This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Today is the first full day on vacation in Kos. Beautiful location with a nice overview over the sea. Great stuff! As we are not staying directly at sea, most of my water time will be in one of the 4 pools they have at the resort.

The longest one is 22,5 meters and that makes a perfect training pool for some swimming and freediving. As I don’t have a dedicated buddy in the pool, most of the training I’ll do is crawling some laps for conditioning and some easy stuff underwater.

The fun thing is, that I’m used to swim in a 25 meter pool and it’s strange to see how much difference 2,5 meters make. Suddenly I can do 2 laps underwater without any effort at all! That is 45 meters done in 8 strokes.

Another nice exercise I couldn’t do before, but manage to  do pretty well, is breath hold crawls. One of our Team Sharkbait training blocks. 2 laps crawling without breathing, some time rest, and do it again. Repeating for 20 minutes or so. Felt pretty easy!

As we’re staying in the hotel for 6 days, I will try to do some more training later on. But keeping it simple, because of absence of a freediving buddy. My girlfriend, who is a doctor’s assistant and war-traumatoligist, is keeping an eye on me and can take care in bad situations. But she isn’t freediving certified, so misses the experience to pro-actively interact.

Plan for this week is to do at least 3 freediving sessions from the boat and maybe some scuba diving as well (it’s been a while, and as I’m a scuba diving instructor I’ve got to practice my skills once in a while). I heard that Herbert Nitsch is at Rhodos, which is a small boat trip from Kos, so I try contacting him for some freediving to see if he can keep up with the depths I’m doing these days. ;)

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Tomorrow I’m going on vacation with my girlfriend to the island Kos in Greece. While it will not be a full freediving vacation, for sure I will do some recreational freediving sessions. So the bag with freediving gear will go with me.

To make sure I don’t forget any stuff, I’ve got several lists for different purposes. This time I use the list ‘Meditterean Recreational’ which consists of the following:

• Wetsuit: 2,5 mm Eliossub
• Fins: Cressi-sub Gara 2000
• Mask: Cressi-sub Superocchio (x2 for spare)
• Snorkel: Sporasub Samurai (x2 for spare)
• Weight: 4 times 0,5 kilo low profile lead / Rubber Weight belt
• Canon Ixus 700 digital camera + underwater house
• Swimming trunks
• Fin bag

Only once I forgot something to bring with me on vacation. Since then I always use lists. While it is easy to get a snorkel or new mask when diving in France or Spain, it’s not so much easy to get a good freediving mask in the Maldives! That’s why I use lists to check if I didn’t forget anything that could ruin my vacation.

Other lists I’ve got:

• Pool Training
• Outdoor Training Netherlands
• Meditterean Training
• Meditterean Recreational
• Tropic Training
• Tropic Recreational

Some difference in the lists consists in type of freediving fins I bring, different wetsuits and cold protection, training materials, etc. Do you use lists like this? If so, what’s on your list?

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

This week I did three dry static schedules. Just to test some stuff out, but in the end I actually liked doing them pretty much, which is a good thing considering my background with statics.

On Monday I did a neutral lung static schedule, also named FRC, to see what I could do. I decided to do 8 breath holds of 40 seconds with only 1 breath between. It was pretty hard but I managed to complete it. Schedule looked like this:

• Breath in and breath out until chest is relaxed and neutral, and hold
• hold for 40 seconds
• start exhaling 5 seconds before end
• inhale at 40 seconds, hold for 5 seconds and exhale to neutral and hold again.
• repeat 8 times.

Tuesday was time for a normal inhale schedule but I liked to 1-breath option. So again 8 breath holds but this time 55 seconds long. Felt  pretty hard, but managed to finish all 8.

• Breath in and hold
• hold for 55 seconds
• start exhaling 5 seconds before end
• inhale at 55 seconds and hold again.
• repeat 8 times.

Yesterday I decided to go for 8 times 1 minute and I hoped to get at least 5 of 8 done properly. It’s clear that the Co2 was the real problem, but in the end I managed to do 7! Next time I try to take all 8 of them and try a little bit harder.

Fun thing is that these kind of schedules only take around 8 minutes. So whenever I’ve got 10 minutes to spare I can do these kind of schedules. No excuses for not doing them. And the fun is that I can notice progression pretty easily.

This way I avoid getting a static burnout again by going fast and intense. No 30 minute or longer schedules which includes several long breath holds! And as Co2 is limiting my max performance these small schedules are long enough, when I notice the high Co2 effects in the hour afterwards in my body.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

It’s already been a pretty good freediving week. On Tuesday I did some more test with my co2 schedule. Were I first started with a 8 times 40 second breath hold with only 1 breath in between, I know tried to do a 8 times 50 second schedule. It was already a lot harder, but I managed to do it and ended the last hold with a time of 1:10 minutes. All in all a good and short session where I really noticed the co2 in my body. My head was hot and ready to explode, so then I know I did a good training.

Today was pool time again and about 1,5 hour before training I decided that I’m going to  focus more on FRC diving (neutral lung breath hold). As I managed to do a 18 meter dive last weekend in FRC style I was thinking what my static capability would be while doing it in this way. So I tried my 8 times 40 seconds with one breath recovery schedule with it. It was hard but I managed to complete it and it felt pretty good afterwards.

When Sanne and I arrived at the pool I first started with a FRC static at 5 meters depth. I didn’t watch the time as I only wanted to feel and not push. Afterwards I did a dynamic without fins. Without wetsuit you’re pretty negative in the pool while FRC freediving. I had to compensate a lot, but all in all I managed to do around 35 meters without really pushing and was pretty happy with it.

Next was the monofin. The first thing I noticed while trying for the technique is that without full lungs my body is much more relaxed and I think I managed to translate this to my monofin technique. I could use much more my stomach in the technique then normally and still keep relaxed. After some 25 meter laps with I decided to focus for the coming weeks on a kick-kick-glide technique, arms extended above my head.

After some lanes it was time to see if I could do a little bit more than 25 meters and to my surprise I did a pretty easy 50 meter in FRC mode. I was pretty happy with that I must say. And the good thing was that I didn’t feel anything in my legs with regards to lactic acid or anything. So that’s a good bonus as well. For sure I’m going to continue with this way of diving for the coming time and I’ll see where it will bring me.

Sanne also did a good training session. The static warm-up was not really relaxed but the monofinning after some laps improved big time. From looking like a hard worker to looking relaxed in one session is always great to see! We’ll continue like this in the coming weeks and see where it will get us. Interesting road to walk!

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

It was a beautiful day today, so Sanne and I decided to do some lake freediving. As the rest of the Netherlands was in heavy thunderstorms and rain our diving lake was in full sunshine. However, the waves on the water were even bigger then last time.

After we changed into our gear we stepped into the water and I immediately noticed that the water temperature at the surface is way up again. But the visibility in the top was down a lot!

As always we started with a first dive to 10 meters to test equipment, body and mind and as normal everything felt great. I did a static at the bottom of around 45 seconds making it to a total time of 1:35 minutes. Sanne also did well with his first dive reaching 1:40 minutes.

After the slow long swim to the 23 meter line I still felt great and decided I would make the first dive. It was excellent conditions with warm top water and a good thermocline at around 5 meters. Big diving reflex today so I felt pretty confident about my dives that had to come.

First dive free immersion style down and I counted to 15 before coming up again from 23 meters. This felt sooo easy. As if it was the new 10 meter warmingup dive. Second dive I decided to count to 20 seconds when I was at 23 and it still felt good. For sure time for our own diving buouy so that we can set the line somewhat deeper.

Third dive was again competition time. Sanne  did a countdown and I did a constant weight dive. I managed to come up after 51 seconds and I had no lactic acid in my legs. That was probably due to the fact I used a very small but high frequency kick to come up again. I’ll do some more experiments with  this later on.

Alternating between my dives, Sanne was doing his as well. Sanne set down some impressive dive times and made it look very easy as well. He can do  double this depth for sure! Again: we need the new buoy! ;)

Then it was time for the FRC and empty lung dives. I managed to do a good 18 meter FRC dive, that I had to really work for in the last few meters. I was pretty tired when I came up but in the end it felt fantastic. The empty lung dive brought me to 10 meters depth and also felt okay. Strange thing is that as long as I keep below 5 meters I have no urge to breath with empty lungs, but when I get above that I’m almost always out of air within 20 seconds. The empty lung dive to 10 meters lastet 40 seconds.

Sanne did a good FRC dive to 16 meters and he finally has solved his equalization problem. The empty lung dive brought him to 7 meters and he had to stop because of the equalizing and not  because of the low o2.

After these exhausting dives we decided to swim back to the 10 meter platform and swim back to shore underwater from the platform on. I followed Sanne, or should I say dust cloud. It amazes me how fast Sanne swims underwater with his bifins. I almost had to sprint to keep up with him!

At the shore the water still felt so great we decided it was time to do some diving without wetsuit. In our swimming-trunks and with our mask and snorkel we swam back to the 10 meter buoy. Sanne prepared to go into the thermocline to 10 meters but got stuck because he couldn’t equalize because of the cold. I also tried to do it in constant without fins style, but the cold made it really hard for my diaphragm but I managed to touch the 10 meter platform anyway.

After these first no wetsuit dives the game was on and we did all kind of crazy dives to 10 meters. Head first, head up, free immersion, constant without fins. Free Immersion upside down coming up was my favorite of today.

All in all a great outdoor session! Depth is going great. Equalization power is getting stronger and stronger and the fun factor is very high! I want more! ;)

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

We just came back from a good pool training. We decided to make it an all out monofin training session and it was great fun and we learned a lot!

First we started with a static at 5 meters depth to get a small warming up again. I started out and was very glad that on the first dive I made it relatively easy to 2 minutes and I was pretty amazed about this time, because I expected it to be much less. And once in a while Sanne does something amazing as well and he did a nice 3:05 minutes static at 5 meters depth and made it look awfully easy. I’m wondering what he can reach when he starts to train seriously again.

Testing the 3 monofins on the left

After the good warmup it was time for monofinning. We brought our collection of 3 monofins and as they ranged from bad to good monofins we decided to test them out and see what the real difference is between each of them. In the end it was pretty clear that the most expensive and heaviest one was the best. For the first time in my life I did a 50 meters as if it was a 25 meters. Really no problem with it at all. Even with such a bad technique as I have.

Sanne and I continued using the monofins  for some time and I think that if we keep using them for the next months maybe something nice will come out of it. Who knows!

After the monofinning I decided to do a quick dynamic without fins, because my feet were already hurting too much from the monofin work. I still managed to do a very easy 1,5 laps and I got my first contraction on the way up. Really have to work on my co2 tolerance, that’s for sure! We will see how it goes tomorrow when we go into the deep with our bifins again.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

My not so good friend mister Co2

In the last weeks Sanne and I did some tests to see where I’m standing and how to continue with training. The big thing that came out during researching this, is that I’ve got a pretty low Co2 tolerance. So, I think I will dedicate some time to train my Co2 tolerance and increase it. I’ve reserved 3 sport of around 20 minutes in my schedule per week to do this, so hopefully in a few weeks I will notice a difference while freediving.

Today I started with the first exercise. I was going to do 8 breath-holds of the same time with between them one breath of recovery. As I had no idea with which time to start, I took the beautiful number 40 and set the timer to 40 seconds. After 3 holds it became clear this was a little bit too low, but I would continue it anyway, to see where I would end. The last hold still felt good and instead of holding it for 40 seconds I took it to 1:30 minutes.

Conclusion was that the exercise is good, but that I really need to up the time. Next time I’ll do the same schedule but this time with 50 second breath-holds.

Anybody else has some good ideas on how to improve my co2 tolerance? Let me know in the comments.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

That was a good freediving session! Today we went for some outdoor freediving in Panheel. Weather wasn’t looking to promising when entering the water, but fortunately it stayed okay. The wind was pretty hard and there were even small waves in the lake!

Still, the visibility stayed pretty good and the first dives at 10 meter felt good. So we swam the long road again to the 23 meter buoy. Sanne was going to try to do some dives with his eyes closed and I planned to do a constant weight dive, competition style, to feel how my legs were holding up.

First dives went by pretty easy. Visibility at the bottom was even better then the last time! If the sun was shining you could lay down on a perfect beach down there. Instead we managed to do some bottom statics of around 10-15 seconds before coming up. Truly showing to each other that it’s time to go deeper again.

My last dive to the bottom was going to be an constant weight dive. Sanne counted from 2 minutes to official top and after +16 seconds I was down. Did a few kicks to around 8-10 meters and after that the freefall. I felt pretty perfect. No problems what so ever, but that was to be expected. At the bottom I did a shitty turn, totally not using swing momentum for turning. The way back up began!

First few kicks felt good, were it normally would start to fill with lactic acid, now it didn’t, probably due to the big freefall. But even after some more kicks, the legs stayed okay. They felt a little tired, but for sure not pumped up like the old days, where after a few meters of kicking they would be useless and I had to finish the swim by armstrokes alone.

After analyzing the dive it’s clear that equalizing isn’t the problem as is the o2. My problem is the low tolerance of Co2, but that’s probably the easiest part of getting used; just doing a lot freediving will change this big time already.

Next was FRC time, or in plain English diving with neutral lungs. You first breath in, and then you let yourself relax, including your lungs. So you exhale some air and your lungs are half full now and you dive down. Equalizing in this way is much more difficult, but it trains you big time! We both did 2 FRC dives. I got to 14 meters or something like that. Felt pretty good, without pushing.

We ended the dives with some no fins dives at the 10 meter buoy. Damn, it’s hard to have a good technique in this one. Duckdive was shit, first strokes and kicks were shit, everything felt like shit. But it was fun to do anyway! Practice makes perfect, so soon I will be trubridging my way down!

In total we stayed in the water for 90 minutes and it felt great again. Next on the agenda: making a buoy so we can start training with a lanyard and increase the depth 3 meters more until we feel comfortable doing statics at that depth as well.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Today was pool training again. Last week was just terrible, I was shivering all over the place, and couldn’t manage to do anything with a good feeling. I hoped today would be different, but when I jumped in the water to do my statics at depth, I already felt over 10 seconds I would start to shiver again.

So, during the First 10 seconds on the bottom, I decided to do only 1 static at depth today and see how far I could go on a first try. I came up at 1:35 and it felt pretty good, but COLD! I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold in a pool. Hopefully this is due the fact that I lost 16 kilo’s in the last few months, and that my natural insulation layer is getting thinner and thinner.

Done with the statics, it was time for dynamics. This time I started with the fins. First lap kick and glide technique with the C4’s bifins, and the way back normal monofin kick. At 50 meters it all strangely felt still very good, so I decided to make a turn and come up. I did 55 meters. I think the last time I did over 50 meters was around 2003, 6 years ago, so I was pretty excited to notice I didn’t have any contractions but more importantly also no lactic acid feeling in the legs.

Normally I get such a big boost of lactic acid after already 25 meters underwater, that I already give up 5 meters later. I even have this in such extent that when I dive to the bottom of our training like in constant weight (23 meters) and I turn, my legs suddenly blast full of lactic acid so hard I can’t use them anymore. I have to swim up with my arms only.

Pretty excited that I didn’t have heavy legs, I decided to do another one. This time I started with a normal bifins kick, to make sure I would feel my legs burn at 25 meters. But still at 25 everything okay. I turned around and went monofinning back, still without any problems and again 50 meters in a much higher pace than the previous one. Lactic acid, gone… Hopefully also an effect of all the workouts and weight loss.

Next was dynamic without fins. Easy does it, so with a steady stroke and kick I came up at 41 meters, exactly one meter further then what I can remember being my best performance. Just before surfacing I got a first contraction, so there was plenty more where this came from.

Then I did some no fins without arms, and one without using the legs. But that last one was pretty funny, because at one point my legs were completely sunk so that I was vertical in the water still training to swim horizontally.

Last test of the day was a static at depth and continue with a dynamic without fins. I did 40 seconds at 5 meters before I left, and I managed to do almost the same distance as my new ‘personal best’. It’s good to know that it’s not the oxygen that is getting me to stop, but the built-up of CO2 that I’m not used to anymore after a 1 year freediving sabbatical.

Promising results! Coming weekend I will test my constant weight with fins to see how things are going with my lactic acid built-up in the deep. Looking forward to the next session.

Unfortunately Sanne developed a little neck problem during buddy’ing me. Probably an effect due to the air-condition at work and some overachievers trying to get the thing to work as good as possible. It was so uncomfortable that he decided, after a small test run, not to continue with his training, so that it would be over In the weekend when we go outside.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Sanne and I just returned from an excellent outdoor freediving session in Panheel. It wasn’t as good of a weather as last week, but still it was good enough to get in again. We started with the first test at 10 meter to feel if everything was okay before we did the rest of the swim to the 23 meter buoy. No problem for both of us, and visibility was still good, around 5-6 meters. Water was a lot colder and I already had some shivers, but they were disappearing as soon as I dived.

Jorg coming up

After we arrived at the deep line, Sanne started with the first dive. He aborted the dive halfway because he didn’t feel really relaxed, but from there on he was back in his freediving modus. Doing some great dives to the bottom, and relaxing at 23 meters before coming back to the surface. It always looks so easy for him. He has so much more depth left, but no we have to find a deep and light place to dive in. Preferably not more then 30 minutes from home. ;)

My dives also went okay. I did 3 free immersion dives to 23 meters. The first dive I stayed at the bottom for around 5 counts, the second for 10 and the last for 15 counts. So I can say that I’m pretty comfortable these days again on that depth. That’s a good thing! So lets continue building from here on as a basis.

Sanne preparing before the dive

Next it was time for some FRC dives. We decided to do 2 FRC dives each. Sanne was first and managed to do a good 10 meters. Afterwards it was time for me again and I managed to 15 meters. I didn’t expect to be so deep, so the way back up was longer then expected. Because FRC dives take their toll on the body pretty fast if you’re not used to them, I decided to do the next one until I really had to start working with equalizing. I still managed to do a very easy 13 meters that felt completely relaxed all the way down and up. Sanne managed to better his first performance by going to 12 meters. Good and hard work!

As we had done enough depth for that day, it was now time to bring the fins to shore and do some constant no fins dives at the 10 meter line. Last time I did these was around 2003, but it was great fun to be doing them again. You really have find a stroke and equalize rhythm to make it all work. Of course the 10 meters was pretty easy, but it was just a first try to ensure we would do it next time at the deeper line. We ended the session at the underwater play-garden, blowing some bubble rings and fooling around. All in all a great training again. Really feeling in my body that we trained this time. So that’s a good thing.