Team Sharkbait

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Just back from todays freediving training in the pool. Felt great again. The first dynamic run still feels the hardest, but after that I can start enjoying again.

All the training is starting to really work. Today for the first time I did a kick-kick-kick-glide cycle and still felt relaxed. Normally I would tense up during the glide section of the cycle, but this time everything stayed easy and fine.

It takes me 3 cycles and 20 seconds for a 25 meter lap. So that is 9 kicks in total. If I do a continuous kick cycle I need 15-16 kicks to complete the lap. So this is a big win. Keep in mind that Sanne and I are making very small kicks as opposed to some other people who prefer it another way.

All in all pretty good training once again. Sanne is really getting in shape with his monofin and I’m wondering how soon he will be doing the same distance as he always did with his bi-fins, but this time without any stress.

Some other news that the Dutch visitors will probably like: from now on I’ll put a Dutch translation of my posts on the Shark Sports Sharkbait website. Different URL, different language, same content.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Yesterday was a good freediving session in the pool! Besides some good technique training it also reminded me of taking charge of your own destiny.

We share our pool with a scubadiving team and in the last weeks we claimed our own spot, putting a line in the water so that we would have a private lane. This evening another scubadiving team joined ours for a ‘deep’ training lesson in the 5 meter pool and they had hired half of the pool.

So when Sanne and I arrived, first thought was that we couldn’t do dynamic today. Way to many freedivers in the pool and no way they would let us take a lane for ourselves with so many divers. We decided to go for static and afterwards take the public pool.

I already was pissed about this and was thinking that I could be standing on the slope as we spoke. But then of a sudden, I told myself to shut up and just do it! I took the monofin went to the head of the diving team and told him we would only need a very small lane at the end of the pool. After some discussion we got approval and setup our training line!

Mission accomplished! Only thing left to do was a good training! Sanne suggested that I would start with my 4 times the distance we agreed on. And after a hard first successful distance, but with rotten technique and with some good coaching from Sanne, I managed to improve the other 3 performances in technique with each set. So pretty happy in the end! Another session like this and it is time to up the minimum set distance.

Sanne was next and we decided that he would do 3,5 laps, which is 87,50 meters. After 30 seconds of preparation he was underwater. Nice kick and glide! And very very nice to see the improvement of technique between now and two months ago. Really amazing accomplishment. He’s now looking relaxed underwater WITH a monofin on his foot.

Afterwards it was time for the not-so-newbies-anymore Kai and Levi (correct me if I’m spelling your names wrong!). After some very visual and mental training how the monofin technique must look like with some subtle hinting at some metaphores the two guys had no problem with their attempts with the monofin. It actually looked already better then their bi-fins attempt!

Mental note to self: Arrange that damn neck-weight!

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

It is always a good thing to train with other freedivers once and a while, which made me decide to visit the pool in Zeist again for a freediving training. I joined up with Eric van Riet Paap at 19:45 yesterday and we started out with a static session to be followed by a dynamic session later in the evening.

Static
Eric had been making schedules for CO2 to go along his static times, as for today he wanted to do his “7,5 minute”-CO2 table. I agreed to try and do this schedule as well, just for the challenge of it, because it has been a while since a did a real good CO2 schedule. We started with a warm-up of empty lungs statics and I was very pleased with my results on that since this had been a while as well. Eric did nice empty lungs statics around 2m 10s and I was able to pull off a 1m 54s empty lung static.

In the meantime the other freedivers joined us, Rik Rösken, Danny Matherus, Erik Skoda and Rem. On to the schedule » First to go was Eric and he managed to do this grueling schedule without any bail outs or real problems. So respect for that! After that I was given the opportunity to give it a try. The first part went good and the first increase in time didn’t pose a problem. Then came the second increase in time and I just had too much trouble getting there in combination with an upcoming headache, that I decided that this schedule is for another time to finish. Just like Eric said, these things you have to build up to a level like this. None the less this was an awesome training and felt so good to be doing a proper CO2 training again.

After the schedule we both did a maximum static to see how the CO2 table influenced the contractions. Eric and I both did a respectable time without real problems, for 4m 31s for Eric and 4m 44s for myself.

Dynamic
For myself I had the goals I set in my last post, to reach 87,5 meters and see how easy that feels and always do a turn at 75m even if it’s just the turn. Eric had a similair kind of set up for his training, so we decided to take turns at our set distances. Eric first did a nice 100 meter with a turn and was very pleased with the overall feel, improvement points for himself were the turnpoints. After that I did a 87,5 meter dynamic and it actually felt like something to train with the coming period. We both went at it again and succeeded in doing that extra turn at the end. Pleased with the results I called it a day and went home and just made it there before midnight.

I like to thank Eric and his fellow freedivers for having me over, it was a great learning experience and good overall results to feel good about.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

That was some proper training at the Tongelreep, Eindhoven last night. Both Jorg and I had been planning to continue the good training from the week before, so we were determined to get the alignment on the next level by getting some distance in.

Repetitive
Distance not in the maximum performance, but in just set distances and more repetitions. Jorg set his schedule to 37,5 meters and repeated this 4 times. I set my distance at 75 meters and repeated this 2 times. I think I should up the repetitions before upping the distance, but I am still to find the right distance to improve from. I’m thinking to up the set distance to 87,5 meters for several reasons:

• I always have to make the turn
• I surface at the side edge of the pool
• Winning the mental game towards a wall

Technique
I have noticed that technique also improves my freediving time as follows: When I do the constant cycle of kicking, it will take about 17 seconds for 25 meters and when I do the kick-kick-kick-glide, it will take about 20-21 seconds for 25 meters. Later in the training I did the kick-kick-kick-glide again and now the technique was better because of a constant motion in the complete cycle, now the time was around 18-19 seconds for 25 meters. Same effort more speed… I have to focus on getting into the proper technique straight away for the motion cycle.

I’ve included the video from last training for Lubomir Stefanoff to see the progress on the alignment better.

Goals
Alright the goals for next training are set then . I’ll be doing 2 or 3 times a 87,5 meters dynamic with monofin and see if this can be a thing I get consistent in. Rest of the training will focus on technique runs and times 25 and 50 meter runs.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

There is a big difference at the moment between trying to execute a correct technique with a monofin and enjoying being underwater with a monofin. If I really focus on technique, relaxation is very far away and vice versa.

I was already struggling with this for the last past weeks. While doing a lot of technique training I noticed it was a while since I last felt in a flow state underwater. So yesterday it was time to make a small change.

From now on I divide my monofin training in technique and flow training. The first part will be dedicated in correct execution of style and technique including alignment (I really need a weight system, now!) and the second part will  be dedicated to relaxation and getting in a flow state of mind.

The tests yesterday showed that the two are still miles away and of course the goals is to bring technique and flow more together in the coming time. This will for sure not be done in a couple of weeks, but I’m sure that if we continue like this it will become months instead of years.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

So it seems from the training last night that my horizontal alignment is getting somewhere. The past few weeks we have been training a lot with the monofin, just to get the proper movement. The hardest part was figuring out what amplitude to go by and how that feels opposed to what you have been doing for a while now.

But last night during training I was just doing my thing based on the outcome of previous weeks of monofin training and was glad to hear Jorg tell me he was amazed what he was observing. One of the best things to bring at a training is the video equipment, which made the video from the horizontal alignment instantly available to me. Now I’m able to connect the feeling I had during the 75m performance to the way it looks, which in my case is very valuable.

After the successful monofin laps, it was time to focus on the turn points as I still don’t feel all to comfortable about the energy I put into the turn right now. What seems to be happening is that while touching the wall at a certain point the push off from my feet is considerably higher on the wall than the initial touch down. This is due to the somewhat larger monofin that I have to swing around, but it was a thing we could get rid of when using bi-fins as well. So we put some effort in the turns and after about 8 times there were 2 turns that showed potential.

So currently I’m going to stick with the following turn technique when using a monofin:

• When I see the T stripe I’ll glide towards the wall
• I roll over on my right side
• touch the wall with my right hand and compress legs inwards
• While compressing I use my grip of the right hand still on the wall to prepare for swinging the monofin around
• Swing the monofin around at about the same location as my hand placement
• Decompress by starting to stretch out the arms
• Fully decompress by the push off with both feet equally

This felt like the best motion for me to stick with. Any tips or suggestions are welcome.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Another good training done and while the physical training is going pretty well, I noticed while driving to home I didn’t have a real mental challenge. When I do static training it is always mental, but with dynamic the focus has been to technique only.

So it’s time to change this the next time. I need more mental training and combat to overcome some ‘fears’ I have in my head.

Mental note to self: transform some of the leg training pain you can endure into freediving pain…

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

The other night I was coaching Jorg while holding his breath at the hottub pool in the Tongelreep Eindhoven. He was experiencing his normal barrier and trying all kinds of different preparation techniques to break out of it as you can read here. As we know from our previous competition and other training sessions in the hottub, it can be very hot in there . This high temperature poses a range of problems which seemed easy to explain why they happen, but it turns out I was wrong about 1 of them.

When I was coaching Jorg, the time I spent in the pool doing nothing but coaching increased to a range of 25 minutes orso. That’s when I started sensing the same thing as when I’d have vasoconstriction. But although I assumed it was a free pass into having the vasoconstriction, I learned that it is actually vasodilation and thus the exact opposite of the thing you want happening with freediving.

To prove the theory I decided on doing a schedule to counteract the vasodilation and see after how many times the tingling sensation would fade away. So I did 1 minute 30 seconds breath holds and in the last 5 seconds I’d release all my air, after that I’d surface and immediately take one deep breath again and do another 1m30s. Normally with this schedule you would get the vasoconstriction kicking in at around 6 or 7 times.

The test showed us, that after only 3 times into this schedule the vasodilation was counteracted and I didn’t have the tingling feeling anymore. Theory proven and a lesson learned .

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

As it was Carnival this week, we skipped our usual Tuesday CO2 training and focused ourselves for the Thursday pool training. This also gave my body a chance to recover from the big crash on Monday with my Snowboard.

When we arrived at the pool we saw three times as many people as normal. Extra club in the pool, so no real room for our monofin training today! Damn… I hate it when we can’t execute a plan. Almost we packed our bags and went home, but I’m glad Sanne convinced me of a good static workout.

I did several experiments while holding my breath and it seems that the 2nd and 5th static felt the best during this training. On all, except one, breath hold I did no preparation what so ever. Just talking until 5 seconds before the start and down. On the one I did prepare with some good breathing I just noticed no difference at all during the hold.

It’s clear that my statics are suffering from a mental barrier in the end and I need to find a good work around to break this barrier that I already have for 8 years or so. Strange thing is that I don’t have this barrier when doing dry statics. Time to think about some static exercises that break the barrier in the coming weeks.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

We’re getting there. After some weeks of training with the monofin, it’s clear that Sanne and I are getting somewhere with the monofin. For the first time it’s starting to feel like it’s helping our performances instead of costing more energy then with bifins. I even had a crazy thought of wearing the monofin in the open water, wow!

Of course there is still a long way to go, but the great thing is that we documented the whole learning curve here. We know exactly how we started, what we did wrong, how we fixed and improved it. An essential learning curve we had to go through and which could help other people as well.

The main kick is now pretty clear to us and it takes around 2-3 kicks to get in the right movement and flow of it. Now we have to practice this a lot so that we can go in the flow immediately, so that we can also start experimenting with kick-glide cycles.

Next is also starting and turns. And if these are also in the pocket it’s time again to also look at performance. For now we alternate with the fin and the video camera every 150 meters of training, and it works pretty well. Maybe we post a video in the coming weeks about our progress. In the mean time, we just keep practicing, practicing and practicing.