Surprise success in training

Now look at that...



I don't really know where that came from but the good vibes at the training with Anna and Elisabeth must have had an effect on me.

I usually take the role of the whip swinging coach, these days, making them do another dive and telling them what their arms, legs and bums are doing when they should be doing something completely different. One time, when they were really fed-up with me they turned around and said, now you do a dive!

Now there was no way backing out for coach Martin. Keeping the moral of the troop and restoring credibility and respect was only possible by getting in the water and doing a nice 50m+ dive. An in fact, the dive was so nice, on Sunday, after standing in the water for 2 h and without all the big fuzz of a breath-up and all that, I felt like doing it again.

And so I set off to a dive of 75m. It was not the perfect dive, I know. I did not pack enough air and was sinking which caused me swim up and not really glide as much as I wanted to and I totally forgot about collecting my legs and all that... but hey, I did 75m when my PB is 79m...

The training with Anna must be having an effect on me after all... Still, I keep stepping on that scales in the change room just to reassure that I'm not losing any weight at all. Anna says it's because I'm building up so much muscles at the same time but that could be just a trick to lull the coach.

Coaching Anna v.B. in the pool

As you may or may not have heard, Anna has announced a National Record attempt. Well, in fact, she announced three.

After vaporizing the women’s depth records last year she is now turning to the pool disciplines. She announced to break all static (6'07"), dynamic (134m) and dynamic without fins (99m).

Now, Anna is not known to be a very big fan of the pool. So how is this possible? One thing is that she is actually staying in one place for more than 2 weeks. Another is that Elixia, her fitness club and sponsor, is willing to give her all the opportunity to train whenever she wants. They even gave her a 3 months membership card for a trainer to coach and safety her through the training. And this is where I come in.

So, what do you do when you have a 25m pool, a gym and training buddy just 5min from your doorstep? I tell you, you train 8 times a week (no kidding!)!

Through the last week we trained 6 times in the pool (every discipline twice) went on a strength circit and to a spinning course. Wednesday is the only day off, which is giving me some time to write about the training... ;)

As a start we wanted to see where Anna stands and so she did three max dives ending up at 100m DYN, 80m DNF and 4'14" STA. Pretty impressive when you think of her PBs of 117m, 68m and 5'08".

After that we went into strength and technique training. In DNF the difference that this training made was very soon visible. Training the strokes and kicks separately and a generally improved balance made her reduce the strokes per lane from 5/6 to 3 and a half.

Monofinning is still a different game. There, we did mostly focus on gaining the strength necessary to kick down the fin. Anna decided to leave her Waterway Glide fin at home for this one and start with a fin that is not so buoyant. As the pool is only 1,30m deep we also put some emphasize on the turns.

In static we did some nasty CO2 tables (1min hold, 1 breath, 1min hold). Yesterday, she did another STA max and ended up at 5'01". So we are closing in on her PB and moving forward to the big number.

So far Anna has shown an incredible will power and not flinched once when I was pushing her limits. Let’s see how long she can keep that up because I do want to see where her limits are.

I did not get around to take some pictures yet but will do that later. I do have some crap technique videos but was not allowed to release them... ;)

Tomorrow, Anna is doing another DYN max... let’s see how it goes...

Video from the OIC

Thomas was diving to the maximum depth of -52m in a 3mm suit.

Thankfully he decided to put it on this time. The day before he tryed the same without it...

Oslo Ice Challenge - the worlds first freedive competition under ice

Just a quick one from Oslo. The competition is over and all are warm and safe. For an organizer/judge this is the most important.

But I must admit, apart from being cold and wet, it was a lot of fun.

For you to have an idea of the set up here comes the video:



We had three competition dives. Since the deepest dive counts and we weighted CNF with 1.35 points per meter, Stig was taking the lead by diving 41 meter CNF leaving Christian Maldame and Guillaume Nery with their 52 meter CWT dives behind.

That was making things much more interesting for today as 52 meter was the maximum depth. So, we saw a lot of CNF today.

After both Christian Ernest and Christian Maldame went to 42m Guillaume Nery went to 45 without fins. But Stig had announced 52m and therefore came last.

Well, he was kind of surprising everyone by showing up in his speedos like Thomas Grindevoll yesterday. After diving in he went down to about 21 m and turned, making quite a show of it like he had just made a world record.

So we knew then who was first but the second and third place had to be decided in the viking static. The two Christians went head to head. Christian Maldame came up 3'38" and Christian Ernest after 4'02". So the competition was decided.


Everyone had a lot of fun and I know this is something I will tell me children about.

But now I need to sleep....