I'm trying to improve my aerobic fitness and increase my stamina. The instructor was a little shocked when I explained the reason for my new-found motivation! Nevertheless, he's provided me with a useful programme of interval training using the running and cycling machines, and the cross-trainer. I've also been swimming lanes in the 50m pool. I love to swim but I'm sure my technique must be pretty clumsy. Fortunately, there was a private lesson going on in the lane next to me this morning, so I managed to pick up a few sneaky tips! Since I don't have a buddy to keep an eye on me I couldn't do any apnea but it was great to be back in the water again, I've really missed it.
If I'm honest, my only motivation for exercise since I gave up gymnastics at the age of 16 has been to lose weight. I never really stuck at it. Freediving has already helped me to appreciate what my body can do. It's also made me realise that a lot of my physical limits are self-imposed. Right now I feel like I'm collaborating with my body to achieve my challenge, rather than using exercise to punish it for not looking like Jessica Alba. This is much more fun!
I now have a new dry Static Personal Best (PB) of 3 mins, which I did with one "warm up" breath hold beforehand. However, having said that, the "dive" itself was not good. I felt short of breath almost immediately I began to hold, and was unable to relax. I listened to my heartbeat speed up in the first few seconds and couldn't slow it down. None of the techniques I've previously used helped to stop my mind racing. I took a breath when I began to feel contractions of my diapraghm and was really surprised to see that I'd made 3 minutes, since the whole experience had felt quite stressful.
I don't really see any value in increasing my static times if my technique is wrong.
With a little help from a friend and the Manual of Freediving, I've found a way to train for dry statics that is helping me to focus on technique rather than time: training tables. There are several types of static training tables, which acclimatise the body either to higher levels of carbon dioxide or lower levels of oxygen. When used over a period of time, training using these tables should therefore result in longer static breath-holds. Table A, which is the one recommended for beginners, involves 8 breath-holds of around 50% of your PB with decreasing rest periods in between.
I found this brilliant online version of the table, which allows you to customise it according to your ability. It has a "voice" option, which indicates the start of your rest periods and counts down to your breath-holds. This means you can complete the entire table without having to fiddle around with a stopwatch or keep track of time.
Doing Table A for the first time was brilliant! I was able to relax during the rest periods because I knew I would hear 15, 10 and 5 second prompts before the next breath-hold. My breathing was deep but not forced in any way. Since the breath holds were only 50% of my PB, I knew they were achievable and was able to sink into an almost sleepy state; not thinking about anything, simply hearing the sounds of children in the street, feeling a breeze coming through the window... I settled into the rhythm of breathing and breath-holding. As the rest periods decreased, the breath holds didn't seem much more difficult but I noticed toward the end that the fingers of one of my hands were slightly tingly, a sign of CO2 build-up. Once the table ended I felt relaxed, happy and slightly drowsy; like waking up from a good nap!
For those of you that were intrigued by the "No Limits" discipline described in my previous post, here's a blow-by-blow account of a no limits dive to 214m by Herbert Nitsch - it's absolutely fascinating:
Herbert Nitsch on his way down to 214m.
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