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Dynamic Apnea (with either bifins or a monofin) is conducted underwater, in a pool. The freedivers have to execute their dives on one breath, while diving horizontally, for a certain distance. In this episode of The Complete Guide, Rafael Nolasco, the Brazilian National Record holder for DYN, looks into the discipline and shares his tips on how to progress quickly & safely.
I broke down all the skills you need to improve for your dynamic bifins's technique. So I'll be talking very briefly, about relaxation, the push of the wall, the glide, the finning, and then the turning, and afterward I'm going to try to talk a little bit about your dive stage and what you need to know about it.
As we know relaxation is very important for freediving, everyone knows it. By being relaxed, you're going to remember what you need to do. If you want to know a little bit more about it I have written an article where you can see more information about this and how to practice relaxation.
The push is very important because it is the starting point of the journey. Before you do that, you need to put your body below the water. Once you have your body below the water we're gonna have your heel, your fins against the wall - it's how you're gonna do the push-off. When you do the push-off you need to be careful not to put too much pressure on the blade.
Before you do the push you need to put your body in the right position. What do I mean? What I mean is, that when you put your body below the water you need to get streamlined first. You're gonna have your arms above your head streamlined and then you're gonna push. So as soon as you do the push-off, you need to remember to put your legs straight and point your toes. So why do you do it? When you point your toes we're gonna be putting the fins align with your body, it's gonna help the glides to go further, so you're gonna feel the momentum on the glide. So when you start losing momentum is time to fin. So for example with Formula One, the cars are designed to drive through the air, to interact with the air, that's why they have that shape streamline and they have the aerodynamics, the way they've been built as you can see in the F1. So it's no different here in freediving. If you have your body streamlined properly, and correctly, it's going to help you to move smoothly through the water.
During the glide, when you start losing momentum you need to start finning, so you need to know how to synchronize your fins. So it helps to control the buoyancy, and keep the right speed. So the way I've learned to do it is when you're kicking, so let's say you're finning, one of your feet, the toes, you point the toes when it starts reaching the top of your foot pocket, and another one, another thought, reach the bottom, is the time to synchronize, you need to change it. So it's one reaching the roof and another one reaching the bottom, okay, and then it's time to synchronize, you need to switch it.
The turn is very simple, you just need to know when to do it. So, when you're finning you're gonna get by the end of the lane, so then you're gonna see a mark in the bottom, could be a T mark, but sometimes some swimming pools don't have it but you can use a weight. So why do you need to see the mark? We see the mark to see where the wall is. So it is the time you're gonna start moving towards the turn. So when you see the mark at the bottom is time to look up and see where the wall is. When you see the wall, you're gonna try to reach with your hands. When you reach the wall with your hands you're gonna adjust your body to face back in the line. So when you're facing back in the line, you're gonna do what you've seen before, get your body in the right position, streamlined, and then you're gonna push off with your heel. Bare in mind, don't put too much pressure on the blade because otherwise, you can break it. Αfter you push then you need to point the toes for a glide to go further, so when you start losing the momentum you're gonna start finning. So putting it all together you can see in this video how I've done it, so it's the same the start point that is the relaxation, then is the push off the wall, and then we do again the glides, and then do the turn, and you walk back, you're gonna do the same again, is put your body below the water, get streamlined, push off, glide and finning and so on.
So you might wonder how to put it together and how to go further - it's very simple, you need to learn how your body works. You need to learn when you start your dive to apply all these techniques where you are without counting or thinking about numbers or distance. It's just by feeling.
The first stage of your dive is to identify when your body goes through a freediving mode - what do you mean by freediving mode? So one is title performance normally people would have their first contraction, from 45 to 75 meters or up to 85, it could be 100, it depends on the person. When you have the first contraction it means your body is fully activated, you know on freediving mode, is when the mammalian dive response kicks in. So at stage one, we learned how to identify when our body moves to freediving mode, I mean when the mammalian dive response kicks in. So it is the urge to breathe. Many beginners or even intermediate freedivers, give up at this stage. So when you pass this stage of the urge breathe, then we go to the lactic acid stage. That's when our body, our muscles, have less oxygen, so we have reached a point or threshold where the masses are working with less oxygen. So the lactic acid, so the endorsement of the right training among top freedivers appears. Many of them think condition training is a very important tool to deal with lactic acid. You can do cross-training, you can do running, you can do cycling, you can do fins swimming it's going to help you a lot you know to manage your lactic acid. Often you have stage one managed and the stage you managed then you need to progress, slowly, step by step, and learn to understand how your body is working you know with less oxygen.
Thanks very much, Alchemy for this opportunity to talk about dynamic bifins, and thank you all for watching it, I hope to see you soon, thank you.