Day zero

I finally dragged myself to see a doctor. There's been wrist related pain for, well, eight years. I think it's time to get it checked out. After straining it, it wakes me up in night for some throbbing pain. Not nice.

Same time I also ordered some bloodworks to get hemoglobin and cholesterol values. I also got spirometry to check my VC. First time for me. My FVC was 5,9l and with some packing I got 6,3l. Other specs looked okay also. Not massive lungs, but just average for my size. I do still have some flu left, so it might have been a factor to the results. I think it would be interesting to re-do it in few months and see if anything has changed.

Weight +-0kg

Yoga and diet

Last night I figured it out. I really have to start training. There is national comp in two and half months. Main thing I want to improve is my yoga training and diet. I've been hitting Breatheology pretty hard. I've done some yoga previously but with Stig's straightforward explanation things seem to come together.

My management coach (yes, I do have one for now) keeps telling me to plan my goals and things I want to improve. List the things that enforce strong positive emotions, reasons for your work towards your goal and benefits of achieving it. Improving diet and dropping some weight seems the most trivial exercise for it. While improving my technique, relaxation and apnea abilities is important part of training. Proper diet should support this all. Here goes:

My goal is to lose 4kg of body mass before the national competition. This can be divided to intermediate goals:

• 2kg's per month. 
• 0,5kg per week
• energy intake of -500kcal / day
• Adding more fruit and veg to the diet
• Increasing yoga to twice a week

Direct benefits of doing so will be:

• Improved dive time by
• Lowered blood pressure
• Lowered resting heart rate
• Lowered metabolism
• Improved VO2 max
• Increased energy levels
• Positive mental effect that I've reached my goal

Introduction of more fruit and vegetables to diet will bring also benefits:

• More antioxidants
• More alkaline diet
• Improved intake of nutrients and minerals
• Better digestion

 Increasing weekly yoga will benefit by:

• Increased flexibility
• Improved relaxation
• Improved concentration
• Improved dive

Tools to follow up the progress towards the goal:

• Following the weight development in my training diary
• Determining daily nutrient intake and adjusting it accordingly 
• Creating new yoga routine, which can be done in 45mins and includes pranayama exercises

Yes and you should reward yourself somehow for achieving the goal.  Something important and concrete. When I will reach my goal, I will acquire that boat trailer for my small fishing boat. This will enable me to do some fantastic off-shore spearfishing trips to any lake nearby. I am so waiting for the spearfishing season to start...

Benefits of freediving

It's been few weeks since my last post. Goran Colak's training weekend is over. I took some important stuff with me. Even though my progress has been quite fast, I recognized that this sport takes years to master. I don't feel discouraged by it, but feel sort of humbled. First day was mostly about importance of swimming technique and training which benefits your freediving technique in DYN and DNF. It's a completely different sport and I really felt lost during the drills. Swimming and proper technique is at the moment non-existing and I will work on them during summer when the waters open.

Yeah and week ago we did photography session under ice. It was nice experience but not so much hard diving. Place was a bit shallow but the overall experience was awesome (including sauna afterwards). It was -22c when we started and got a bit warmer (-15c) in the afternoon.

I compiled a presentation for next sunday for the rest of freedivers in our club. This was something we promised to do to share the knowledge and I was happy to do it. When you write down things related to training, metal preparation, nutrition and planning, it acts as a strong mental reinforcement. I think I have pretty good and solid package of information which is useful from beginner to more experienced freediver.

I received my Breatheology also at last. I've started to read it. There is lot's of information about health effects of Pranayama. Slowing down and deepening your breathing seems to have multitude of effects to your circulation, blood pressure, mental abilities and overall health. There is similarities to hypoxic training which is used in many other sports. Hypoxic training is traditionally done in high altitude or simulated high altitude, but it has some unwanted effects (like loss of muscle mass). There is also interval hypoxia training (IHT), which can be done with equipment. IHT is done by breathing air with less oxygen in intervals (5min on/off). SpO2 is monitored and maintained at target 85-90%. With hypoxic training your body functions with less oxygen, but more importantly with more co2 which seems to be trigger for the beneficial functions in the body

As a freediver I should be able to do this nearly similar without any equipment. I've done some simple exercises and can maintain breathing rate of 1 breath / min pretty easily. I get 5-10 contractions at the end of the hold and do single normal breath. I would need oxymeter to check how much my Sp02 drops (I don't think it drops much). More importantly the drill should create elevated co2 level, which creates the training effect. This was actually recommended by Goran as co2 training drill for 30-45min. You can also include any type of light physical activity to introduce lactic tolerance to to the drill. Anyway it's all very interesting and requires more looking in to.