Your Guide To The Ultimate 3-step Free Dive Training Program

There’s a good reason Tanya Streeter holds multiple world records for free diving. It’s all in the training. Here are a few tips from Streeter’s own training regimen:
First, expect to stick with this plan for 14 weeks. It’s rigorous but well worth the time spent and you could very well find yourself improving on your time and stamina in No Limits, Constant Weight or Static and Dynamic Apnea events.
Bear in mind that in each phase of training you’ll work out for six days and rest on the seventh!

Part I – Strength Building
During Week 1 you’ll alternate days between 1 hour of cardio and 1 hour of weight lifting. The cardio training should consist of at least 45 minutes of your heart rate between 65%-85% of maximum. When weight training, lift between 60%-75% of your ability. The first and last thing to do each day is stretching and be sure to stretch the muscles you’ll work on that day.

For weeks 3-6, you’ll alternate between cardio and the treadmill or elliptical machine. Do 2 hours of cardio using interval training on Day 1 of that week, peaking your heart rate at 65%-92%. Follow that with 1 hour of cardio endurance with your heart rate between 75-85%.
Day 3 should consist of 2 hours of intensification training at around 80% heart rate with high intensity and followed by 1 hour of cardio endurance. Start Day 5 with 2 hours of endurance training with your heart rate between 75%-85%. Don’t forget to stretch before and after.
On Days 2, 4, and 6, start with a 30-minute warm up on the treadmill or elliptical machine then lift 70-85% of your ability on weight training.

Part II – Conditioning
On weeks 7-10, you’ll alternate each day between a 2 hour pool session and 2 hours of apnea weight training following some light stretching.
On day when you do your apnea training you’ll want to start with a minute of breath-up preparation lifting 30% of your ability. Do as many repetitions as you can handle in apnea, then perform 1 hour of endurance training at a heart rate of 75%-85%.
Pool sessions should consist of underwater laps. Vary your exercises to include restricted breathe-up preparation with increasing underwater distance, decreasing breath-up preparation utilizing the same underwater distance, and limited breathing during an extended swim involving hypoxia endurance training. Don’t forget to stretch before and after and include a warm down swim before your final stretching.
If you can fit it in and it doesn’t overtire you then include some static apnea training as well.

Part III – Diving
Over the next four weeks you’ll want to do some actual diving. Remember, though, every time you dive you should take a buddy to keep an eye on safety precautions. Each time you dive increase your depth a little more, but don’t overexert yourself. The goal is to improve your free diving skills, not to kill yourself.

Plan some rest days in your regimen. They should fall every 2-4 days. On those days you can maintain your strength and cardiovascular skills by reverting back to the workouts in Parts I and II of this plan. You want to be sure not to tire key muscles.
Also, when training for free dive competitions you want to pay special attention to your diet and sleep habits. Eat right and get plenty of sleep. Above all, be safe and stretch, stretch, stretch those key muscle groups!

Features of Slingshot

Power Bands

Pure silicone Power Bands are loaded with energy on the power stroke. They release their energy prior to the upstroke to provide an added boost of power
Instead of wasting your energy, you accumulate it and reclaim it!
Power bands lessen fatigue and add thrust

Gear Shift

3-speed Gear Shift customizes your speed to effort ratio to fit the specific conditions of your dive
Three different settings are available
Easy to shift during the dive, even with gloves

Mid-foot Flex Joint

The blade is attached to the foot pocket using two Mid-foot Flex Joint
This takes the strain off of the toes and the top of the ankle. The result is a dramatic improvement in comfort
You can now use the entire foot to power the fin rather than just the front half of the foot
Provides the blade a significantly larger range of motion, often up to 5 times that of a conventional fin

Aqua Lung Slingshot

Aqua Lung is excited to offer Slingshot - a revolutionary fin that will take the dive world by storm. The Slingshot™ will make diving more comfortable, efficient and fun.

Its innovations include Power Bands, Gear Shift and Mid-foot Flex Joint that all add up to provide a wonderful diving experience.

Basic Scuba Diving Gear You'll Need

For many years divers were forced to wear bulky gear in order to work underwater. In modern times, bulk is out. Now diving gear tends to be thin and light. Thank God!

Scuba diving gear is fairly simple, but it is also very essential. There is little margin for error in diving and safety considerations require that the gear used is equal to the task. The first piece of gear is the basic mask. The mask has the purpose of forming a small space for the air to be held for breathing. It also serves to provide vision and keep the water from the eyes and nose. A good mask must fit tightly to form a seal capable of keeping the air in and the water out. It should also be made of scratch proof glass or plastic in order to provide clear vision.

The fins are an essential part of the scuba divers gear as well. Fins make it possible to move easily through the water. There are several types of fins available. Some are designed for the more serious technical divers while others are more for recreational divers and even snorklers.

A weight belt is fairly standard scuba gear. The wetsuit worn by most scuba divers has a tendency to increase buoyancy and the weight belt can be used to allow the diver to go down into the water with more ease. Some advanced scuba divers use a device called a buoyancy jacket that displaces water inside the wetsuit with air to increase buoyancy in an emergency. The air is supplied either by the tanks or an emergency air supply intended for the jacket. The weight belt also can help the diver return more quickly to the surface in an emergency. The diver merely removes the belt, so it must be easily detached and on the outside of any other gear.

The main piece of scuba gear is the Aqualung. The Aqualung consists of three parts. The air cylinder is made of steel or aluminum and carries about 200 Bars of compressed air. The regulator is the most critical piece of gear. It adjusts the pressure of the air to match the pressure of the outside water allowing the air to be fed into the mask area on demand. The third part of the gear is the harness which fastens the air tank to the diver.

A scuba diver must pay close attention to the operation and the maintenance of his gear. He should understand its use and operation completely before diving. The diver is also responsible for insuring that his gear is in perfect working condition. The scuba diver is entering what can be a hostile environment. It is the gear that tames it, but if the gear fails, the diver is a great risk.