5mins 26secs

Another good week in the pool after no training again this week (including no dry training) This time of the year is very busy for me and I'm finding it hard to put make time to do quality training but with Christmas round the corner I'm bound to miss some training sessions. As long as i keep ticking over until Jan i know I'll be fine for next year when i can step up my Dynamic and Static training 100%.

I only managed the gym once in the last 3wks and i haven't been doing a great deal of dry training tables either but i did get into the pool again this week for some static sessions and i was happy again with my performance.

I started with FRV holds (3 in a row) which got me straight into the zone. I then completed simple breath holds with no packing and carried out FRV holds again in between. I did manage a 1min 40sec FRV hold which is my best yet!

The last two holds i packed and completed a 4min 40sec and 5min 26sec taking only 40 contractions again. The contractions seemed slightly harder to control than last week but i still managed to keep them slow and controlled.

Good all round session and looking forward to next week.

Spiro-Meter Test

I finally went to see my Doctor today and had my first spiro-meter test, i have seen many freedivers talking about their lung capacity and being a smoker i decided to have a go myself and see what it was all about. A spiro-meter for those who don't know measures the following...

• FEV1 - Forced Expiratory Volume in one second. This is the amount of air you can blow out within one second. With normal lungs and airways you can normally blow out most of the air from your lungs within one second.
• FVC - Forced Vital Capacity. The total amount of air that you blow out in one breath.
  
• FEV1 divided by FVC (FEV1/FVC). Of the total amount of air that you can blow out in one breath, this is the proportion that you can blow out in one second.

My results were as follows........

1. FEV1 4.83ltrs (128%)
2. FVC 6.73ltrs (149%)
3. FEV1/FVC 72 (base) 92 (max)
4. Lung Age Less than <20yrs

I didn't realise that i was not to eat before or smoke, i had a large dinner and a cigarette before the test!! Oh!! I have booked in another test in 3mths time to compare the results after changing training routines. I have started to use tables (dry) and going into negative diaphragm exercises this week which should help me deal with contractions much better going forward into next year.

Basics work

Well my getting back to basics training really worked. After the last 4wks of chest infections, poor training and a week away in Dublin my training was not going great. I have been using some crazy tables to train with (dry) and have helped me deal with the severity of my contractions massively. I only trained static on Wed this week and managed a very easy and very enjoyable 5min 31secs.

I went back to FRV holds to start with which i still find the best for me. Then i done some very basic inhale holds (no packing) but this time in between holds i done FRV holds.

I found myself getting up to 1min 30sec on the FRV holds and when i finally got ready for my last breath hold i managed the 5min 31sec.

The contractions seemed very easy and very slow and i managed 40 of these slow contractions, way more that i have every done at such a slow pace. I came up early also as i was expecting about 4mins after all the alcohol i consumed the week before.

Training since has been non-existent though due to work commitments (something had to spoil the good training) but i intend on doing 2 sessions per day of crazy tables to keep my diaphragm nice and stretched.

The Dublin trip was great although we did do some work and the hotel had a pool so i took my boss Mat Bowker in for a quick breath hold lesson. He managed a 31sec hold but after some teaching this went up to 1min 55sec in no time, beating the directors of our host massively!! Well done Mat!

Back to Basics

This week was all about going back to some basic apnea training, peel away all the breath up's and diet and just get back into some really basic breath holding. I trained really hard this week out of the pool on my cardio and fitness levels and hit the gym for 4 days.

Pool training went well and i went into the water with no preparation and just sunk myself underwater with no breath up's. I went through some Co2 tables to help build my tolerance up which went well also.

I didn't bother with clock watching so i had no idea what times i was achieving but just went through the motions and trained my body in some basic tolerance to contractions and ended up quite enjoying them as they came.

Dynamic session went in a similar fashion, again not worrying about distance but focusing on gliding and technique only. i trained for about 35mins on dynamic and was happy with 3 - 4kicks per 25mtrs and my glide seemed to go a bit further than normal although realistically the time it took to complete 25mtrs was much too long (about 40secs per length)

An enjoyable session and one i intend to stay with for a while now, I'm purely working on basic tolerance levels to Co2 and O2 deprivation and then in a few weeks try, with good prep, a new P.B in both static and dynamic.