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When approaching depth progression there are mainly two types of training cycles depending on the duration of our cycle. Ladder training, also known as linear progression training, and Pyramid training, also known as cyclical progression.
For those with short training cycles limited to 3 weeks to a month, ladder training is usually how we get to build our confidence and experience in the water. Before moving to Dahab, access to the water for me was limited to two weeks to a month at a time. Having virtually no Personal Best in any of the disciplines, my approach to training was straightforward - it started with acclimatization to the water and then progressively going deeper and deeper, building up PB after PB in one discipline until a certain plateau was reached, or simply my time ran out.
Plateaus in freediving are those moments in a training phase when we keep on getting in the water with no evident progression. Whether they are caused by equalization issues, hypoxia, mental blocks such as fear of the depth, or a general sense of being tired (likely due to overtraining), the outcome is that of being stuck at a certain depth for a prolonged amount of time.
A way of overcoming plateaus when they arise is to stop training, take some due rest, analyze what the issue has been, and then take action on our weaknesses to introduce some change. Another possible way to overcome plateaus is to switch disciplines and build up the progression from the start.
Approaching my second year of training ahead of my second competitive season has brought me to revise my training plan, moving towards a pyramid training approach. Also known as cyclical progression, the Pyramid training spans a longer time, usually three months, and aims to build a solid base foundation leading to a peaking phase at the end of the training cycle.
The advantage of pyramid training is that it avoids plateaus due to overtraining in the form of mental and physical exhaustion, or due to a lack of proper foundations in technique or equalization. At the bottom of the pyramid is the so-called base training cycle at around 50% of maximum performance. The base training should be high volume and low intensity and can include multiple dry and wet exercises such as:
The second phase of the pyramid consists of the sub-max phase, where the dives are between 70-80% of one’s Personal Best. This consists of moderate volume and moderate-intensity exercises in and out of the water. As the Peaking Phase starts, we want to have high-intensity and low-volume exercises, both dry and wet. That is where we reach our full potential in terms of depth, increasing one’s personal best at every training.