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Had a nice break over the weekend. The competition is next saturday and I would've liked to train over the weekend, but since the pool was closed we took a trip to visit the folks instead.

My plan is to keep training until wednesday (pool), then take thursday and friday to recover and hopefully be in shape by saturday. We'll see. I'm pretty confident that even if I mess just about everything up, I'll be able to pull 6 minutes, so I'll set that as my goal. Anything beyond that is just bonus. I won't be trying to make a new national record or anything, just a solid good static.

I didn't feel especially strong today. All through the weekend I've been eating pretty unhealthily, been tired etc...And even on the first few IHT holds it seemed that I could not really get my best edge. But in the end I managed two FRC-inhale thingys in excess of 7 minutes and a normal inhale static of 7:00, so pretty good overall! In the end I felt that I got uncomfortable very early, but could push in the end phase pretty much as long as I wanted. Just the way it should be :)

data:
FRC 2:30
FRC 2:00-5:30
FRC 2:30-6:30
FRC 3:00-7:00
FRC 3:00-7:15
7:00 (4:30/67)

Pool

Regular pool day yesterday. We're always short on time on wednesdays so it's impossible to do a really good static with warmups etc without taking unreasonable amounts of some other divers time. I made a quick warmup of 2:30 FRC, and 5:00 static and then did 6:30. I wasn't feeling particularly well, so I decided not to push it further. 6:30 would be a very nice "every time" target for wet apnea as well.

The did a 104 DYN and some quick DNF technique training. Unfortunately, ran out of time before seriously getting into it. During the weekend the pool is closed and on the next weekend is the competition. So there's only one wednesday between now and the competition...Which is a shame, because even with just a few sessions of technique training, I would've propably made a big leap in my peformance. Oh well...Just have to make up for it in DYN and STA :)

Like I mentioned, the pool is closed so I'm going to visit my parents the coming weekend. So I'll be taking a short break...

You guessed it...IHT!

Yep, same thing again. Today I was able to push a 3:00-7:45. Pretty cool. I know it's not the same as holding my breath for 7:45. But seeing those numbers while still having room to continue sure feels good and is a huge mental help.

FRC 3:00 (warming up)
FRC 2:30-5:00
FRC 2:30-7:00
FRC 3:00-7:30
FRC 3:00-7:45
6:50 (4:40/70)

Now that last FRC thing was 4:45 minutes in "hypoxic" state and I'm of course having contractions all that time. I think this training, besides the supposed other benefits, gives a really big mental boost to tolerating contractions.

I'll keep doing it for some time, let's see what happens.

Hitting 7:45 on a normal dry static would be nice ;)

More IHT

Today I did the "extended FRC" in series, meaning a FRC static to a point and then slowly inhaling after that (packing every 10 seconds or so) untill maximum. The point is to get your saO2 low and then keep it low for an extended time.

I found that on an FRC hold, if I swallonw against my nose clip, thus creating under pressure in my ears and sinuses, I'm able to fall in to this almost "trance" state, where I'm not even aware of time before I start hitting contractions. Would be cool to get that in inhale statics as well, but it doesn't work because of all the extra air.

Anyway, here's what I did:
FRC 2:47 (warming up)
FRC 2:00-5:30 (meaning: started to inhale at 2:00, started to breathe at 5:30)
FRC 2:20-6:00
FRC 2:30-6:30
FRC 3:00-7:00
6:30(4:20/70)

Just a perfect day

I didn't do any apnea for the past 2 days. Today was a pool day and I found that I was very alkaline. I hyperventilated much less than usual and still my first contraction came very late, almost somewhere at 4:45-5:00. At 6 minutes I was at 12 contractions, feeling very strong.

I went to 7:19 with around 45 contractions, a new record in the water obviously.

My warmup was FRC 2:30 and a 5:00 static.

Now I'm thinking I should maybe consider changing my preparation to the competition to having 1-2 completely off apnea prior to the competition. Will have to experiment some...

I also bought a new camera and didn't flood it this time. We got some nice videos of our technique. The video nicely confirmed what I already of course knew. My DNF technique is HORRIBLE...Luckily I now know what parts of it I can maybe improve...

FRC IHT again

Continued with the FRC thing. On the last hold I held my breath until 3:30, but instead of starting to breathe again, I started packing very slowly. The idea was that after reaching a low o2 saturation, I would hold it at that for a bit longer, by introducing some oxygen. Too bad I don't have a oximeter, so I can't see if it worked or not. I continued doing this until 6:00. I think in the future I'll do all these IHT trainings in a similar way.

So:
FRC 3:00
FRC 2:30
FRC 3:00
FRC 3:15
FRC 3:30-6:00
6:40 (4:20/60)

Wet 7:00 :)

Finally broke 7:00 wet today. It even felt kind of easy and I didn't really have to push it. Relatively late 1st contraction, around 4:30, and then 50 contractions.

For warmup I did one 1:15 FRC to just "calm down". Then FRC 2:15 and 5:00 static.
I think this warmup would work pretty well for the upcoming competition as well.

Then proceeded to do a 110 dynamic, so a good day all in all.

FRC IHT training

Continuing with the IHT thingy. I did 2 max inhale holds today after the FRC series and got to 7:13. Very cool. It seems I can now hit 7 with relative ease. This is a huge mental help after having struggled to reach 7:00 for the first time for so long.

FRC 2:45
FRC 2:45
FRC 3:00
FRC 3:15
FRC 3:30

6:30(4:00/60)
5 min break
7:13(4:30/80)

Pretty late contractions and high contraction rate on the last one. Usually a sign of being too alkaline. We'll see what happens tomorrow at the pool...

I forgot to write about it, but I soaked my camera last saturday. I had been waiting for months to finally afford that underwater case...And what do I do with it? Jump in without checking it for leaks empty first and destroy my 500€ camera. Man was I pissed. Oh well, just got to put things into perspective...It's just money, I'll make and spend plenty more during my life time...

Wet pb

Today was a good pool day. Relatively quiet, so I was able to concentrate. I made 6:48, my warmup was 4:00 static + 3:00 FRC static.

Also made a new pb in DNF, 70m. It's pretty good considering my swimming "technique", which I'm told looks a bit funky...

Trying something new again

After reading the article about IHT and Sebastien Murat's reply to that, I decided to give the poor man's IHT a go. In short, doing repeated exhale statics with short recoverys. Supposedly it will do wonders for my blood as well as low oxygen tolerance in general. I set my goal at doing 5 times 2:00-2:30 FRC statics and resting 2-3 minutes in between. For my next session, I will set the time at 2:30-3 minutes, since that seems to be real easy for me to reach. But the point is to do a series you are actually capable of, not to poop your self out on the first one.

Just to keep things interesting, I'll do one max inhale static as well after the session. At the pool, I'll keep on doing normal stuff, this is just for dry apnea.

Todays set:
FRC 2:30
FRC 2:00 (don't know what happened)
FRC 3:00
FRC 3:00
FRC 4:00 (wohoo, pb!)
6:47(4:10/67) (obviously full inhale)

All right!

Felt very good from the start today. I got the "pleasure wave" again on the longest hold, which weird, but I like it. Oh, and a new dry pb ;) I must be doing something right. I guess that training really hard (eg. daily) and then giving the body some time to adapt (break) is the way to go, at least for now. So I'll keep doing this for now (week of training at least 3 days off) for now. I haven't done any physical excersice since tuesday last week, so that might be contributing as well. I expect my times to go down a bit once I get into that again.

But for now:
5:45(2:40/70) no warmup. I could've/should've pushed more. Just couldn't get my head to it
FRC 3:10, now I knew this was going to be a good day
7:20(4:00/80) Fairly early contractions - good
7:07(4:40/57) Decided to give it one more go, but as you can see didn't quite make it, despite the much delayed contractions...But still very good!

Dynamic pb

Against all odds, I smashed my dynamic record to day by 15m, bringing it up to 115. We were on a very limited time schedule, since there was a swimming competition starting at the pool that no one bothered to let us know about before hand. So we did 1 max static both and 1 max dynamic. No time for warmups or anything, that's for amateurs :) Well ok, I did one empty lung 1:30 warmup for static and one 50m for dynamic.

The static was ok. I hit 6:28 with relative ease and felt good all the way. I'm pretty sure I could've done more on the second, but no point arguing that, since there was no time.

Now for dynamic, I was for the first time trying this huge neck weight I made. I noticed a couple of weeks back, that even with 3 or so kilos around my neck, I float like a cork with full packing. So I now had what I would estimate 5-6 kilos and it felt just right. My main goal was just to test that configuration, I didn't think I was going to do even 100.

But this was the first time I've been able to pack fully and still feel comfortable in water. The swimming was very relaxed and at 100m I just simply felt I could do more. So I turned once more and kept going untill it kind of felt like "ok, that's enough for one day...125 can wait".

I'd say apart form the new weight, I was much more alkaline now that I've been in months, since I've had over a weeks break. That was propably the other major contributor.

Now I feel even more sure, that the preparation I suggested on my last post for the upcoming competition is on the right track...

Off to a good start

Ok, my break stretched a little longer than I intended. I had a minor cold on sat/sun and I didn't want to push it and rested until today. My intention was to take it real easy. No hard core no-warmup training. Just holding my breath for as long as it feld ok to do so. I did eventually reach 7:02, which is very encouraging, after such a long break and recovering from the cold.

It seems that a cycle of about 1 week of heavy training is pretty much the maximum I can do. After that I simply have to have at least a couple of days off to let the body (and mind) recover.

One strange thing. On my last hold, after some 3 minutes, I suddenly got this warm sensation on my stomach. I was expecting an acidic "burn" I sometimes get, but insted it grew in to this warm and pleasurable feeling and it kept growing until for maybe the last 30 seconds it was replaced by the uncomfort of contractions. Wonder what the hell that was...

I think that after doing this very heavy training now for over half a year, my "buffering effect" seems to kick in quicker. A couple of months back, I would need 3-4 days of successive statics to get to my best edge. Now it seems that 1 day is enough.

The try outs for the Finnish national team are in the beginning of march. I shall try this approach on that competition: 1 week before stop all physical and apnea exercise. Let the body recover, lose acid and wind down (regular exercise in my mind should keep metabolic rate up, which I don't want). Then on the night before the competition, do a max static session. If that doesn't work out, I still have time to change it for the Nationals on may.

Data:
3:30 (2:20/15)
FRC 3:00
6:30 (3:43/70)
7:02 (4:15/62)

I originally intended to leave it at the 6:30, but after that I just felt I had more in me.

Oh and one more thing, I packed less than usual on purpose. I'm trying to see if I can improve my times without actually improving the amount of air I pack. So I packed about 10 instead of the usual 25-30 I do on a max hold...

Acidic

For some reason I felt very acidic today, proably not unaffected by the heavy interval jogging I did yesterday. Very early contractions on all 3 holds. That's another good indication that I should take a break again, and so I will, starting from tomorrow.

Anyway:
5:09(2:00/80) - kind of short but this was no-warmup/no-breathup with very short relaxation, so I'm satisfied.
5:34 (3:15/60) - tried again with no-breathup. This was very tough, got a slight head ache from it
5 min rest
6:37 (3:30/70) - Very good time considering the start of contractions. Very early contractions dispite the 10*5:0:5 hyperventilation.

I think I can safely move my 100% dry target to 6:30 now...