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
