Now that we enter week 4 of the 13 week long schedule for Sanne to break all his pool records, it’s time to take a look back at week 3. The first two weeks was about setting up and a try out. Week 3 was the first week that everything was already done once, so that the intensity could go up a notch or two. If you read Sanne’s account on last week, you see that he was pretty pleased with how things ran. That being said, there is still major room for improvement, especially in dynamic technique.

For the regular readers of the site, you may remember that pool training was off for a few months during the winter period. Just focusing on regular physical training instead of specific skill training. Well, it seems those few months of no-pool-work degraded the freediving techniques a little. Nothing to be worried about, but for sure very interesting for us and I think the readers in what you will see now, and what you will see after week 13.

So to be specific, during last Fridays training session I took my underwater camera with me and made some shots underwater to analyze the technique afterwards. Normally I’ll do this almost every training session, and if you have an eye for the athlete you can spot small details that are worth mentioning afterwards. This time I’ll do this online, so you get to see and read what we’re looking for.

First of all, here is the video clip of an easy 70 meter dynamic no fins freedive. First take a look and afterwards I go though some of the points.

http://www.shark-eye.com/flv/tsb/20070420-dnf-sanne.flv

So what did YOU see? Think a bit about and if you’re done then read further to read my analysis.

Done thinking? Well, let’s get through the points.

Weights

One of the first things you’ll probably notice is that the line Sanne is in, is far from optimal. Around 15% of the stroke effort is put in getting him down again. You can see this by the fact that his legs are way higher then his head. Trying to compensate this with a stroke doesn’t even loose maximum energy in the forward direction, but also increases stress levels in his back because it’s a little bend upwards and this again increases the stretch on the abdominals which needs to be relaxed as much as possible. The more tension there is on the abdominals the harder the contractions get.

During this dive he wasn’t wearing any weights like he normally does, but next time he has to wear his neck weight again. Last year we spend quite some time establishing the right amount of weight for this, so as body composition hasn’t changed a great deal in the winter months it will be sufficient for the first few weeks and maybe only needs to be adjusted with 50-100 grams plus or minus. More about neck weights in another post.

Arm Stroke

The general arm stroke is pretty okay in this clip, it got a good lining and it’s forceful, exactly how we need to train this. Looking at the detail once again, you can find that the forward extension is a little off. I don’t know where he got it from, but if you look closely you can see that his right arm extends straight ahead and that Sanne’s left arm is completely bend to the right to get his left hand on the right. In short, his hands are not centered in front of him and this he has to compensate with his arm and leg strokes, minor details but then again 5-8% lost energy.

Hands

Another small detail but something he has to keep in mind is the position of the hands. It’s common error to put all your fingers together and make a small bowl, so that you catch more water. Truth is that you have to keep your hands straight and make a small room between the fingers. Not to much, only around 5 millimeters. This way the total surface area is increased and so stroke efficiency is higher. Because of the speed of the stroke the small openings between the fingers are not an issue. On the super high quality AVI it’s much better to see, but that file is 350 mb, so a little big to put it here.

Legs

Well, were to start… (just a joke, Sanne!) In general, one of the most difficult parts to master perfectly. You really need a video camera to improve this part. The same goes with fins, it’s an absolute must to film the techniques of the legs. As you can see in the video the right leg goes out and to the bottom and the left leg goes to the left and up. Trick is to get this better so that both legs are not changing height if you would like from behind. Now the feet go everywhere, and even between the leg kicks you see some small spastic movement with especially his left foot. Anyway, it looks bad, but nothing we can’t fix in the weeks to come. I think Sanne was even more shocked to see this then I already was.

Turning Point

In short: he needs to be more horizontal during the turn. When he turns now his head gets up a lot, so much that his body gets into a 45% angle from his starting position. So a lot of energy is being lost in the turn. Easy thing to fix, especially after we add the neck weight.

Relaxation

Not really an issue already, but because Sanne has a very high speed at the moment (which is in part okay in this stage of the training) you don’t exactly see the two relaxation parts in each stroke. In short you make an arm stroke and then glide (relax moment 1), then you do a leg stroke together with extending the arms again and another glide. Most of the times only 2/3 of the relax time of relax moment 1, and some people do a dolphin kick in between during this phase if they master it correctly, so not yet for Sanne.

Other Stuff

I just commented on a few things you can see during the video, but there are many other factors that we look at that you can’t see in the video. For example; start, surface protocol, preparation, breathing, heart rate, contractions, etc. So all in all we got it pretty good covered. Like I told you before, we approach this with a precise no nonsense approach. So we’re not waiting for the correct alignment of the stars, or the moment that Sanne feels he can float on water after a 32 day fasting period doing yoga, just plain old hard and intense workouts with a bio mechanical approach to the specific skill training that’s going on.

Keep in mind that not everything you read here is for you! It’s specific to Sanne’s current skill set. But all in all I think you’ve got a pretty good free lesson here in dynamic without fins so do your thing with it. Just keep in mind that this is just one part of the big puzzle and that it’s all part of the Sharkbait Philosophy which is definitely not for everybody.

See you next week after another hard week of pain and sweat. And now turn off that damn computer and get training!

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