Team Sharkbait

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

With a new year it’s time for a new training regime. After some lengthy talks with Sanne, we decided to up the volume of freediving training we are doing.

Thursday stays reserved for our freediving discipline training, doing statics and some dynamics. Focusing on technique and performance and not so much on doing schedules.

Due to the fact that I have a horrible small co2 buffer in my body it is mandatory to start doing some schedules again to fix this problem. Sanne already explained the crawl without breath technique we developed for his own personal training and it’s now time to convert these exercises to myself.

We decided to add another 30 minutes of water time on Tuesday afternoon. People sometimes wonder why we don’t plan longer training routines (our Thursday schedule is 60 minutes), but that is just not for us and our busy lives and so many other activities.

These 30 minutes will be filled in the coming months with 2 different exercises. The First will be a series of 25 meter long crawls without breath. Tuesday I set the repeated countdown timer on my watch to 1:25 minutes and I will swim 8 times a 25 meter without breathing, rest and go again when the timer reaches zero.

The second exercise is crawling with an extended breathing rate. Where I normally crawl every 4 stokes, I will up this to 6 and 8 strokes. I will do 4×50 meters with a breath on each 6th stroke and rest after each 50 meter for 1 minute. After the First four laps are over I will continue and do another four laps but this time with one breath every 8th stroke.

I’m curious if I will manage to complete it. It will for sure give me a good burn, just like I need it. If everything goes all right I plan to change the schedule with very very small steps each time I manage to complete it successfully. Wish me luck! I need it!

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

We’ve had this exercise for quite a while now and I’ll take this opportunity to further explain the crawl without breath exercise, as it’s an exercise which really helps in building endurance levels and also builds confidence for doing dynamic performances.

It’s an idea that we came up with about a year ago when we were in the project 13 schedule, where I had to be able to train on by myself due to circumstances where Jorg would not be able to make it to the pool. The idea is simple, just do a normal crawl like the swimmer do at the surface, but then without breath and we mix it up into a build-up-, exhale- and an endurance schedule.

Build-up schedule (interval)
At first we were unfamiliar with how much and how far we should be alternating the not breathing part in the crawling at the surface. This is how the build-up schedule first originates, we would set out a schedule of 500 meters. Were I would try to do 100 meters of breathing every 6 strokes, where we count a stroke as after both arms had made a full motion. The second 100 meters I’d up it to breathing only every 10 strokes and so on. I gradually got to a point where  I would almost do full lanes of crawl without breath. Although rest times in between the almost full lanes (50m) had to be somewhat longer than at the start of the schedule.

Example schedule:

1. 2 x 50 meter: breath every 3 strokes
2. 2 x 50 meter: breath every 5 strokes
3. 2 x 50 meter: breath every 7 strokes
4. 2 x 50 meter: breath every 9 strokes
5. 2 x 50 meter: breath every 11 strokes

Exhale schedule (slowly exhaling)
To mix things up with the static O2 tables, the next step we tested as part of a good training would be a O2 training. Getting rid of the CO2 building up during the lane by slowly exhaling the air within a set amount of arm-strokes.

Example schedule:

1. 2 x 50 meter: 5 exhales
2. 2 x 50 meter: 4 exhales
3. 2 x 50 meter: 3 exhales
4. 2 x 50 meter: 2 exhales
5. 2 x 50 meter: 1 exhale
6. 1 x 50 meter: 0 exhaling

Endurance schedule
This came into play when Jorg got curious into how it would work out if I’d just do a full lane without breath, as we had been upping it since the Build-up schedule, this was a thought we’d both been playing with and this actually would be the next schedule we’d go by, focussed on endurance.

Example schedule:

1. 2 x 50 meter: 2 minute rest time
2. 2 x 50 meter: 1 minute 30 seconds rest time
3. 2 x 50 meter: 1 minute 15 seconds rest time
4. 2 x 50 meter: 1 minute rest time
5. 2 x 50 meter: 45 seconds rest time

Maximum attempts
As we were progressing pretty good with this exercise and it was really fun to do as well, Jorg added the mental factor again by letting me push my limits into trying a maximum performance with crawl’s without breath. To be honest at the time it was not really a success for my mental state, but doing a maximum performance of almost 75 meters in crawl was enough to prove it’s a serious exercise.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Looking back at 2009 shows us that we’ve really gotten the best out of ourselves by finding the roots of our fun for freediving. Both Jorg and I had been searching for this important factor for a while, but it seems we both found it and are very much motivated for a new year of freediving. As Jorg already posted a set of goals for the new year, I need not say more that he’s motivated and ready to go.

Fun & Lessons learned
For myself when I look back at the last year it started out with my search for fun in freediving and I had no real distance and time goals set out. During the search, which lasted from January to about October, I was getting more and more interested in competing again. But as I really wanted to find out if that was really what I wanted, I had to hold myself off from competing. The first part of the year I spent a lot of time relaxing in the water and doing the other stuff I love to do, filming, producing and writing about it. I wrote a lot of “How-to” articles, which are very popular when I check the Google Analytics panel.

In september I could not keep myself from starting project “The Number 23” and thus inscribing to the Wiesbaden competition, which posed as a good marker to see if was capable of competing again. Wiesbaden turned out to be very succesful and I showed myself that I could do statics again without bailing early. Next test on the list was to see if I was able to cope with results that were not as high as I can, but werre still results I could live with as I did my best for them. So I went to Belgium with no high expectations and pure for fun and meeting up with everybody and it turned out I can easily live with performances I did my best for and not as far or long as I should be capable of. A big lesson learned in this year and the start of a new approach.

Furthermore a lot has happened and changed throughout the year, I got my balance for DNF sorted out better, made my first steps into actually competing with a monofin and improved a few monofin personal bests along the way. As I think back of the travelling I’ve done it’s quite a list: Austria Cuba, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark & Sweden) & Slovenia. Not all of them have been for freediving, but that’s not the point of all my travelling .

2010 – This year
We’re on the virge of getting into more monofin training and thourougly testing a Waterway Glide more intensively. This will bring new motivations along and a lot of nice training we’re both looking forward to. My goals are to enjoy freediving with my new mindset and see which distances and times it will bring me. Sounds like a no goal year, but it’s a real goal for me . The first test will be on the 23rd or January when Shark.nu is organizing a nice dynamic competition, let’s see what I can do with the Glide monofin.

Statistics
Even though we had a hick-up on our Google Analytics account, the statistics counting from 2nd half of May to the end of this year shows the trend of our visitor’s Country of origin. In total 4,606 visits came from 102 countries, I’ll post the top 10 countries:

1. United States
2. Netherlands
3. United Kingdom
4. Germany
5. Poland
6. Czech Republic
7. Belgium
8. Australia
9. Canada
10. Spain

The top 5 referring sites, without shark-freediving and social sites like Twitter & Facebook are:

1. forums.deeperblue.com
2. apnea.cz
3. totalimmersion.net
4. dfa.nu
5. lubosub.com

The top 5 Search terms were:

1. monofin technique
2. freediving materials
3. finning technique
4. wiesbaden aida freediving
5. freediving mask

Thank you
It’s very motivating to see so many people know and find their way to our site and articles. We really appreciate all the feedback through comments and e-mail. We love answering your questions and continue to do so if they are related to us & freediving that is . We plan to continue on this course in 2010 as well. although the start for sharkbait is a bit different, as the website is ported over to the Shark-freediving.com portal and now has a different address: http://sharkbait.shark-freediving.com/. Which had also been the reason for me not to post any stories until the site had been fully ported over into the new environment. If you might spot any irregularities please contact us.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Today I wrote a big post about my Project 99. Part of that is also some goals in freediving. While last year it was all about finding fun again in freediving, this year it’s time again to set some goals and do some competitions as well.

Freediving goals are more clear. 4 minute static in water, 100 meter dynamic with fins and a 75 meter dynamic without fins before the end of the project.

The above is what I wrote down about freediving. For me these are some big numbers. To be clear: I don’t care if I do these performances during competition or training, I just want to do them!

I didn’t mention anything about depth, but that was on purpose. I still have a long standing goal of reaching 50 meters on my own power, but what is more importantly this year is consisting training in the deep again. And not only that, it’s also time to freedive deep in some clear water again with other freedivers! Maybe time for a freediving vacation to Dahab or Greece later this year.

It’s been a while since I really set some freediving goals, but I like the feeling and motivation it gives me again. So let’s start January with regular pool training on Thursday evening with the mono and starting the session with a static. And from there I’m going to work it up in the coming weeks.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

In the last months I’ve been doing some regular (mostly dry) statics again. Once a week, sometimes even 2 times a week. End result normally was that I did my third or fourth attempt the best time, being around 2:40-3:00 minutes. Pretty mediocre and not really special.

The thing is, I don’t like contractions at all. As soon as I feel one coming in the pool during static or dynamic, it’s over for me. Since I did quite a few 3 minute holds in the last weeks, without contractions and sometimes even on very stupid moments of the day (right after dinner, or after fitness), I decided to make everything perfect for one time.

So this afternoon the kids were away, my last meal was 3 hours before, it was time. I felt pretty relaxed and decided that because the year is almost over, I had at least have to endure 3 contractions during my best static.

First was a warmup that I ended after 1:45. 2nd attempt was 2:30 which felt pretty easy. After this one I decided to do my final attempt of the day and mentally prepared for the pain called ‘contractions’.

The first minute in the hold the only thing I could think about was the pain that would come, but somehow I managed to forget it and enjoy it. Suddenly I was not relaxed anymore, because I felt a contraction coming. I promised myself I wouldn’t look on the watch, no matter what.

I tried to imagine them as waves. Contraction comes, smashes on the beach, and washes away. The pain for me was intense, but with this mind trick pretty doable. After the third contraction I decided it was enough and wait until the next contraction would set in, which would be the end of the breath hold. Around 10 seconds after the last one, I felt it coming and decided to stop. Quick breath, hold, breath and okay. No real problem

The wonderful thing was that when I looked on the stopwatch the time was on 4:03 minutes. Not bad considering my personal best is 4:35 and I did that almost 7 years ago. Pretty happy with this time. But to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m ever going to like contractions like these again.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

As a result of our monofin training of the last couple of months Sanne and I have decided to get really serious with monofin training again. So we decided to order a Waterway Glide monofin.

After some tests in the last couple of weeks with the fins of Daan, Judith and Eric, the only option left to be sure for a good fin for the coming months was to get the Glide fin.

It should arrive around the first week of the new year, so hopefully our first pool training on January 9 will include the new fin already. Can’t wait to do some turns with it!

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Yesterday Team Sharkbait together with Shark Sports organized the first Shark Hot Tub Static and it was fun! It was a really small competition with only 4 people, but Team Sharkbait was the force behind some new things we are trying to do with the sport of freediving.

I’ve talked before about the fact that static is the most boring thing in the world to watch for an audience. So we have some ideas how to make it more interesting to watch and especially more recognizable for people. All these different masks, preparation rituals, no talking, quietness, yoga, etc don’t make up for a fun event.

During the event yesterday we purposely prohibited warming-ups and  equipment. This way everybody was chatting, laughing and having fun, and when they said they were ready they took their 2 minute countdown and started their static.

Everybody was pretty sceptic beforehand, but I guess now they’ve tried it, it felt pretty good and especially trainable. We’ve got some more ideas for the future, so more fun competitions coming up.

Results of yesterday:

• Sanne 4:47
• Daan 5:03
• Nanja 4:34
• Natascha 4:02 (PB)

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

In the coming week we’re going to move  the Team Sharkbait website to our new Shark network server. While Shark Freediving was always about the world news about freediving, bringing news about records and competitions, this website was always about something else.

Team Sharkbait is about the personal freediving stories behind the people who are in Team Sharkbait. In the past we decided to break this up in a separate website, but  technology and social networking has evolved in such a way that it’s now possible to create communities that combine the best of everything.

With our new Shark network environment we will still bring the global freediving news through our frontpage but now the freedivers themselves can bring the personal stories as well. So the first personal stories we place at the Shark network is that of Team Sharkbait.

As it is a big move, you can expect a little downtime in the next week. We will keep both blogs in sync until January 1st. From then on everything will be up to date again directly from the shark network and the old sharkbait.shark-freediving.com domain.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Tonight the freediving training consisted of a small introduction to freediving for a few new divers and the last part we focussed on minor tweaking details and getting some distance with the monofin. So the first 30 minutes we spent learning a few new guys from Scubacity the few basic steps into the world of freediving. They were both highly motivated and looking forward to their next session. Both performed well and will learn a lot in the time to come.

For our own training I had made a few adjustments on the alignment and now things are getting somewhere. Also I had brought along some soap, to make the wearing of the monofin a lot better. Putting it on and getting your feet out of the pockets was so much easier now. Never the less I still think it’s a bit of a strange fin for me to work with. So for today I just wanted to see if the alignment tweak was working, and so far I’m liking it a lot.

Next up was some distance, where I agreed with Jorg just to take it slowly and do somewhere between 3-4 laps. First two laps were focussed and without a problem in technique, but yet again in the 50 – 75 I felt myself speeding up. After the turn into the 4th lap it almost felt like sprinting and the relax-ness was gone, so I surfaced and called it a day at around 95 meters. Very happy with it though, as small steps will get me forward!

Jorg tweaked his alignment a little further as well and did a few good test runs with the monofin. Although everything looked good on the outside, he told me he was not all that relaxed and a little bit too tense… But hey that’s what you get when you go out to the gym and workout your arms just before the freediving session . Good job training anyway! Respect, I know how it feels.

Next week I’ll make some adjustements to the aligning again and hopefully I’m able to get it right this time. Stay tuned for more on that topic.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Last Friday I joined up with Daan, Judith and Pim for another freediving session at the Tongelreep. The pool was still swarming with swimmers doing laps after their performance in the Swim Cup, so we had to wait about 15 minutes. Of course we could easily use this time for some catching up , also Pim brought along the special underwater lensed goggles from Kerian Hibbs. Strange how your depth perception can be confused, when you’re not used to these goggles.

After the catching up it was time to do some dynamic’s. I got to borrow the Waterway Glide Fin from Judith again, who swam a fantastic 150 meters with it last week. So from that point of view it was no excuse to not try and at least do a 100 meter dynamic with that monofin. They also made me promise to add a turn when I reached 100m…good thing!

Daan asked me if I liked a 2 minute countdown, but for now I j ust wanted to do it. So I got into the water and took a few deep breath’s and went for it. Coming up to 50 meters my technique was still constant and I had my first contraction at 45meters. I Made the turn and tried to get back into the rythem of kick-kick-glide, but in a strange way I couldn’t really focus on the rythem. So I think I was alternating between kick-glide & kick-kick-glide . Never the less, I reached 100 meters fairly easy and reminded myself to the promise I made, turn at 100m! I made the the turn, did a small kick and glided to 108 meters. Did my surface protocol and recovered fast, I quote Daan on my dynamic: “in speedo’s, without packing and not enough neckweight, coming up like he just did 75. The kid’s got talent” really flatters me and makes me confident again.

We had a great time training at the Tongelreep, atmosphere was good. We were also very eager to see Pim do some freediving training again, he managed his own prediction of 7 meters DNF and superseded it with at least another 40 meters Well done!

Daan broke his Big Fat Bastard 2 and when I write this already made a Big Fat Bastard 3, what a massive thing . Judith did a training of easy 50′s, as she already proved to be able to swim quite the distance, quoting Pim: “a distance Sanne and me can only dream of”.