1. Safety
The main, mandatory characteristic of freediving is safety. When you train freediving, you want to be relaxed. The only way to achieve full mind relaxation is being aware that someone is watching you while you are freediving. It is a team sport. During our entire carrier, we never freedive alone.
2. Equipment
Depending on your level, sometimes having just swimsuit and swimming googles is enough. Even at elite level, sometimes freedivers use only those two pieces of equipment. We will list all the equipment that can be used during our training:
- noseclip – most of freedivers use nose clip. It can be really simple, swimming one that only block incoming water but the air will come out if you blow into it. Specialized noseclip for freediving will protect water from coming in but you will also not be able to blow out any air through nose
- neck-weight – in order to stay neutral while we swim underwater in a pool, we use piece of lead around our neck area, which is called neck-weight. Everyone needs specific weight for himself, which is based on a lung volume, body fat, muscle mass, bone density, thickness and material of a wetsuit.
- bifins – there is a lot of bi fins on a market. They start from short training ones, made from stiff rubber, progressing into longer ones made from all kind of material including plastic, fiberglass, carbon fiber and other composite materials. Long freediving fins from fiberglass or carbon usually come with variety of stiffnesses that are usually adjusted to freedivers strength, technique and style of swimming
- monofin – advanced freediving gear, they offer greater speeds and more energy efficient moves which will result in a greater distance achieved compared to bifins. Same as bifins they come with all different kind of stiffnesses and material including mainly rubber, fiberglass and carbon fiber.
- wetsuit – we use wetsuit for all activities not only to stay warm but also to reduce drag. Bare skin is vibrating, causing turbulences and it is slowing us down. The tighter the wetsuit the better for performance as we become one uniform shape, bear in mind that very tight wetsuit will wear off quicker and if it’s too tight, it can limit your inhale or arm stretch above head. For static we usually use much thicker suit (5-7mm) with loose fit while for dynamics or warm deep dives we stick to 1-2mm thickness with very tight fit
3. Facilities
Pool and gym access are necessary to perform in water and out of the water, physical training. Training only freediving will limit your progress at some point and you will hit plateau. In order to progress your body needs to get stronger and while it can be achieved through various physical training, gym is the best place to start at. Once you get into more specific routines at different stages of preparation, gym may not be required anymore.
4. Training plan
Are you ever wondering how often to train, what to do on training, when to stop before competition, when to push a dive, how to periodize you training or simply train in a smart way? With minimum time spend for maximum results? You are in a right place! You can check out our programs and pick one that fits you the most. It can be that simple!