stay down for over 2 minutes, depending on how hard I swim. Depth was never an issue, I don't know my true best but I routinely go down to 25 meters. Deeper than that usually boring, too much swimming and too little exploring. Depth actually is built from day to day and within a day. Say, if I am on vacation somewhere in Caribbean or Thailand, I will probably have difficulty on a first day to go deep. Same goes throughout the day, first couple dives are about 7-10 meters, then 15, and then over 20 if I see something interesting down there. The real fun is meeting scuba divers somewhere along the wall of reef, somewhere at 20 meters. Feels like Appollo-Soyuz orbital tea party.

There is no real timeline of my progress, because I hardly have any. It took me almost two years to see my first 2minutes open water dive times. But then, I had no difficulties reaching 1:30 since the day one. So I would say you are having much better progress.

2 minute open water dives, that's what I dream of to do some day.
How often do you dive?

 

[Andrew the fish]

2 minute open water dives, that's what I dream of to do some day.
How often do you dive?

it will happen to you, just out of blue you will notice its over 2 minutes and its time to go up. Try FRC dives for conditioning, my "out of blue progression" came at about same time I practiced FRC dives. Actually, in open water I always do one or two warm up FRC dives, somehow it dramatically improves all consecutive dives. I don't dive very often, especially since it is winter in BC. Vacation to Roatan was nice couple weeks back. Last winter I spend a month in Thailand (every day two hours in the water). From April to October I would freedive locally quite a bit. If work assignment takes me to coastal community, like Denman Island or Thetis Island I would freedive everyday for a week. Apart from cold canadian pacific waters, dives are beautiful here, lots of sea life.

 

[sai]

it will happen to you, just out of blue you will notice its over 2 minutes and its time to go up. Try FRC dives for conditioning, my "out of blue progression" came at about same time I practiced FRC dives. Actually, in open water I always do one or two warm up FRC dives, somehow it dramatically improves all consecutive dives. I don't dive very often, especially since it is winter in BC. Vacation to Roatan was nice couple weeks back. Last winter I spend a month in Thailand (every day two hours in the water). From April to October I would freedive locally quite a bit. If work assignment takes me to coastal community, like Denman Island or Thetis Island I would freedive everyday for a week. Apart from cold canadian pacific waters, dives are beautiful here, lots of sea life.

I hope so. But I'm a bit skeptical that it will happen through FRC dives. Even FRC statics get uncomfortable for me so fast. :duh
I'm hoping to improve a bit when I get to Dahab in may. Too bad I can't take any vacations longer than a week due to my job and private life. But I'll make the best out of it. Time to emigrate.

 

[esom]

i think if you understand*the difference between a so called static, i´d say belly float, and a so called frc dive, you have learned a lot and it may have the effect Andrew was speaking about.

*not a written or spoken explaination of course

 

[cdavis]

Sai, if FRC statics get uncomfortable very fast, you may be exhaling too much to use that standard as a normal diving air amount. My "FRC" is near empty, worthless for real diving. Comfortable dives are too short and depth is zilch. I dive about 60 percent of a lung full. That amount gives longer static times, works well for diving in moderate depths and still provides the blood shift and energetic advantages of "FRC" diving. Find the lung size right for you, practice and you should see dive times getting substantially longer. Comfortable 2 minutes is well within reach.

Connor

 

[Killa]

As I'm purely a spearo, and all my apnea ambition is connected to better hunting I didn't intend to comment in this thread. But this is the first winter I decided to get some pool training before hunting season starts (usually around the end of april, start of may for the Adriatic sea). The goal I set for myself was 25m DYN, 30seconds - 1min static then 25 DYN. I think that would simulate a 10-15m dive with a 30-60s static on the floor.

I started with the start of February. At first I would do 25m legs with fins, I had real problems with 50m DYN. Could do it but was very hard. Didn't even try DNF. Then I started meeting with a freediver, that also trains at the pool. He was very helpfull and gave me the confidence to try a bit more.

So now after around 4 weeks of diving 3-4 times a week my maximums are much improved. DNF is around 40m with terrible swimming and turning. I have only attempted to swim DNF over 25m once. I can also start with a 3 m dive (deep end of the pool), follow with 60 seconds of static and then swim the 25m DNF. That gives me a dive time of ~ 1:40. At DNY I can easily swim 50m now. I didn't attempt more as it's not really in my interest to do longer distance with fins, but my max dive is 25m DYN, 20 seconds apnea and 25m DYN - dive time is ~ 1:10. I tried 25m - 30s - 25m but had to end the dive after ~15m on the return leg.

I have also tried a dry static today, first one after more than 1 year, probably 2 years. I had a max of only 2:20 today (which is strange with 1:40 dive times). 2 years ago I had a max over 3 minutes. So now I will start doing pool 3 times a week and static with tables 2-3 times a week.

I'll report my progres in a month or so.