Friday Five #9

Hey, good evening!

Here is your Friday 5 roundup of this week’s facts, fun and f’ups…

😗 What are the results of 17 hours of breathing exercises:

• Over the last 3-1/2 weeks I’ve spent 17+ hours (1 hour/day – 2 days on / 1 day off) doing the following breathing exercises:
   
  • 10 empty lung breath-holds + reverse packing while laying on a yoga ball face down with some small weights on my back for the last 8 or so.
     
  • Then I do about 20 pursed lips breaths, inhaling and exhaling as slowly as humanly possible; 5 breaths to the belly, 5 to the ribs, 5 chest, 5 complete – while laying on top of a wooden bridge and sometimes stretching the arms overhead
     
• The result?! My vital capacity has increased from 3.75 litres to 4.16 liters! (see spirometer results below) And I no longer feel pressure on my chest during my deep dives. So now that that’s solved, humdullah, I’ve started to increase my depth again, adding 5 meters to my season PB and the dives this week have been absolutely AMAZING!!

💪 What is ‘intermittent hypoxic hypercapnic training’ (and how does it improve your anaerobic capacity):

• This is a nice simple video about the Oxygen Advantage breath hold technique. It’s basically breath-holding following a normal exhalation (so FRC breath-hold).
   
• By doing FRC breath-holds, you have a double hydrogen ion effect (explained in the video) which “disturbs the blood acid / base balance” and forces the body to improve buffering capacity inside the muscles. It also means delaying lactic acid and muscle fatigue as well as improving your anaerobic capacity!

😌 What is the key difference:

• There are some freedivers who I think have a key skill which I think separates those who perform quite well in freediving versus those who struggle year after year – It’s the ability to be patient.
   
• I’ve freedived with lot of different freedivers from all over the world, and regardless of skill or experience, the ability to be patient with ourselves and our training, to take enough time to work on ourselves and take the time to develop a freediving lifestyle and philosophy that reflects your core values and that will guide you when things get hard…
   
• Instead I see freedivers jump from one comp to the next, one discipline to the next, or look for the next quick fix, just hoping that it will be THE thing that finally leads them to achieving success, a record, a win, happiness…
   
• But, in a world that seems to now speed by at a million miles per hour, ironically, I think the thing we need the most to reach our ultimate potential as a freediveris patience.
  
  …patience to do things the right way and stay the course
  …patience to perceive, not just to get the numbers / the record / the time, etc
  …patience to truly enjoy the journey and not just focus on the end-goal or the destination
  …patience to embrace the process of learning and growing into the person and freediver that you are truly meant to be

💬 What quote I’ve been thinking about –

“There’s never a right time to do the wrong thing, and there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing.”

–Lou Holtz

🍓 What is ‘ego depletion’ (and a simple way to overcome it)?

• When reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, there’s one part where it talks about ‘ego depletion’. Basically, ego depletion happens if you have to force yourself to do something, and then you are less willing or less able to have self-control when the next challenge comes around. (i.e. you did a training sesh in the am, but then after you have to work or do projects)
   
• “The emotional effort in the first phase of the experiment reduces the ability to withstand the pain of sustained muscle contraction, and ego-depleted people therefore succumb more quickly to the urge to quit.”
   
• So what to do when you find that you’re ‘ego-depleted’?  Well, being that the central nervous system consumes more glucose than most other parts of the body AND “effortful mental activity appears to be very expensive in the currency of glucose”, you can have yourself a bit of sugar!
   
• According to several studies in the book, glucose helps restore the level of available sugar in your brain and prevent the deterioration of your performance.

It’s a pleasure and honor getting to spend some time with you, I hope you have a great weekend!

Renee