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.