Never change a winning game, always change a losing game

The problems I’ve been having with my prevailing approach to diving appear to be even more fundamental than I had assumed after the DYN disaster.

The static competition regained some of my lost self confidence, as I managed to improve my competition record from 5:33 to 6:04 with a dive that felt like a 3min static. I quit my dive static right after 6min mark because I hadn’t done any over 4min statics in 3 years, and I was not sure of my static routines. I had told my coach/safety diver Timo that he would drag me up after 6min mark whether or not I wanted to come up voluntarily. After that I felt that I could have done 7min easily. And looking at the low qualification limits for static’s A- and B- finals, and the less than impressive results in both those finals I felt slightly disappointed that I hadn’t trained static more for these competitions.

So, I started to prepare myself for the DNF qualification heats. The main points I focused on were basically the points that I assumed were accountable for the DYN disaster:

• Over-doing the concentration: This time I took the approach that this is just one dive among many similar dives
• Range-philosophy: I dove 1 hand stroke at a time trying to listen to my body’s signals on remaining time
• Hyperventilation: No extraordinary breathing before 30sec to OT (this gave me time to ventilate the lungs 3-4 times before packing
• Dehydration: This time I drank the water constantly
• Acceleration: I constantly counted the hand strokes and was prepared to bail out if my pace got over 4 strokes per 25m.

Even though I succeeded in correcting all these mistakes I made in DYN I still managed to go beyond my capabilities, and the dive ended at BO at around 130m mark. The most puzzling thing was, that I felt good and in control the entire dive, and everything went as planned. Thinking with hindsight I had some O2-warnings going on at 125m mark, but in the empty-lung warm-ups I had managed to tolerate exactly the same kind of warnings for over 30sec with no problems at surfacing. And still I managed to BO. Apparently empty-lung statics are much more different than dynamic performances than I had expected.

Now I need to take some break from diving for a couple of weeks or so to gain some perspective into what the hell is going on with my diving. After that I need to discuss with other divers who have encountered similar problems to learn how they managed to deal with this kind of situation. Anyway, here are some preliminary ideas that I’ll be changing in my diving, in addition to all the other ones learned from the DYN disaster:

Paradigm change #1: No warm-ups

Out of the all DYN A-finalists only a few did anything that could be classified as warm-ups. Alexey did one 100m DYN with 1^st attempt and exited the pool for around 30min and didn’t re-enter the pool until less than 2min to OT. Stig did a couple of 80m DYNs, and remained in the pool to breathe for 5-10min before OT. Basically all the other divers in both men’s and women's A-finals only went into the pool at around 1:30 before OT.

Comparing this to my warm-up routine of doing 1-2 full-lung statics, 2-4 50% dynamics and 3-5 empty-lung dives brings up a hugely differing pattern. I’m basically doing a semi-hard exercise before the actual max-attempt!

Paradigm change #2: Stay warm before the dive

I have intentionally sought to cool my body down before the dive, even if it means letting some water into the wetsuit. The rationale behind this is to strengthen the vasoconstriction and increase dive reflex, but it is possible that these advantages are more than offset by the facts that cool body requires more energy (oxygen) to stay warm and that O2 is more strongly bounded to cooler blood than warmer blood (which leads to BOs at higher pO2-levels). This should be easy to arrange as I plan to drop the warm-ups that usually causes the hypothermia.

Paradigm change #3: Quit instantly at O2-warnings

The ability to cope with O2-warnings in STA has nothing to do with the ability to tolerate them during DYN and DNF. When I notice O2-warnings in the future, I’ll abort the dive instantly. No matter how close some ‘milestone’ might be. No ‘milestone’ is worth risking yet another BO.

Paradigm change #4: Announce 1m

I found myself setting some milestones based on the speculations of A- and B-final limits. In the future I want my dives to be based on my own abilities instead of external requirements. One way to promote this approach is to announce so little, that you have no information on other diver’s performances.

Paradigm change #5: Less gear

In DYN finals no-one used pool suits. Most likely because they didn’t need them to cope with hypothermia because they did no warm-ups. In DNF I saw only Stig using a pool suit. All others dove in swimsuits or some extremely light suits made for competitive swimmers. Additionally some top divers, such as Natalia and Alexey dove without goggles, wearing only a small nose clip.

So, from now on I’ll be trying to dive max dives without pool suit and without goggles, and possibly even without a nose clip. If I find that some of these pieces of equipment are critically
required I’ll re-add them to my equipment category. Otherwise less is more.

But, anyway now off to a break from pool diving. I am pretty sure that I won’t be quitting pool diving, even at competitive level, but I have a lot of mind work to do regarding some fundamental questions related to it before I can go on with it.

Over and out.

What the fuck just happened?

Yesterday everything was perfect. 160+m perfectly controlled and easy training dive. And today total disaster at around 160m mark requiring safety diver intervention. What the fuck went wrong between those dives?

Summary of today’s events

Slept late, as planned since my OT was not due until 19:00. Did some stretching in the morning, and everything was good. I’ve never been as flexible in the morning. Ate some bananas (for HH) and rye bread (for fiber) throughout the day. No decent meal at any point.

Kept on visualizing the upcoming dive’s presumably difficult parts i.e. what happens after 100m turn. I had planned to utilize my previously successful ‘range’ philosophy for today’s dive as well. Yesterday I had set the range for 20-40 kicks past 100m mark, and surfaced at the upper limit of 40 kicks, which was about 160m. I surfaced because I had promised myself that even though I had no problems whatsoever. For today’s dive I set myself the range of 40-60 kicks past 100m mark, and I seriously thought that I would reach the 200m mark today.

Pre-warm-up preparations went well. I have never been so flexible during training, and I was able to maintain good positive mood throughout my mental visualization trainings. But after all was supposed to have been good to go, things took a turn for the worse.

I tried some packing to check for my susceptibility for packing blackouts, and almost lost consciousness on the inhale alone. Nothing dramatic: just quickly drinking more mineral water to increase blood pressure. I drank almost 1,5l of mineral water before I was able to pack at all, and by this time all my pre-acquired self confidence had disappeared: I was afraid of failing the dive before I even reached 10m mark! Anyway, off to water for warm-up dives.

The warm-up dives went completely as planned and as they had gone yesterday. The only cause for doubt s was the fact that all the 1,5l of mineral water ‘stayed in’ and I had no urge to go to toilet at all. Most likely my dehydration level was far more than 1,5l… Technically the warm-ups went completely as planned, but I still noticed myself thinking about the upcoming dive in an anxious way. I was not convinced of my abilities to reach my goals. This anxiety must have been a major cause for my excessive (hyper)ventilation that started already 4min before OT.

The start of the dive was not perfect. The packing dizziness came back, moderately, and I was forced to abort my packing at about 80% point and start the dive prematurely. After that I managed to get into a good rhythm for the 50m mark. The 50m turn was OK, and I started to anticipate the upcoming uncomfortable CO2-warnings. The warnings came and went as planned (70-90m) and I started to prepare for the 100m turn, where the ‘real’ dive and the counting of the kicks was supposed to begin. At the 100m mark all hell broke loose. My fin collided with the fin of the guy in the next lane and all my concentration, planning and self control crumbled down like a house of cards. I went into panic. I started sprinting already from 100m point on and was not able to slow myself down. I just kept counting the kicks to reach the lower limit of my ‘range’ and bail out as soon as possible. I reached the 150m turn with 30 kicks, continued for the extra 10 kicks to complete the 40 kick quota, reached for the rope and, according to team mate’s description, blacked out. At around 160m mark. With no lactic acids to speak of. A distance that should have been reachable under every disaster scenario. Apparently it wasn’t.

So, here is the post-mortem of the major fuck-ups I made:

Fuck-up #1: Range philosophy

This works well under controlled circumstances, such as training dives. The benefit of the ‘range’ philosophy is the fact that you can ignore the unpleasant feelings completely and focus on reaching the lower limit of the ‘range’ before opening up to listen to your body’s ability to operate within the ‘range’. This philosophy does not account for the fact that the premises under which the range has been set can change during the dive (such as due to panicking, for instance).

If you cannot control your mind without totally blocking the messages your body sends to you, you are not supposed to dive any further.

Fuck-up #2: Dehydration

Drink the goddamned mineral water, moron.

Fuck-up #3: Hyperventilation

Don’t start deep ventilation until 30sec before OT.

If you cannot handle the CO2-load without hyperventilation, you are not supposed to dive any further.

Fuck-up #4: Pushing the limits

In the beginning of this blog I stated that I was willing to push my limits. Now that I have gone beyond my limits once I can say that that is not the way to go. I‘ll need to develop mental strength instead to better judge my ability to proceed instead of having foolish admirations of some kamikaze-like boundary hunting (exaggerating a bit to make my point).

I don’t blame the other guy with whom I collided with least bit for my failure. Such panicking should not be triggered by any interference. If some truly important and unforeseen obstacle occurs, I should abort the dive, not just kick away panicing. The collision, or more likely the slight touch of fins, only unleashed the demons that were only barely under control at that delicate turning point, and it would have been a miracle if I had been able to perform a good dive even if I had dove in an empty pool. If I had not encountered the problems related to my diving philosophy today, I would surely have encountered them later, most likely under less secure conditions.

No shortage of lessons to be learned. Actually ‘lesson’ is too light a word to describe what needs to be modified. So, here are the major fundamental diving paradigms that need to be altered. Starting first thing tomorrow.

Paradigm change #1: Kick-and glide, one at a time

The less kicks needed, the less total work needed to cover a distance, the less energy required. And some dive-reflex stuff to promote that approach as well.

But the most important reason for changing into this approach is to regain the control to what is happening in my body throughout the dive. In every glide phase I have a lot of time to listen to myself and determine whether or not I’m capable of doing the next kick safely. This is likely to set me back for months in my pursuit for the 200m mark, but I don’t want to risk another black-out EVER in my life.

Quite interestingly all the top names, Severinsen, Molchanov and Larsen used extremely slow, but fluent kick-and-glide technique, although at least Stig and Alexey have demonstrated that they master the continuous kicking style as well. I did not count accurately, but Stig must have done less than 10 kicks per 50m, and it looked so fluent and easy that I couldn’t help myself just admiring the fluency with which he flew through the water.

Paradigm change #2: Hyperventilation is a cause for aborting the dive

If I find myself hyperventilating before the dive, I know that I am aiming higher than I believe I am capable of. If hyperventilation is detected, and OT is too soon to eradicate it’s effect, I will abort the start.

Paradigm change #3: Limits to endurance’s omnipotence

There is only so much that you can do with increased endurance. There is a reason why world’s top marathon runners, cyclists or full distance triathletes don’t have a past time hobby for breaking freediving world records. Today I did not feel physically exhausted at legs, like I do in interval running and cycling, but still I managed to black out. Judging my remaining ability to continue diving cannot be based on the feeling from my legs.

Game plan for DNF (and future DYN attempts)

One hand stroke at a time with loooong glides in between. If I find myself (1) accelerating or (2) shortening the glide phase or (3) having doubts about the next hand stroke’s safety I will abort the dive instantaneously.

Gladiator in arena consilium capit

i.e. 'The gladiator is making his plan in the arena.' A fancy way of saying 'too late'.

One critical prerequisite for pulling off a performance that meets your true capabilities in a competition is knowing well beforehand what you are going to do, when and why. This helps you to free your mind from thinking about irrelevant and mundane practicalities and allows you to focus on concentrating on the actual performance even under uncertain, complex and occasionally chaotic conditions. This is an especially acute problem in freediving competitions where you have only a couple of seconds' time window to start your performance, you only get one shot to leverage the fruits of perhaps several years' of training and it only takes a split second loss of concentration and determination to bail out due to some lame excuse.

So, here's roughly the plan I'll be following for DYN qualifying heats:

• Day before competition
  
• No physically exhausting activities, only some stretching
• Possibly light technique dives if pool option is available
  
• Using warm clothes to lower the risk of getting cold
  
• Normal, balanced diet containing all major food groups (protein, carbs, fiber)
• Open big mineral water bottle to get rid of bubbles overnight
  
• Early to bed
• Competition morning
  
• Get up early, around 4:30, to ensure completely awakened state during dive
• Warm/hot shower to warm up muscles without physical work and to reduce the risk of hurting yourself while stretching
• Long stretching routine covering every major muscle group twice wearing warm clothes
  
• Balanced, normal and thoroughly chewed breakfast at around 08:00 (assuming OT at 12:00)
• Competition site
  
• Arrive early, absolutely no later than 09:30
• Drink mineral water moderately but frequently
  
• Finish registration etc. routines asap
• Check OT, lane, pool profile and judge's position
  
• Visualize the dive phase by phase at least 3-4 times trying to associate certain stages of the dive to visible landmarks in the bottom (if any); focus on familiarizing and overcoming early-possible-bail-out-areas
• Easy stretching and relaxing; avoiding staying on feet and walking around to minimize exhaustion
• Use selected music to remind yourself of the Flow
  
• Warm-up
• Suit-up early to be ready to jump to pool at least 5min before warm-up time begins
• 2-3 full-lung statics (2-3min) at the bottom of the pool trying to relax and enjoy the feel of water
• 2-3 45-60sec negative packing dives to trigger O2 dive reflex
• Put mono on
• 2x 55m warm-up dives focusing on non-explosive kicks
• Take mono off
• Easy 1min e-dives to maintain dive reflex (last e-dive ends no later than 6min before OT)
  
• Control body temperature by letting water into the suit if needed
• Check susceptibility for packing-BO by occasional max-packings
  
• Put mono on
• Intentionally try to come up excuses for explaining bad performance. Counter every one by reminding yourself how you performed well in training even when this excuse was far better founded than it is today.
  
• Preparations in competition lane
• Check lane rope tensions and choose preferred surfacing rope
  
• Relax
• Visualize start
• Ensure ventilation while avoiding hyperventilation
• Ignore distractions; they have no effect on your dive
• OT-15sec max inhale, max exhale calmly
• OT-10sec max inhale, 10 big packs quickly, lower down so only head is above water, 5-7 normal packs (slow breaks if experiencing dizziness), stop packing when limit is reached, start dive
• Dive
• 0-25m - Start: alert for compensating for packing dizziness otherwise hands together and relaxed slow-paced kicks
• 25-50m - Relaxation: relaxed, slow-paced and low-amplitude fluent motion
• 50-75m - Focus: maintain relaxed technique prepare for CO2-alarms
• 75-100m - Patience: Accept first CO2-alarms as a sign of body going into O2-conserving mode. No acceleration required.
  
• 100-125m - Acceleration: accelerate if needed, prepare to feel lactic acids
• 125-150m - Endurance: Notice and accept lactic acids. Accelerate. Wait for the Flow.
  
• 150-200m - The Flow: Be all you can be.
  
• SP
• Grab rope with preferred (left) hand, don't let go whatever happens
  
• Ventilate maximally regardless of feeling at the end of the dive
• Take facial equipment off during 2-3 first breaths using only the other hand (right)
• Throw facial equipment somewhere and use that motion to complete OK-sign
• Say 'I'm OK' with 4th exhale
• Continue ventilating maximally and holding the rope
• Relax ventilation, hold rope with both hands, wait for the card
• Allow yourself to begin enjoying the awesome post-dive feeling
• Recovery
• Easy swimming, jogging or walking instantly after the dive. Don't let the lactic acids stay immobile in your muscles.
• Long stretching of major, exhausted muscle groups
• Eating a couple of bananas
• Resting lying on the back, keeping legs relaxed and elevated
  

Pay day

Finally, the long and determined basic endurance training is starting to pay off. Big time. The final build-up to the Maribor WC has been focused on long DYN/DNF attempts on every opportunity I've had.
First on 11.6. I dove 111m DNF extremely easily and was able to conserve my technique throughout the entire dive. Then we had our national team's 'dress rehearsal' diving camp at a local sport institution on 16.-17.6. where I pulled off easy 154 DYN twice and easy 105m DNF despite the fact that our coach Jyri intentionally built us some inconveniences to simulate competition stress. Finally I managed to overcome the long-lasting anxiety to perform well in a 50m pool last Wednesday as I dove easy 157m DYN even though I had done perhaps the hardest running exercise of the spring only the day before.
I've been completely OK after each and every one of these dives, and this has given me enormous confidence to know that I can do 150+ DYN and 100+ DNF whenever I want even with poor preparation, insufficient recovery, non-existent concentration and with little pushing. I've felt some lactic acids starting to build up after 140m DYN, and I've accelerated to 4-5 hand strokes per 25m after 75m in DNF, but I've been completely in control of all these actions: after the dive reflex kicks in the additional work only builds muscle lactic acids, and the levels generated by these dives is far below the levels I'm used to in my endurance exercises.

Now, off to slowly cool down the training rhythm and begin concentrating for the Maribor WC. Looks like I'll be able to convince myself to aim for the next wall in both dynamic disciplines...

Fish out of water

Whoa, it's been a while since my last entry. The problem has been that the indoor pool sessions I've been using ended for the summer, and there was a multi-week drought before the new open air pool sessions began. This meant for me that I've been doing less diving and more endurance and technique trainings recently. Among other things I participated impulsively on a half marathon, and managed to finish it in 1h 33min and change without any real pushing despite my weakest link, calves, collapsed at 15km mark and forced me to change my running technique completely. As for technique training I've been doing some bare-foot mono kicks with a swimming board at a local pool that's way too crowded for even thinking about using the real monofin. Apparently I haven't appreciated fully the opportunities the dedicated and empty pool sessions have provided during the indoor season.
All in all, my physique is in OK shape, technique is coming together slowly but surely. The problem is that I've lost my competitive edge and routine for long dives and thus I've had difficulties in gaining self confidence needed for long dives. I'm solving it currently by diving routinely multiple 100m+turn - dives in each diving session. This approach seems to be working very well, and yesterday I didn't feel least bit anxious during my 80m DNF and 105DYN.
Tomorrow I'm having my #1 training session of the week in a 50m open air swimming stadium which resembles the upcoming Maribor pool's profile almost perfectly. I'll be targeting for about 125m in DYN and when it goes well I think I'll be once again confident enough to start going for 150m dives on the next week.

Post-competition training hung-over

I've done focused long-term building up and psyching up to competitions or similar physical exams before as well, but motivation-wise the national champs were completely different than anything I've experienced before. Perhaps I haven't done max-concentration events in the middle of a training period for several years, but the motivational back lash took way longer than I had been anticipating. For a week or so after the competition I did not have any appetite for physical training, and I was completely unable to concentrate on anything mentally challenging, like working, for a week. Hopefully it was only the relaxation of the stress that I had intentionally built myself as a part of the build-up routine.
As I did not train after the competition and kept on working as usual the result was predictable: I got some fever and/or flu. Again. Before the last 6 months I was not once ill for years, and lately I have been regularly ill for multiple days monthly. My conclusion has been, that my body just cannot keep up with the rhythm that I've been putting myself into. The overly exhausting rhythm could theoretically originate from training or from working. I've excluded the training part because when I trained for the navy diver course or was on it I trained so hard and so much that even the most masochistic trainings I do nowadays would have been relaxation back then. And when I was doing those extreme training I was practically never ill. So, this leaves me with the conclusion that my physics falling apart must be caused by working too much. So, one more reason for cutting down on the hours spent by the computer. Extrapolating the situation of experiencing collapsing health before 30 years of age would not lead to pleasant future scenarios. Actually I've been able to control my working hours relatively decently since then, but there are still some work to be done in that field.
Other motivational aspects have included the way I motivated myself for the competition. Previously I have dived because it has felt good or because I wanted to challenge myself, but in the last national champs I focused primarily on winning. I have been telling myself that it was tactically rational to limit my dives to the lengths that were sufficient for winning to avoid risking SP, but I have not been able to convince myself on that matter completely. I have ruined too many hobbies for myself by adopting too competitive mind-set, and freediving is so important part of my life that I do not want to risk losing my desire for it. The other, and less important, problem has been that if I want to focus on achieving the 200+ mark I cannot have multiple partially conflicting motivators driving me towards it instead of one, clear and compelling reason. I believe that I have tackled this issue by returning to basic and relaxed training for a couple of weeks, and now I start to feel the itch to begin trying out some longer dives once again...
But when I had overcome my internal motivational issues I heard of Loic's incident. I was very surprised how profoundly it affected me and my motivation. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about it, and I think the reason for the profound impact was that for me Loic stood out for everything that was good and right about freediving: positivity, relaxation, calmness, humbleness, attitude towards safety etc. If you've had the privilege of meeting him you know what I mean. Practically everything we (in Finland at least) know of safety and diving's preferred mind-set can be traced back to Loic and his team. My conclusion, at least for now, is that the best way to honor Loic's legacy is to try and keep up his ideas and standards even though we cannot get our frequent 'fix' of energy he gave to everyone diving with him.

Anyway, lot's of mind-work, too little water time since the competition, but now feeling again as positive and motivated as ever. Off to pool!

BTW: some amazing pics and the complete UW-video of the national champs can be found by following the (Finnish) hyperlinks in here. Can you spot the difference between my and Anders's technique? ;)

Still on track

Last Sunday's national champs went almost perfectly as planned for me. The results were 2 gold medals (DYN and DNF), and a new DNF national record. And on top of those performances I'm 100% convinced that there is plenty more where those meters came from. Not bad at all.
I ended up using the following procedure for preparing to this competition:
Preparation

• Last endurance training (spinning) one week before on Sunday
• Monday gym training. I managed to hurt my neck muscles during pull-ups, and had to rest it for a couple of days.
• Light diving on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning
• Eating pasta and salad on Saturday evening
  

Competition day

• Stretching legs, arms and back before breakfast
  
• Eating rye bread and boiled eggs for breakfast (08:30) and only drinking some mineral water since then
• Mentally going through the dives several times before warm-up time trying to associate the dives mental feelings to different parts of the pool in order to be prepared for the fleeting urge to bail out too early
• Going into the pool as soon as the warm-up time started to do some full-lung statics and relaxation on the bottom of the pool; only 1-2 extremely light dives to get the feeling for the technique
• 5-10min break before OT
• I managed to feel slightly cold just before both starts, which was almost optimal.
  
• Diving only to win, not to gain meters in order to conserve strength and to avoid risking SP (my bigger AP:s gave me the benefit of seeing what my competitors had performed)
  

I had assumed that I would need to dive 140 in DYN and 115 in DNF to win the disciplines, but the other competitors proved me seriously wrong by turning from 150m in DYN and doing several hand strokes after 100m in DNF. Luckily I had prepared for that and the ranges I had mentally been prepared for was still higher than these competing results. It's good to see that the level of results in Finland is still high even though Kalle and Jyri were not there to give their best shots.
The DYN dive succeeded very well, and I did not feel lactic acids until 140m. At 160m I didn't feel any compelling urge to abort the dive, but instead chose to stop there to conserve my strength. The DNF dive was more troublesome as I was forced to do 4+4 hand strokes for the first 50m (normally easy 3+3), and after that the 'technique' collapsed completely for 50-75m. I almost bailed out at 80m, but my competitive drive forced me to go on. 75-100m was much easier and at 100m turn I was absolutely sure that I would be able to go to 125m mark if I wanted. Instead I surfaced at 121m to avoid risking SP unnecessarily.
The best dive of the day was still Anders Larsson's 132m DNF, which reinstated him as the Swedish DNF record holder. His technique and balance are close to perfect and it's going to be a hard day's work trying to outperform him in a 50m pool when the turns are few and far between and the differences are based more on technique. Let's just hope that Mikko Pöntinen (Sunday's #2 after only a couple of month's training (?!)) keeps improving the way he's done so far, or that Anders starts competing under Finnish colors...

The complete results of the competition can be found here.

Modifications to the training from now on

• Moving from current 80m standard DYN dives to 100+ turn standard dives. I was able to stay much more relaxed up to the 80m mark now that I've been training them regularly instead of just repeating those boring 50m dives. The 80m dives aren't the least bit challenging any more, so upgrading to 100 dives seem to be the rational next step.
• Actually learning how to dive DNF. Hand stroke efficiency and glide posture would seem to be good starting places... Now my performance has way too much variation, which shows as irregular amount of hand strokes in competition performances.
• More endurance training (running, spinning). I'll need to include more lower-intensity-but-longer-duration exercises to balance the current maximum interval tortures.
• Declining and avoiding ridiculously under-resourced projects at work to avoid being deprived of frequent training routine.

Q&A

There have been some questions posted in the visitors’ comments that I have not yet had the time to answer properly. So here comes:

Major barriers that I have broken that have helped me to increase my PB on quantum leaps have been the following:

– Sprinting in the end: Numerous other divers had told me that it would be wise to maintain a constant speed till the end of the dive, and possibly even slow it down in the end. This had felt terrible to me and I was not able to dives beyond 100m using this strategy. Then I tried springing close to my max speed after 75m, and I was able to push my PB to 125 almost instantly, and it didn’t even feel as challenging as 100m with constant speed. I guess that I’m more used to dealing with lactic acids than apnea, so I still use this approach. I know that this is not something for everyone, and majority of divers reach their best performance with constant speed.

– Equipment: Previously I dived without a pool suit and with a 1^st generation monofin (simple and soft foot pockets attached to a relatively soft blade). By upgrading into a 2^nd generation Leaderfins’ Hyper (better foot pockets, stabilizing wings and stronger blade) and to a 1,5mm Elios pool suit I was able to increase my speed, especially on sprints, and to standardize my performance by avoiding the hypothermia that prevented me to do proper warm-ups (or actually relaxation-downs) and forced me to dive in minute-perfect schedule to avoid shivering. These equipment investments helped me to reach 150+ mark.

– Nutrition: Traditionally the guideline for freediving has been to avoid eating for as long as possible to drive the body into a low consumption mode. This is fine for static, but in dynamic you really need some energy as well. I started drinking some protein before going into the water, but the price was exposing myself to stomach problems. This nonetheless helped me to achieve the 175+ mark. Apparently this problem can be solved with other means as well, and I think I’ll be attempting to replace the last-hour protein simply by shorter starvation before dynamic.

Warmth has been a delicate balance for a long time. Before I got my pool suit the dives required minute-perfect schedules to do warm-ups and avoid shivering hypothermia before start. The idea was, and to some extent still is, that cool temperature causes vasocontraction (=less blood flowing on skin), which strengthens dive reflex (more blood to brains and other more important organs). The problem was, that if I got too cold and started shivering the game was over: all the muscles on the skin and abdomen started contracting in an uncontrolled way to generate heat, which is very counter-productive if you want to minimize your non-essential oxygen consumption during the actual dive. As my last 150+ DYN proved this is not as important as I had assumed, but still I prefer to be on the cool side rather than warm side before start.

Hydration has been yet another area where I’ve been using somewhat eccentric approach. Traditionally it’s been advised to ensure hydration to maintain blood pressure to reduce the risk of packing blackout as the deep inhale lowers blood pressure. But I’ve been using the slight dizziness caused by max packing to relax during the first 10-15 meters of the dynamic. A bit over a year ago however I got 2 packing blackouts (not the least bit dangerous, but still extremely destructive to performances' standardization as the air from lungs is released), and I decided it was a time to change my preparation. Since then I’ve been adding some sea salt to the protein I’ve been drinking before dives and anaerobic trainings and drunken more mineral water before dives. These measures have resulted in avoiding any dizziness and packing blackouts since then. A couple of months ago I went to my employer’s bi-annual health check and the only indicator that was out of recommended ranges was my blood pressure. Since then I’ve stopped adding salt to everything, and still I haven’t had any problems with out-blown dizziness caused by max packing. Possibly as my blood pressure normalizes I’ll need to start using salt again, but this time more conservatively.

Competition build-up - National champs

Ok, now it's time to put all the new tricks into action for next Sunday's national champs. I've announced 135m for DYN and 80m for DNF. This competition will be the official qualification event for our national team (max 3 athletes per discipline provided that they exceed 135m in DYN or 102m in DNF). There are several divers capable of reaching those minimum limits, so I'll need to go well beyond those to secure my place in the team. As some US-divers like to put it: 'Failure is not an option'.

The preparation this week has been less than perfect: the working days have been 12-16h and I haven't been training at all. I did my last aerobic training last Sunday (hard 50min spinning), and I'll be doing only some light gym workout, stretching or diving every day from today until Saturday morning.

The plan I've set myself for the competition day is more or less the following

• We'll go to Kouvola the previous day, so there is no hurry in getting to the pool in time
• I'll get up at around 8-8:30 to do some light stretching
  
• I'll eat more or less a normal breakfast at 09:00 and drink some mineral water after that (my OT:s are at 14 and at 15:50)
• I'll do some stretching on the pool and try to mentally go through the phases of the dive as many times as possible
• For warm-ups I'll do some e-diving and some very easy dynamics (max 80m and 55m)
• I'll have 7-10 min break from warm-up dives before the OT
• In DYN my targeted range is 20-45 kicks over 100m mark. 15 kicks is about 25m, so 20 kicks should take me to 135m, and 45 kicks is somewhere around 175m mark.
• In DNF my targeted range is 10-15 hand strokes past 50m mark. This accounts for 100m+turn to 125m+turn in distance. I set my AP lower (80m) because I didn't know the rest period between the two dynamics, and if I'll end up going to a max-max dive in DYN it WILL have an impact on the other dives of the day. 80m should be achievable even if I went to lactic acids at 40m mark.

The biggest risks that I fear are getting the fever back that's been bugging me during the last month and upsetting my stomach. I try to keep out of cold and avoid disrupting my eating habits until Sunday.

Urea iacta est.

Back on track

In my opinion the road to burn-out has four steps:

• First you don’t have enough time for training and other free time activities
• Second you are too tired to train even if you had the time and opportunity
• Third comes depression and loosing control of your life
• Fourth is burn-out

I’ve been twice during my studying time on the third step (while having simultaneously three jobs and maintaining full studying speed without compromising my grades), and I’ve promised myself never to go there again. As I noticed last Friday that I’ve reached step two I decided it was time for a radical change. On Saturday I did three hard exercises (monofin technique, gym, hard 50min interval running). On Sunday I was in so much pain that I didn’t do anything and instead I spent that time catching up on other neglected tasks. On Monday I restarted my morning training program (abs, push-ups, calfs(? =pohkeet in Finnish) and stretching lower back/thighs; and after work I did a hard mid-section gym exercise and a hard 60min spinning training. Yesterday I did the morning routine and after work I did some statics and decided to go for one longer dynamic with monofin. I surfaced at 154m without any problems whatsoever: no lactic acids, no stomach problems, 3sec SP. I came up there because I had promised my safety diver (Ari Kylmä) that if I did the 150m turn I would come up instantly after that. But the important part is that I broke Kalle Rajala’s standing national season best result by 1m J. Looking for your response, Kalle…

But seriously, there were some important changes to the build-up to that dive that need further examination and exploring:

1. Usually I have drunk some protein one hour before going into the pool to avoid running out of energy during the dive. Now I had only eaten at lunch (11:30) and one muffin at 14:00, and the dive was about 21:15.
2. I didn’t hydrate as well as usually before the dive.
3. The preceding work day had been quite hectic and I was still running high on adrenaline as I arrived to the pool (but relaxed fast during statics).
4. I did some long (>3min) stretching of my legs and lower back before going into the pool. My legs felt extremely relaxed after that and I could clearly feel how the locked-up muscles started relaxing and blood started flowing in completely new places in my thighs.
5. I did some easy statics as we waited for the 50m pool to be closed from the public. The statics were 3:30, 4:30 and 4:15, and none of them required any catching of breath afterwards.
6. I did 4x50m warm-ups and 6-7min pause before the long dive.
7. I used 2kg on belt and 4kg on neck.
8. I felt slightly warm before start, which shouldn’t be all that good for dive reflex, as blood circulates on skin to cool the body down.
9. Most importantly, I set the right RANGE of targeted performance to gain concentration and motivation without loosing confidence in my abilities to achieve the results. Yesterday the minimum level I set myself was 125m, which I should be able to reach even under worst possible catastrophe scenarios, and the maximum limit was the 150 + short turn. If I had set the minimum limit lower e.g. 100m I might have bailed out sooner, but the 125m forced me to ignore the first signs of apnea and push myself through them. The 150 upper limit was one that I honestly believed was well within my abilities even though it’s been a while since my last successful 150+ dive. If I had set the upper limit to e.g. 175m I might have bailed out soon after 125m because I would not have been able to convince myself that 175 is within my reach quite yet. Thanks Kalle for the briefing/lecture you gave on the mental preparation for top performances!!! This dive was only the beginning of what this mental approach can lead into!

So, ideas to be tested further in the future

• Longer break from any eating / nutrition before dives to avoid stomach problems. There is apparently no need to risk this by drinking some protein etc.
• Reserve enough time for stretching before going into the pool. Fewer and longer stretches are better than more and hasty.
• No need to worry even if I feel warm before start. At least before 150m this only a lame excuse for bailing out.
• Gradually lifting the RANGE of targeted performance as my confidence in reaching consistently the upper limits of the prevailing range is increased. It would seem that I’m already physically ready for 200+ dives, but the weak link preventing me to realize that lies between my ears.
  

Overwork , underworkout

Working has required far too much time during the last weeks, and I haven't been able to train practically at all. This week's only training was Tuesday's e-diving training (similar to last week), and I was able to reperform the 100m+ DNF, so not all hope is gone. Yet.

Other than that, the average workday has been well over 12h, so I haven't had any time nor energy left for training after such days. And now I feel so tired that I'll head straight for home although I could leave sufficiently early and I have my training stuff with me. This is FUBAR, and I'll need to do something about it and soon... I have already quit several of my other hobbies because of prolonged working hours, but that road is at it's end. I'll need to find a way to keep the working day lengths from escalating, because if I let go of freediving, that will only postpone dealing with the problems of gradually and sneakily increasing working hours.

Well, perhaps I'll manage to pull myself to training tomorrow morning, so that I can end the over 2-week break from monofin exercises.

Over and out.

Post mortem & New hope

Competition failure

So, I did the worst possible amateur mistake possible in the competition: I tried applying some new idea that I had never tried in training. This time it was drinking lemon juice on the competition morning because I had heard that it could be useful. The result: my stomach was completely messed up for the next three days, including the competition time...
Competition static failed because my 1,5mm pool suit was not warm enough to keep me from shivering already at official top, and I bailed out at miserable 4 min mark.
Competition dynamic failed because my stomach was so upset that the dive would have been... interesting if I had went further. I bailed out at around 130m, which was the competition's longest dive but still very, very far from my 200m target. Luckily the apnea or lactic acids were no problem at all on that point, and it was purely my stomach that forced me to abort the dive.

Lesson learned: No new tricks to competition, even if it is a small regional competition!

Break

Since then I've been having an unintended break from training: first my work got too hectic, and it prevented me form training for two weeks, and right after the stress was reduced I caught some flu, and was off from pool for an additional week.


DNF PB

Since last Thursday when the fever finally disappeared I've been training almost daily. Yesterday I did my first good pool exercise (e-diving in Mäkelänrinne with Ari Kylmä, Matti Luukkonen and Matti Viherlaiho) and in the end tried some DNF, just for fun. I felt very relaxed, and decided to go for one max attempt, aiming to match my previous PB of 82m. I surfaced at 109m without any difficulties whatsoever. In fact the 109 DNF felt easier than normal 109 DYN with monofin! Kinda makes me wonder the efficiency of my monofin technique... I still had a lot of room for improvement for the DNF dive:

1. My balancing was horrible. I didn't pack fully and I still was constantly floating towards the surface.
2. I didn't have any lactic acids at all.
   
3. I had done a very hard spinning exercise the day before going to max HR on multiple occasions.
   

Perhaps I should participate in DNF as well in our national champs (The standing NR is 108m...).

So: some ideas from yesterday's success to be tried in the future for DYN as well

1. I didn't eat basically anything since lunch (11:30) and the dive was at 21:00. Usually I drink some protein 1h before pool to ensure energy supply during dynamic.
   
2. I did 1,5h of STA and long e-diving for warm-ups. Usually e-dives have resulted in very early feelings of lactic acids during dynamic.
   
3. I was feeling slightly cold before the dive.

Unfortunately I will be missing the week-end's dives due to a brief skiing trip, but after that I'm going to focus on dynamic apnea without any further excuses.

Competition build-up

Data problems: My t6 has refused to give out any HR-data since last week. It seemed to have recorded all the 3 diving sessions on the weekend and Monday's spinning with HR-data, but the files transferred to PC show only altitude data. Strange.

Anyway,

Ok, I initially thought I'd avoid any proper preparation for the Saturday comp, but on second thought I decided to rehearse on it as well on this occasion. So here are the main changes to my normal training routine

• Last aerobic training was Monday's relatively hard spinning. I skipped Wednesday running to avoid risking recovery problems.
• Increased stretching; long stretching sessions on Tuesday & Wednesday. Yesterday I worked too late to have any concentration left for stretching.
• Attempting to sleep 15-30 min longer at nights to avoid sleep deficit.
• Eating as if I would be going to run a marathon (less fiber, more easily digested carbon hydrates e.g. pasta and rice) to avoid upsetting my stomach.

Today I'm going to do some technique training on monofin and possibly one or two 50-100m dynamics. Before an absolute max dive I wouldn't go anywhere near water on the last day before the attempt, but it is just such a good way to start the weekend by doing some relaxed diving and meeting training buddies.

I've announced 125m for tomorrow. My plan is to reach 100m as comfortably as possible and with as good a technique as possible, and soon after that start my acceleration phase. I've missed all the opportunities for long dives during the last week because of an upset stomach or crammed-up swimming pools, so I don't have that good an idea on what will happen after that. My guess is that I'll be able to dive 150+ if nothing dramatic goes wrong, but 175 is most likely too much on this attempt.

BTW: If i manage to find an open 'specialty' equipment store today I might be making an unofficial STA WR tomorrow (20min or so)...

Off to diving.

E-Diving & STA

Safety: Jussi, Tero and Anne
Place: Mäkelänrinne (5m pool)
Agenda: Testing diving equipment, e-diving, STA
Weights: No

I have not used HR monitors while diving very often, because the Suunto t6 doesn't work that well under water, but wearing both the belt and the watch under my pool suit seemed to work quite nicely. Even the altitude function worked well and gave some indication on my depth. It is interesting to see that the static apneas on the surface are visible on the altitude graph, and the last static is not, because I moved the watch to the side instead of keeping it next to my chest.

Anyway,

The first four dives were miscellaneous equipment testing. Nothing special except that all the tested stuff worked just fine.

Then there are 7 e-dives with progressively deepening exhales, and the final ones are with max. negative packing. nice to see that the dive reflex kicks in so strongly (lowered pulse) even though I haven't been diving lately so much.

Finally there are 3 static apnea dives. 1 3-min warm-up, 1 4-min warm-up and 1 failed 4-min 'long' static. During the warm-ups the pulse drops quite nicely, but the most interesting thing is that right in the end of the 4-min warm-up, when the uncomfortable area begins at 3:30, the pulse drops very rapidly. Unfortunately I bailed out too soon to see what it would have done next. The final static didn't feel right, and the HR-graph shows it too: much slower HR-drop, which resulted in bailing out after 4:00. These HR-graphs of static dives are completely new to me. Now it is interesting to test

1. what happens to my HR after4:00, and
2. what caused the high HR in the last attempt (my guess is poor concentration)

Looking forward to get more data this weekend...

Spinning 9.1.2007

Warm-up:

• Pull-ups with 10kg x 8
  
• Lower abs with weights x 60
• Upper abs no weight x 60
• Stretching legs
  

50 min Spinning, attempting to keep the HR below 180, but loosing it in the end.

These dry exercises are OK, but still looking very much forward to start training in the pool more frequently as these compulsory week-end activities seem to finally coming to an end...

Hopefully I'll get some e-dive & STA training on Thursday and DYN on Friday to Sunday.

Interval running 3.1.2007

Back to work(out)


First decent training session since X-mas break:

• Stretching legs, back, neck and arms
• Interval running on treadmill
  
• 10min x 10km/h
• 10min x 16km/h
• 10min x 10km/h
• 10min x 16km/h
• 5min x 10km/h
• 1,5min x 17,5km/h
• 1,5min x 19km/h
• Stretching thighs

Comments:

• Too high heart rate: I won't be increasing the speed yet from 16km/h.
• Optimal training effect: Legs feel tired the next day, but I think I can recover fully in two days.
• Mentally very easy; didn't require pushing at any phase, and 16km/h feels very comfortable.
  
• No sign of the slight pain in knee that has troubled me during Christmas break. Obviously my knees just weren't able to handle the extra weight I put on by eating for the whole week without training at all ;).

Project setup

"No, life may not be easy... Yet we must always remember, it's the challenges that define us best and the obstacles that illuminate what we're truly capable of. We must welcome adversity and embrace struggle, and no matter what we get from life, never give less than 100%."

- Jim Profit

I have decided to dive over 200m in dynamic apnea (i.e. horizontal distance diving without breathing apparatus) in 2007. My standing personal best is 178m in April of 2006 after a focused training period. I want to dive over 200m because a firm goal that is beyond my current capabilities improves training motivation and because I simply enjoy intensely the feeling of diving long and deep dives.

This blog is my training diary as I prepare for this goal. This blog focuses on one extremely small niche area in freediving, namely competitive result-oriented dynamic apnea. Freediving is much, so much more than this, so I advise any occasional readers of this blog to view also other sites for more information about safe and more easily approachable forms of freediving. You can also contact me if you want some pointers on trying out this sport in a safe way.

This project would be impossible if I felt I would currently be close to my limits. I have also previously done determined projects to develop my diving (for example building up to the standing 178m PB), so I have already picked several of the low-hanging fruits. Still I see that since my last record dive I have found more areas needing clear improvement, that will hopefully be enough to put me beyond the 200m barrier:

1. Training long dives consistently: Previously I have done progressively lengthening dives from 2 months before a target competition. From now on I will be doing max and close-to-max dives more frequently over the year. This will prepare me both mentally and physically for braking the 200m barrier and it will give me early information if I am neglecting some aspect in my training that would develop into a weak link if left unattended.
   
2. Improving technique: Up till a few months ago I apparently had no idea what to do with a monofin even though I have been swimming with one for over 4 years. I feel, and my watch agrees with me, that I have gained speed while reducing the physical work required for diving. This is surely going to add to my performance if I'm able to repeat it on my max dives.
3. Pushing the limits: Previously I have been hysterically cautious about being clearly within my safety margins while diving. When I started freediving over 6 years ago I had one small samba after a 80m dynamic, and it demotivated me for more than a year as I started to feel anxious every time my dive went beyond the obvious comfort zone. Now with about 6 years' experience of 100% safety record I feel confident enough to start pushing my limits again without the risk of demotivation if one dive does not go perfectly as planned. I will still not think sambas, and not to mention blackouts, are acceptable. However, the only way to locate your weakest link is to be close to your limits. I have seen several of the world's best divers perform 200+ dynamics, and I am positive that each and every one of them are pushing their limits much more than I have ever pushed them in freediving. Thus I don't think I can afford to overlook this area of development anymore. The meters gained by pushing the limits would not be possible if I didn't have 100%-trust on my training buddies. This will require that we keep on regularly rehearsing for safety procedures as a normal part of our training routine.
   

There are also other areas of improvement, but for the time being I feel that these are the most important ones. I'll update the list and/or change their relative weights when I get more information on my weakest links' locations and how the exercises I make start having effect on them.

The next milestone for me will be the Hervanta Underground Apnea on 20th of January
(http://www.freedivecentral.com/c-underground-apnea-23). Where I will attempt a max dive with my current status without that much altering my training routine before that. Based on the information I get from there I will make the necessary adjustment to my training program and write more about it in here.

But now off to patching up my monofin before it falls apart for overuse...

-EeroS