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.