National champs video

So, if this uploads correctly this should provide the video footage of my NR dive there. A couple of comments on the video:

• The technique is surprisingly good, taking into account that I had used that mono and 2-kick and glide - style for only 4 times ...
• I still do the knee-kick, but with this kick-glide technique it is not anymore that critical
• Upper body is quite stable and balanced.
  
• I'll manage to maintain surprisingly steady and relaxed pace throughout the dive, which is extremely good!
  
• The mono is slightly too hard, as my knees keep opening on every kick, but this could only be due to the lack of training with this fin. I have trained lower abs quite much, so I should be able to manage this strength better from now on.
  
• The mono blade is very well done and bends very evenly
• I have to work more on my ankle flexibility, as that is the weakest link preventing more hydrodynamic gliding position
• The surface protocol looks as easy as it felt back then. Some more experience on 175+ dives, and then shooting for the 200m mark... :)

For the coming summer the main emphasis will though be on another freediving project: www.dive4aid.net (English pages should be up and running after weekend). Long story short: two training friends and I are planning to collect money for charity (MS-disease and Leukemia) by attempting to break all the Finnish men's depth diving national records in Menorca this July-August. We're planning to update the training diary almost daily, so keep postes over there. And feel free to contribute :).

-EeroS

Recap - Pool national champs 2008

Ok… One job requiring overly intensive time allocation could be interpreted as bad luck or something similar and innocent, but two in a row is a sign of some unconscious masochistic perversion. Then again, I have some seriously ambitious goals also (or should I say ESPECIALLY) in working, so some extra efforts are required there as well in order to earn the privilege to play with the big boys. So training remains a tight balancing act between working and other commitments for the foreseeable future, but enough of that. Just understand that setting up my computer after working day is often not the first thing on my mind, so updates can occasionally be few and far in between… Anyway

By the time of my last entry I was approaching the final build-up stages in my build-up to national championships with at monofin that was falling apart with every kick I made. We were supposed to have a training camp with the national team with plenty of dedicated pool time. The problem was that the make-shift patches I had made did not hold, and I did not dare dive at all in the training camp with it. And to make things worse I had some annoying pain in my shoulder that prevented any DNF attempts. So, weekend of recreational diving and pizza for me. Bad luck but I managed to live through the disappointments. The other finalization trainings went to hell also: hypothermia, colliding with a scuba diver on max attempt, bailing out prematurely due to lack of concentration… Not exactly the kind of stuff to boost confidence and motivation prior to a big comp.

Then I FINALLY received the monofin I had ordered from Polyorg. 13 months after ordering. Yes, THIRTEEN. ONE-THREE. Additionally the monofin I finally received was not the one I had ordered: I had ordered a Russian Hyperfin with a clear extension that comes below the heel that gives a free upper kick, but instead I got a regular Waterway replica (?). No heel-extension, and the quality is not exactly top-notch, since some glue connections are already ripping apart… But, even though it was at least a temporary improvement to my previous monofin: The new monofin did not feel comfortable in constant kicking (too hard blade) or in kick-and-glide (too steep angle in foot pocket causing inefficient start position for the kick), but for 2-kick-and-glide style similar to Dave Mullins’s technique it was the best mono I had ever tried: first small kick to get the position right and then the second slightly harder kick to truly capitalize the extremely well-fitting foot pocket connected to a hard blade followed by a long glide where the steep angle keeps the mono in a hydrodynamic position. After getting the first feel of the mono I started to understand how Stig is able to do 50m with fewer than 10 kicks, and that it is not even all that hard a goal for me either!!! I knew it would be a big risk to use a new and fundamentally different mono in a big competition with less than 5 times using it in water, but the benefits were just so clear that I was ready to take that risk.

The last week before the comp I had trouble arranging any quality water time, but all of a sudden I got the perfect chance when the safety organization was doing their finalization training in the official 50m comp pool a few days before the comp. Long story short: I did comp-like preparations (concentration, stretching etc.), warm-up dives and had a go for it. I dove about 160m without any problems whatsoever. I have had several 50m dives that have felt more challenging than that one. I stopped at that point because I had no recent experience in long dives, and because it was enough to outdo Jyri Vehmaskoski’s unofficial national season best of 155m ;). So, some confidence was regained just in time for the Comp.

The actual preparations for the competition went without any incidents: spotting Antero and Aleksi for their statics, stretching, concentrating, hydrating etc. along the day. Then came my turn to do the DNF I had signed up months ago. I hadn’t done ANY DNF trainings for almost a year, and I was totally focused on DYN, so I had no urge to do the DNF in the first place. But I did start it even though I still don’t know why I did it. At the first contractions at 50m I started wondering what the hell I was doing there, and since I was not able to come up with a reason I ended the dive in 66m to save my strength for the main course. I was happy to see that the newer guys who have been training very hard on DNF were generally able to perform well in the comp: Atte and Jone got their first national medals and Mikko Pöntynen took the title with a new national record of about 130m. There was no way I would have had the guts to go that far without any routine on longer dives, so retrospectively thinking I had no chance to renew my title and record in DNF that time.

Then off to the main course, DYN. I kept myself warm, hydrated, focused and positive for the entire time before the dive. At 20min before OT I put the mono on, did 2x60m training dives to test the technique, and then sat on the side of the pool with the mono on until my OT. The waiting time was easy to arrange since I’m back to using my wet suit (minor inconvenience during diving is more than offset by the assurance that hypothermia will not kill my dive), and because the foot pocket is comfortable for up to 30min even though it fits like a glove. The start went well, no packing dizziness or problems with the timing of the start to OT-window. Instantly at the start I felt total relaxation during the long glide phases and I just kept enjoying the Flow through liquid :). At 80m I started to anticipate the uncomfortable zone, and it came at 90m but since I was so well focused I was able to shake it off already during the next glide phase, so at 95m point I was again totally in the comfort zone. As nothing unexpected happened until 110m I was sure that I would be making it to 150m. I did not feel any need to accelerate as the gliding was feeling so relaxing, but I think that out of some bad habit I was not able to glide quite as much towards the end of the dive. So, the main focus for the dive from 125m point on was to ensure glide position, relax and enjoy the glide, and before each kick pair to do a quick status check on lactic acids and O2-warnings. I felt the first lactic acids at 145m, but for the remainder of the dive I was able to shake them off completely during the glides. For what came to the O2-warnings that I had been so cautiously been preparing for, they never appeared!!! I just kept on kicking and gliding from 150m looking for some signs of O2-warnings, but nothing happened! Instead, I came to the point where the pool depth dropped once again from about 2m to about 1,2m, and I had beforehand decided that no matter what I felt at that point I would end the dive there since it would be a safe place to do SP as I would be able to stand firmly on the bottom. So, in the last few meters I aimed more for the bottom profile than for going forward that I almost lost my way to the next lane, but apparently it didn’t matter since I was able to perform the SP without any problems, and felt instantly after that I could have gone much, much further: Mild lactic acids and STILL no O2-warnings!!! The final distance was 184m, which was a new NR, and was enough to renew my national title with almost 30m margin. The dive was filmed, and it has been processed into a DVD that should be available any time now, so I’m looking to attach that video here as well, but remembering that computers hate me as much as I hate them I wouldn’t hold my breath while waiting for it.

So, after a big comp the first objective is to counter the unavoidable training hung-over, but since I had seriously been preparing for the competition only a few days the back-lash was short as well. I started training again within a week, still focusing on relaxation and fun rather than distance. Now my aim is to do multiple reps to 175m to gain routine and confidence for that distance and not go for 200m before I have had at least 5 successful and strong 175m dives. Looking back last summer I had performed only a few strong 150+ dives and then went straight for the 200m mark, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.

Unfortunately our indoor pool sessions end now for some weeks, so I’m forced to do more of other trainings for some time now. But luckily after that the Olympic outdoor swimming pool opens, and I’ll be having a chance to dive in a 50m constant depth pool once a week, so something good to look forward to.

Additionally some friends and I have planned another quite different diving project for this summer, but more on that when we have structured our thoughts better regarding it…

PS. THANX for your comments and encouragements!!! They have been a great source of confidence and motivation when I have been having some bad luck or other mentally challenging periods. Hopefully I can repay part of that by giving some possibly useful ideas / insights to the things that I have found useful in freediving.

Long time no see

It’s been a while since my last entry. The break from updating this blog began because I was out of contact with my computer for the remainder of the summer. After that I’ve intentionally refrained myself from updating this blog since it could have led to misunderstandings while I was applying for a new job. After all, freediving is only a hobby for me, but while analyzing my development as a diver and obstacles for training the work-imposed issues keep coming up quite frequently, and I have the bad habit of using harsh language to describe it that could be interpreted negatively from the part of potential employers. Anyway, I’m starting in my new job next week, so I can write more freely about my training once more.

So, I’ve been training consistently all this time but I’ve also made some fundamental changes in my training routines and weightings.

The first impulse to change my current practices came from a course that Martin Stepanek gave to a bunch of Finnish freedivers in the beginning of fall. The main take-aways that I got were the

1. Systematic and disciplined training focus that had strong resemblances to other competitive sports training.
2. Identifying and working on more clearly separated dimensions of diving (CO2-tolerance, adaptation, technique…).
3. Focusing on providing the body the prerequisites for reacting to the training in a way that is beneficial to freediving i.e. by recovery nutrition and hydration.

These may seem like self-evident observations, but Martin had developed the first two into a completely new level that I want to pursue myself as well. The third had been embarrassingly neglected aspect in my training until then: basically I had just typically gone to bed after training without ANY nutrition that the body could have used to rebuild itself after training! No wonder my development had been so slow!

The second impulse came when Susanna Saari organized the Finnish national team the possibility to take part in a comprehensive and professionally organized physical condition and body structure test. The results were for me quite devastating and disappointing. Although I had been training relatively hard, and I thought that I would have been in a comparable shape to that of my navy year the results indicated that I was almost on an average level compared to normal recreational athletes. My relative O2 intake was 52,8 ml/kg/min, and my lactate was 14,58 which is not much compared to my training amount. This got me recalling a course that Sebastien Murat gave us a year back when he told us that at his peak condition his max O2 intake was similar to a 12-year old girl: So low max O2 intake can be a sign of a body that is well adapted to perform under low blood pO2-conditions, so nothing to be worried yet. Then came the aerobic and anaerobic thresholds, 121 and 171 bpm respectively. So, when I stand up, my aerobic threshold is exceeded, and basically ALL my endurance training (interval running, spinning etc. had been well above my anaerobic threshold. That is, I have no base condition to speak of, which is a poor ground to build other training routines. Finally there was the body composition analysis. There the effects of my vegetarian (occasional fish and eggs) diet and poor emphasis on post-training nutrition intake were clear as day: the composition was healthy in general, but I had absolutely no muscle mass to speak of: 36kg of muscle out of 73kg total weight, which is only slightly above the normal population’s average although I honestly claim that I train more that the average guy… In comparison, Lauri Lilja, who is about 5-10cm taller had 12kg more absolute muscle, and even Mikko Pöntinen who confessed that he trained very little strength exercises had more muscle than I did. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been bothered by these results, since excess muscle mass only consumes unnecessarily much oxygen, that should be reserved for the brains, right? Then I recalled, that some of the world’s best divers are currently not shying away from building up muscles (Herbert, Martin, Stig). I figure this has to do with developed dive reflexes that restrains blood circulation to muscles, so that muscle mass is not, if well prepared, counterproductive to freediving, and can even be advantageous repository of energy needed for long dives.

So, what should I do with these new insights on my training’s impact? At first I was stunned and demoralized for a while after it occurred to me just how much unproductive work I had done, how much unnecessary pain I had endured and how much development I had missed. Then, slowly I began taking into effect the revised training practices:

1. Nutrition drink before and after training composing mostly of carbon hydrates and some protein to enable my body to develop after the training. The results have been amazing: I feel very energetic during training, and I have swiftly reached some milestones of physical strength that have eluded me for years although I haven’t been training on strength as much as before.
2. Technique training with small training fins to focus training effect on the most wanted muscle groups. The other reason for this emphasis is that my monofin is falling apart, and the replacement I ordered from Polyorg 19.2.2007 (yes, more than a year ago) is nowhere to be found and the guy responsible does not even bother answering my emails anymore… Let’s just hope that the patched monofin holds together for a few more weeks.
3. O2 tolerance and dive reflex training. I began this by doing empty-lung statics, but progressed in doing empty-lung static at the bottom of a pool followed by a dynamic apnea, usually 45sec static and 30-50m dynamic with small fins. This is an excellent exercise to develop dive reflex (hr drops below 40 during static, and does not rise above 50 during dynamic), to teach the body to operate under low O2-levels, and to increase awareness to what it feels like when a DYNAMIC dive goes near LMC/BO-limits (very different from a static dive’s warnings, as I unfortunately found out during my last competition DNF dive…). A strong word of warning however: DO NOT DO THIS ALONE! NOT ONCE! EVER! These dives end up systematically very close to LMC-limits, and personally I trust only a handful of dive buddies so much that I am willing to do these trainings at all: I’ve been training with these guys for several years and without exception all of them are competitive divers themselves as well. Basically these exercises are THE most dangerous things I have ever done in water, and I strongly recommend avoiding them unless you have trained freediving consistently for at least 5 years. A safer variant of the same exercise can be done out of water as well: empty-lung crouch jumps: 4x25 + 5x20 = 200 jumps. Trust me, you know when you have done this set of exercises…
4. Additionally I’ve been including some base endurance training to my weekly program as well: 1x hour+ jogging session at average hr of 145 and some relaxed swimming as well. I have tried to take the intensity down in spinning and squash as well, but but with little success so far.

So, now I need to see how well this all is coming together to aid my overall freediving abilities. The next real test should be our national championships on 23.3. Before that we’ll be having national team’s diving camp this weekend, which I'll devote to training my competition readiness. Let’s see how things are coming together. My expectations are very high, assuming that I can overcome the psychological barriers related to long dives that I haven’t been working on at all for several months now.