Surviving the WaterCon

[smalls]

:doh:Of anyone training to become PJs I'd like your point of view or mindset you use when you are training for buddy breathing or 25m mask and snorkle recovery. What are you thinking to keep your calm or to fight back the ease of panic? Do you think of Britney Spears when you are underwater? Cheeseburgers? Or nothing at all like a monk?

Any insight is appreciated. I am preparing for Indoc and have realized that my biggest weakness like many others is the buddy breathing then its the 25m underwaters. I want to make my weakness a strength. My problem with buddy breathing is that I suck in a bunch of water into my lungs and cough so hard I have to pop for air or Ill keep sucking in more water automatically. If I can just get past that stage I know I will be fine. Thanks and hooyah.

 

[JustAnotherJ]

What got me through won't get you through. You'll go there, dig deep and find out what works for you (or not).
Always be true to yourself, if you know this isn't for you, oh well, move on. I've heard so much quitter bullshit it could make you sick. Some quitter, while crying holding the quitter horn said "I haven't felt very motivated lately and i went to some guys so they could motivate me, but nobody did." Meanwhile, shouts of "Shut the fuck up quitter and get off my pooldeck!" echoed throughout the pool. Indoc is fun in a sick way.

 

[smalls]

And thats the bottom line. Thanks Just A.

 

[amlove21]

You know, this may help you, it helped me. In the morning, when i woke up to another disgusting Texas morning, and thought about heinous day ahead of me, i just reached down, deep down- AND GRASPED MY LARGE BALLS. That reminded me that I am a man, capable of anything. Ask SL, a PJ at your (wannabe) unit. He will verify.

Im kidding, im kidding. Lots of guys used lots of different stuff. For me, it actually helped to stay in the moment, only more so than most. I focused on every muscle movement, every splash, every motion. Half the time I was so busy paying attention to the event that the event ended. But thats just me.

Find something- anything- that works. Hold on to it. Get rid of it if it doesnt work, and get something that does.

 

[smalls]

Hooyah amlove. That is great advice. Thank you. I will look for SL, and ask him about your balls. As you were probably found in your dorm, gazing at the floor with your hands in your pants as he says "This is not time to be wackin it!". jk, However, focusing on the task at hand minute by minute seems to be the concensus at surviving each exercise. Focus on each minute, get through it with the team and move on to the next event. I will live each day by that train of thought. Thanks amlove.

 

[Poprocks]

Does anybody know if with 10 ups you enter the water with the giant stride entry or does it matter?

 

[amlove21]

Does anybody know if with 10 ups you enter the water with the giant stride entry or does it matter?

Where are you even reading about 10 ups? Is that an evaluated event?

 

[Poprocks]

To be completely honest I'm not sure it's an evaluated event, but I'm just curious because we were doing them with my Devolopment group and I wanted incorporate them in to my pool workouts, my developer is out of town so I thought I'd come here for a faster answer.

 

[amlove21]

To be completely honest I'm not sure it's an evaluated event, but I'm just curious because we were doing them with my Devolopment group and I wanted incorporate them in to my pool workouts, my developer is out of town so I thought I'd come here for a faster answer.

It's not. It's not a secret or anything, but on the list of "I am going to spend my time preparing something", this has to be in the 100's.

Are you at grad standards for the indoctrination graduation test? How about the actual water con events? Can you do appropriate pushups so you don't think you can do 80 pushups when you can really only do 60?

I would answer those questions first before worrying about alternate water con.

 

[Poprocks]

It's not. It's not a secret or anything, but on the list of "I am going to spend my time preparing something", this has to be in the 100's.

Are you at grad standards for the indoctrination graduation test? How about the actual water

It's not. It's not a secret or anything, but on the list of "I am going to spend my time preparing something", this has to be in the 100's.

Are you at grad standards for the indoctrination graduation test? How about the actual water con events? Can you do appropriate pushups so you don't think you can do 80 pushups when you can really only do 60?

I would answer those questions first before worrying about alternate water con.

Roger that I will refocus

 

[TheProspect]

Verified PJs let me know if I am out of my lane here.

Speaking Strictly as a guy that is training my Swim/Watercon heavily right now, I have gone from not being able to swim 25M underwater 4 months ago to just completing my first 50M. I can tell you what worked for me as far as hitting that specific goal. Again I am not commenting on the PJ pipeline or any events therein.

1: Working on Static Breath holds either in the pool or out of the pool. This helped me get used to the latter stages of holds. Once I became familiar with what the end of a long breath hold feels like, I became much more calm swimming underwater and understood when I actually needed to breathe vs when I felt like I needed to breathe. This is also a good opportunity to find what keeps you most oxygen efficient in your mind. I tend to count slowly and visualize the numbers which keeps me calm and clears my mind, but everyone will have different ways of keeping mental clarity underwater. By timing my static holds with a watch, I noticed that lapses in focus always coincided with shorter hold times.

2: Heavily drilling underwater swim form and streamline to maximize efficiency. Reducing work reduces oxygen consumption. For me the biggest part of this was developing a good Breast Stroke kick.

3: 25M underwater repeats as a workout session, Full recovery between reps. This helped me gain further comfort under the water.

I would stress that I never perform serious underwater swimming/ breath holding without a partner as it is inherently dangerous. If I don't have a partner, I inform the lifeguard at the public pool of what I'm doing and don't push my upper limits.

 

[DC]

If your doing any training to increase breath hold thresholds DO NOT TRAIN ALONE. Shallow water black out is a killer.