Yes, I know! I always tell everybody not to do it, and now I’ve done it myself. As you can read from Sanne his post, Sanne made it partially to get to all his goals. I blame the partially part somewhat to myself because I changed so many variables during this test. Besides the added pressure I always give to Sanne, to give him somewhat of a competition feeling, I maybe changed to much of the winning combination. Normally we always train in a 50 meter pool, we did the test in a 25 meter pool. Our normal training pool is 2,20 meters deep, we set this pool to 1,40 meters (for safety reasons). And maybe even the temperature made a difference, 2 degrees higher in the test pool.

I calculated that it would inflict the performance, but never guessed it would be such a difference. First of all Sanne started with his DNF 105 meter test drive. Right in the first lap I could see that the technique for such short laps was not there. Sanne completely changed his pace and the turns were too rushed. All in all it resulted in a small LMC from which he could recover by himself at 101 meters. So strange to see him come up at this distance with some trouble! All in all, 2 minutes for a 101 meter dive is way too much. So next time we stay in the 50 meter pool.

And after the small LMC we decided it was better to not do a max attempt anymore. So Sanne set the goal for the dynamic with fins to 100 meters. Besides the problem with his body positioning because of the shallow water, it still looked as a very easy dive. And I’m sure that if he had started with this one, the 125 meters would be done with amazing ease. Oh well, one can just wonder what would bring this the next time in the 50 meter pool.

All in all it’s just good to learn the hard way during training then to learn from it when it matters during competitions. It’s the first thing that doesn’t go exactly as planned in project 13 and I’m glad it happens in week 9 and not week 13! The thing is that I expected much more problems with his 6:20 static he had to do, but to my amazement that was no problem at all.

So what’s next? Only 4 weeks to go and the final is getting closer and closer. Focus for the last 4 weeks is no completly on relaxation and technique. So no more high intensity schedules were Sanne need to catch a breath between laps, but only the fine and easy feeling of burning legs and those nice low oxygen levels and blue lips.

Monday is the first day of the 8 schedules that will take Sanne from where he is now to a 7 minute static, a 125 meter dynamic without fins and a 150 meter dynamic with fins. And I have no doubt that he will make it! His physic has been trained, his mind is programmed, let’s get it on!

Another week has passed by and the tempo is up! Amazing how fast everything is going and how fast someone can progress when he dedicates himself to something. Progression with Sanne is not just about new personal bests and maximum performances. It has much more to do with stamina, consistent performances, self belief and technique.

We are just done with the first week of the transitional phase from shifting the training from an intense set of general exercises to a more specific set of exercises performed in a lower intensity. If you’ve read Sanne’s last post, you could have make out that he is doing pretty well, even in such a way that we’re almost 1,5-2 weeks ahead of schedule. I suspected that Sanne needed at least two weeks to change the style of training, but in the end he almost didn’t need a transitional phase and surprised me once again. He just went from schedule A to schedule Z in one training, which makes clear what kind of potential Sanne has.

So for the coming week I have slightly altered the schedule and put in a test moment. Next Friday we have hired the pool exclusively for ourselves in the evening for an hour and a half. This way we have a possibility to see where he is with a near maximum performance. This together with all the other data I want to collect (heartbeat, oxygen levels, video footage, etc), makes sure that we enter the last 4 weeks with the correct plan. If someone is in the neighborhood of Eindhoven on Friday evening and wants to witness or maybe also try out a maximum performance in a safe environment (oxygen and safety divers will be available), you can send me an email here.

Last time I wrote about the results of Sanne during the AAAC 2007 competition I analyzed his static performance and things to look for. Now it’s time to look at his dynamic with fins performance of that competition.

First of all take a look at the performance of Sanne where he does a clean and easy 108 meters, which is his first dynamic with fins since 6 months.

http://www.shark-eye.com/flv/tsb/aaac2007-sanne-dynamic.flv

And now let’s start with breaking down all different aspects of the performance.

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Already week 5. It’s going fast! Only 8 weeks to go. This week is the last week of the first base schedule in which we provide the basics for Sanne the freediver and next week we will start with the next step. So this will be exciting!

Last weeks training went pretty well. There was a clear increase in fitness and stamina, exactly what we are after in these first weeks. The schedule was slightly altered to match the freediving competition on Sunday in which Sanne did two good and calculated performances. As we’ve footage of both events it will be fun to do a review of both performances. So lets start with the static.

Last time Sanne did a wet static it was during the Wiesbaden competition in 2006, already 6 months and 8 days ago. So we were very curious if my dry/wet conversion calculation would be right. I would already be happy if he did an easy 5 minutes +, so that he would come close to his current competition record 5:20 min. In the end Sanne did a good and clean 5:33 min, so it was a very good performance and a new personal best is always great! First just take a look at the attempt and jump in half way;

http://www.shark-eye.com/flv/tsb/aaac2007-sanne-static.flv

Now let’s talk about it. Read further for my complete analytics about Sanne’s static attempt.
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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.
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