First day
It started with a introduction of technique used during the CNF, which he’d broke down into the arm- and legstroke. It’s good to see him explaining all this theory out of his own experience, like where he applies certain corrections and i.e. accidentally finding out why certain stuff is working by looking back through videos.

A lot of other theory explained about lung capacity, certain different thesis’ and practical experience led William to finding a kind of formula to calculate how many air to use for a dive. Although it’s unproven by science it did make sense when he explained it.

After the theory he taught some of his stretching exercises, through which he could stretch his overall body in preparation of CNF or CW dives. In combination with breathing exercises with purpose to stretch the lungs and the rib-cage a preparation for depth training seems to make sense. In some of the stretching exercises or maybe most, I found out that my body wasn’t really all that capable of bending. I do believe that with a little dedication to these stretching exercises, it will be increasing flexibility and thus a better preparation for going into the blue.

With the body stretched up and ready to go we were dropped in the pool to show our technique to the careful eye of the world champ. With pin-pointed accuracy he spotted technique imperfections and showed a way to get rid of these imperfections. For myself my scissor-like movement with my right leg still is one the major imperfections, but by hanging on the side of the pool and slowly making the movement I could get rid of the imperfection. As for the other participants they could also benefit of the observations and comments by William.

Second day
This day started of with theory again, more specific to total lung capacity versus residual volume. He explained an other theory which he worked out for himself and he combined with exhale statics. This approach seems to make sens when you are training for depth, as you’re in this kind of static whilst your falling down by negative buoyancy.

Glenn setup his heart rate monitor through which William was able to show a heart rate drop from 60 to 38 within a minute, which proves his way of using certain pranayama locks. Later that day all participants would be  hooked up and check if they were able to pull of these locks…as for my own heart rate… sigh… I don’t know why but my heart rate starts of at about 100 rest state after 4 minutes of slow breathing and after performing a lock…it would only drop to let’s say 83, but all in a time of 2 minutes for which this is a normal drop in heart rate for me. so for me it’s unproven, but the others were able to get the sensations William was talking about.

After the heart rate monitoring everybody made a maximum attempt in the pool without any preparation, for most of the freedivers this was a first and they all performed really well by down no warm up.

To round up the day we were to execute one of the tables explained earlier in the theory. A certain amount  of 25m laps and decreasing rest times made a perfect training for 30 minutes. Quite tiring and an interesting way of training, although I do see resemblance with my own training schedule’s which Jorg puts me through.

Concluding
Overall a succesful weekend and lot’s of new things learned also about an amazing athlete doing 3 days of trianing and one day of rest in a really awesome blue hole in the Bahamas. Thanks William Trubridge and Glenn Venghaus and Peter Wurschy from Apnea Academy Amsterdam for setting up this oppertunity.

The announced schedule for this weekend (roughly):

Saturday
16:00 arrive in pool Beverwijk
16:30 – 17:00   Introductions
17:00 – 18:30  Theory (technique & dive strategy)
18:30 – 19:30  Stretching (body & lungs)
19:30 – 21:30  Pool (technique & drills)
21:30 – End (estimated)

Sunday
12:00 arrival pool beverwijk
12:30 – 15:00   Theory (training program, diet, psychology)
15:00 – 16:00   Stretching (body & lungs)
16:00 – 18:30   Pool (max attempt, pyramid training table)
18:30 – 19:30   Videos, diploma, question time
20:00 -  End (estimated)

Just to let you know what William Trubridge is all about, check out this great performance:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other information about William Trubridge is posted on Vertical Blue.