Routine dry 7:00 :)

Heh, I wish I could say I hit "routinely" 7 minutes...But it seems that lately it has not been such an impossible number. I guess the biggest obstacle was my head. Now that I've shown my self it can be done, it's not a big deal anymore, and I can hit it more often.

But it's kind of silly. What separates 6:59 and 7:00 from each other is one lousy second. If you were to thing about it as 419 vs 420 it wouldn't seem such a big deal. But for some reason, that limit was really hard to break.

Anywho, here's what I did:
6:06 (3:14/70) no warmup
2:40 FRC
5:05 (3:45/20) (WTF?)
7:00 (4:20/60)

Obviously the last one was done with some hyperventilation, evidenced by the late contractions. My next goal is to find a breathup, where I'll get 1st contraction around 3:45-4:00 and be able to hold until 7.

Looking at the numbers, it seems my contraction rate is getting slower. I rarely break 100 anymore, but spend similar times under contractions. Wonder why that is...

I won't be at the pool on wednesday (I'm taking an ice-diving scuba course :) and on sunday it is closed. Looks like long break ahead. But since I'm getting a bit worn out again, I think I'll use that time to have a total break from apnea from wednesday for the rest of the week (with the possible exception of dynamics on sat morning, if I have time)

Wet 6:58 with samba

Pool day again. In our training "program" (very loose term there), sunday is for max static with warmup (on wed, no warmup).

My warmup was
3:00 static
2:30 FRC

The 2:30 was so easy that I knew this was a good day.
On my first max attempt I hit 6:58. But I must've hyperventilated too much. Contractions came very late (4:30-4:45) and I only took 50 of them. As a result I had a slight samba.

But still, this is very encouraging, now I know for sure I'll get 7:00 some day wet too.

I then did another one of around 6:15, but obviously I was drained from the first one...

Redeemed

Ok, I consider my self redeemed from yesterdays fiasco. I could only barely hit 6:00 on the first, but it's still pretty good for no warmup. But on the third I made 7:15, very cool.

So:
6:05(2:50/100)
6:33(4:15/80)
7:15(4:15/85)

So on my best hold I'll have about 3 minutes of contractions. I still hyperventilate a little, but not as much as I used to. Even though I'm not reaching my pb's on no-warmup style, I believe that is the key factor in my training that has enabled these improvements. It has enabled me to ventilate less and tolerate more contractions. I imagine at somepoint I will revert totally to no-warmup, but right now the success is just too sweet :)

Bah...

Last night at the pool sucked. I did 2 statics: 5:45 and 6:00 and a dynamic of about 85m.

The only good thing from it is, that I've got a pretty good idea what went wrong.

The most important factor was eating. I ate way too late. I was planning on eating a banana about 2 hours prior, but that turned out to be 45 mins because I forgot it :) Also I drank way too much tea during the day. This (and I know this from before) gets me into a state, where I'll have this acidic slightly burning sensation in my throat when diving. I could feel it even before I hit contractions, but it made contractions very hard to bear. I think I reached about 50 on the last hold, which is 50 short of what I can usually do. Hypoxia-vise I was feeling all right, but just couldn 't handle the co2. I'm sure I'll reach decent times today...

For dynamic I was feeling better already. The reason that sucked was that I packed more air than usual and swam closer to the surface (usually I'll swim at about 3 metres). This caused be to float up constantly and especially at the turns I would rise up. After the 75 turn I felt my back hit the surface, so I just sort of quit because it felt pointless.

Well, you can't nail it every time, but that's why we practise :)

Whoa

I was expecting improvement over yesterday, but not quite this much. I wonder what's going on with my body, I'm especially worried about not being able to reproduce this. Today I just felt...Fresh. That's the best way I can describe it. Even at the end I didn't as much feel uncomfortable as just "now it's time to stop". I had very late and infrequent contractions even though I didn't hyperventilate much.

So here:
6:38(3:15/100) no-warmup (new now warmup pb)
7:10(4:15/80) new dry pb.

Very very cool. Of course this puts high expectations on tomorrow. We'll see...

Starting again

Ok, back to dry statics. Having a break was a good decision, now I feel motivated again.
Considering I've just come back from a break, I did pretty good today:
6:06 (3:00/80) (no warmup)
5 min break
6:30(4:15/67)

Looking forward to improving that within the next few days :)

Break

Today I did 2 statics at the pool 6:15 and 6:21. I was using my shortsleeved suit, but I stayed in the water without the suit pretty long before starting (spotting one diver in dynamic), and I was actually pretty cold. On the second static I felt good and propably could've pushed hypercapnia-vise longer, but I was starting to notice some sambaish symptoms so I came up. I guess being too cold also affects oxygen consumption plus cold blood releases oxygen less (but I doubt my blood was actually "colder")

Now I'll take a break for the rest of the week on statics. On saturday we'll go do some dynamics and sunday's time has been cancelled...So next wet static will be in a week.

FRC pb

Well, I did 6:00(3:15/100) on my first hold (no warmup), which was ok.
I tried another, but it sucked, I quit around 5:40 feeling very much "why bother"-ish, that was some 35 contractions in.

Obviously I wasn't going to hit 7, my head just wasn't together, so I tried something I haven't done in a while: a max FRC hold. I pushed to 3:30 realatively easy, but was obviously quite close to samba, as I had trouble remembering the numbers when I was trying to write them down right after the hold. But still, that's a new pb.

As I'm getting tired both mentally and physically as well as very acidic as a whole, I'll take a break after tomorrows pool static again, until sunday.

2 Dry PBs

Ok cool. I got my "no-warmup" pb to 6:20 and I was happy for the day already. But I decided to do 2 more and what do you know, I hit 7:01 on the last one.

So:
6:20(3:30/110) no warmup
5 minute rest
5:10 (3:30/30) (packed too much and just had to bail...Felt horrible)
5 minute rest
7:01 (3:50(80)

On the last hold I packed just on the comfort level, feeling very slightly uncomfortable (I usually pack up to very uncomfortable on a max). Contractions were very smooth in the beginning. I almost enjoyed the first 30 or so, and not very frequent. I did hyperventilate quite much for the last one, so that was to be expected. But I guess I must have been quite acidic to begin with, since even with agressive hyperventilation contractions started at 3:50. I have been training quite a bit in the last week, so perhaps a week or so is needed to "peak" in the buffering effect...

New training schedule

Me and a buddy decided we'll start training "seriously" for the next competition in april. We found a time, saturday at 08:00-10:00 which we can also use, since the whole pool is free for scuba training. At normal hours the staff at the pool don't like it too much if you just jump in with a mono...So now we have 3 days a week. Wed, Sat and Sun for training. We made a crude program to follow, but the best thing about the deal is that we supervise each other 50% of the time, so the other can dedicate himself totally to the training for that period. Then, we switch after some time. At the start, the program looks like this.

Wed:
No warmup max static me
No warmup max static buddy
Max dynamic (with preparation) me
Max dynamic (with preparation) me

Sat:
5*80% dynamic buddy
5*80% dynamic me
other fun stuff if time

Sun:
Max static me (with or without warmup, divers choise)
Max static buddy (with or without warmup, divers choise)
Dynamic technique training, n* 25-50m
Max dynamic me
Max dynamic buddy
Once every month we'll do a "simulated competition" on sunday, where both will do max static and dynamic with a countdown and "official start".

Looks good if we can keep it up...

So yesterday we did 5*80%, which for me is 80m. It was a good session despite having to slalom around some scuba divers :)

Today:
1:30 FRC static
3:30 static (30 contractions)
5:00 static (3:00/50)
6:25 static (4:15/70).
So I tried a normal warmup style. I have to say even though I firmly believe no-warmup is better training, this is so much more fun...

And followed by 100m dynamic+some tech training...

I think this arrangement works really well. I can just concentrate on making full effort and not worry about who's going to spot me or is someone going to ask me to spot them soon or anything...

Basic drys

Nothing special, did pretty much the same thing as yesterday, but with more humble results. Couldn't really get my head together. Still, these are ok times...
5:46(3:21/100)
6:10(4:10/65)
6:29(4:00/85)

About 5 minutes rest between each.

I think that a break of 1-2 days would be in order. At least tomorrow I'll be doing no statics, perhaps on sunday a wet one...

The hunt begins!

Whoa, hmm...Where to start. First of all, 7-mintute static number 1! Wohoo!

Ok, here's how:
5:56(2:55/130) (by 2:55/130 I mean 1st contraction at 2:55 and 130 contractions)
10 minutes rest
6:06(3:57/80)
5 minutes rest
7:00 (4:15/100).

Of course I'm extatic about reaching 7. Now the hunt for 8 seems so much more realistic, and as I've said, that's my ultimate goal. But it's kind of a bummer that just when I though I'm closing the gap between warmup and no-warmup performance, my warmup performance jumps 10 sec.

But I'm quite happy with the first static too. 3 minutes of contractions and almost 6 minutes total, and I didn't even really pack for that one. Cool...

I've seen this now a bunch of times: I seem to hit pb's after unusually heavy training and doing even 2 max attempts previous to that. This seems to contradict everything I "know" about statics. Very weird. In any case, it would make sense that I would be able to perform even better, if I just could hit that with the first or second hold and with less of a warmup.

Right now this feels good though, so I'll keep doing this training: absolute max attempt on the first and focus on that. Then do 1-2 following if it feels good. But my aim is to improve the first, not the third...

Anyway, wohoo!

Betrayed by own expectations

Ok, let's get it out of the way: last nights pool session sucked. I barely squeezed 5:45 that was after some serious struggling.

The thing is, I went it expecting to do 6:30+, encouraged by tuesdays result. I was loaded all day, just waiting to get in to the pool. I messed up on eating, fasting too long, not wanting to ruin it. At the pool I just dove right in, did a quick, agitated warm up and was far too excited to calm down properly. I packed too much and in the end when I realized that I was not going to make seven minutes or whatever, I came up at 5:15. After spotting another diver, I calmed down and did the 5:45, but I really should be hitting 6+ now every session if I intend to progress at all...

Well, still, it's a learning experience. First I thought that the right way to go is to never shoot for a pb, just "let them happen". Then again, this is the closest I've gotten to "competition stress" in training, so this type of thing might actually be good for preparing for a competition. Even when excited, you should be able to gather your self and perform a solid 90%+.

Oh well, that was that, now I'm back to no-warmup training. I'll be doing something tonight, let's see how that goes...

New dry pb

Ok, following yesterdays pattern I did:
5:51(2:53/100) no warmup
10 minutes rest
5:48(3:37/70)
5 minutes rest
6:50(4:20/100)

I've reached 6:50 a couple times before, but I always thought it was kind of bordering on samba. No symptoms this time though. For the last hold I stretched my diaphragm as it was feeling quite pooped for about 20 secods, which is essentially an empty lung static. It felt better and I was able to put up with more contractions. Hard to say if it was because of that or just some other effect.

I was going to do only 2 holds, but I was so dissapointed with the second one, I decided to do one more. Obviously the last one cannot be considered "no-warmup". In fact that's a pretty damn hard warmup, doing 2 holds to the absolute max before. I think that was far from optimum, so tomorrow at the pool I'm going to try something like this: 4-5 min no warmup static (say 20 contractions), 2 min FRC, rest 4-5 minutes and then max attempt. So definately warmup, but a lot shorter than I used to do.

Drys

I'm starting to get bored with the "one breathold per day" method and don't feel like it's enough of a workout. To keep my motivation up, I've decided that I'll try a max time on wednesday at the pool, so today and tomorrow I'm doing statics in series again to get my buffers up.

So today I did:
5:51 (3:16/100) no warmup
6:23 (3:57/80)
6:05 (4:04/80)

For the trial on wednesday I plan to to one FRC as a warmup+pack stretching. We'll see what happens. I know this is slipping from the "no-warmup" religion, but currently I perform best with warmup, so I'll allow my self this one. Let's hope I don't lose motivation in the no-warmup training though (which I have to say, is mentally really tough).

Pool statics

I did 5:45(~3:00/100) if felt that that wasn't enough training, so I rested about 10 minutes and did a 6:20(4:00/60), with a bit more ventilation. That doesn't count as a no-warmup static though.

It was obvious that I was more clear headed on the first hold, on the second I kept losing count of contractions after 30.

It's also clear that I still perform better with a warmup. But I'll keep training in the no-warmup style and hopefully that will change over time. If I was at a competition right now though, I'd definately do a short warmup, perhaps one FRC static or something.

One thing I've noticed happens with warmup is that I start to lose sense of time. Without warmup, it seems like the first 3 minutes take for ever. With warmup I'll often be surprised when I get the first mark at 4 minutes, expecting it to be 2 minutes or so.

Some progress

Feeling much better after some long nice sleep. It's easy to see it now, but yesterday all in all was not a very good day.

This morning I did 5:33(2:33/120), reaching almost my peak again. Cool...

I've been trying to apply this "no-warmup" approach to other areas in life, but the girlfriend wasn't too happy ;)

Today's training

I did 5:00(2:20/60). That's ok I guess, but I don't seem to be making much progress. I can manage 2:30-3:00 minutes of contractions, but that's just it. Then again, this week has been pretty broken and what not.

Anyway, the curious thing is that I almost halved my contraction rate. I usually hold my epiglottis open during contractions and thus use my cheecks as a sort of "mini breathing bag". I didin't do that this time and it slowed contractions down considerably. I wonder what's going on there...
Didn't seem to affect the total time though, so I don't know...I also tried exhaling a bit at the tought end of contractions and it does seem to bring some relief. But the effect is not very long (perhaps 10 seconds at most).

Shifting gears again

The "no-warmup static" discussion at deeperblue is evolving yet again. It was pointed out that in fact any kind of preparation or relaxing for static is a "warmup". Especially pack stretching, or "under breathing", since both would in theory create similar reflexes as a breath hold.

So I kicked it up a notch, starting the "extremely no-warmup" training. Meaning I don't lay down to relax for some time like I'm used to. I just sit and do normal things, like type on the computer and when I decide to go, it's laying down, close eyes, one inhale, pack, go. I do this to (hopefully) stimulate a maximum training response. I will continue to relax at the pool, but I'll propably drop the pack stretching at least for now. If it seems I make no progress, I may reintroduce it...

First hold today using this method was:
4:35(1:45/110)

I timed total time again, since I've eliminated peeking at the watch during the hold, so it doesn't matter anymore. Might as well.

As was pointed out at DeeperBlue, I too have the urge to sit up after some contractions. I used to get this urge very early, but I've managed to delay it with training. Hopefully I can eliminate it totally...

Inching forward

I did 6:09 no-warmup today, which is a nice 9s leap from the previous no-warmup pb. Contractions started from 3:30 and I had 110 of them. In some ways it was propably one of the toughest statics I've done, but it's also a nice feeling to know at 4 minutes that even though you're feeling a very strong breathing reflex, you can willingly push it beyond 6 minutes.

Also did 100m dynamic again, which was much easier this time now that I know it's possible.
Pretty good day all in all :)