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Freediving To 60 Metres: A Step-By-Step Training Guide
Like 40 metres, freediving to 60m (dubbed the 200-foot club in the USA) generally seems to be a relatively significant depth for many freedivers.
It also comes with many problems, trouble equalising and squeezing being the most common.
This makes sense if you consider that a depth of 60m requires around 40 to 50 seconds of dive time spent below your ‘natural’ residual volume, making equalizing and staying safe under chest compression challenging. More so than on shallower ‘landmark’ depths, such as 30, 40 and 50m.
It's also easy to make mistakes in training volume and intensity, leading to mental blocks that take months and even years to undo (I talk from experience!)
So, in this article, I will break down these challenges and look at an overall training approach you can apply to ensure freediving to 60m is safe, comfortable, and enjoyable. Setting you up with the foundation to dive much deeper in the near future.
3 Mistakes I Made Training for my First 60m Freedive
Unlike training for my ‘first’ 40 metres, training for 60m wasn’t perfect.
The things I did right included putting in the ‘shallow’ work, performing two months' worth of training up to a maximum depth of 30m, and doing exhale training on top of a winter’s worth of casual pool training.
The result was a rapid progression, starting from 40m, adding 2-3m per session until reaching 64m.
However, my mistakes led to mental barriers, which I struggled to overcome for a year after hitting that depth, keeping me stuck, frustrated, and disappointed in my freediving for months.
#1 Mistake: Not building my breath-hold fitness in the pool
Although I wasn’t becoming hypoxic, +55m dives were HARD, to say the least. Lots of strong urge to breathe and discomfort, which created negative associations with the depth. This could’ve been solved by a pool training programme to target my specific breath-hold weaknesses, alongside my depth diving.
#2 Mistake: Doing ‘Too-Much-Too-Soon’
Looking back, I slightly regret moving up from a PB of 44m to 64m in one shot. I would have stopped at 50m or 55m if I knew what I know now. This would've made my last dives of the Training Cycle much more enjoyable than the 64m dive I did. Plus, I would have progressed beyond 60m to 70m+ much quicker in the long run.
#3 Mistake: Overlooking my General Fitness
At the time, I was only freediving and training my cardio endurance. I didn’t consider that strength and anaerobic endurance would play such a big role. I did my PBs in bi-fins and failed two dives (my first 60m attempt and first 64m attempt) because my legs died. I had to ‘pull up’ from about 25m.
Now, to help you achieve your first 60m dive in the best way possible (avoiding the mistakes that I made), here are 5 steps that your freedive training plan needs to have.
Step 1: Set A 50m Personal Best, Then Wait
If you’re reading this, as a 40m or 45m diver, I strongly suggest setting a PB of around 50-55m before attempting to train for 60m.
Now, I want to be clear...This doesn't mean, do 50m, and then three days later 53, 55, 58, 60m.
Instead, following a combination of the tips from this article and those found in my freediving to 40 metres guide. I suggest that you dedicate a full training cycle to achieve a solid, comfortable, and good quality 50-55m PB in either FIM, CWT, or CWTb first.
Then take some time off or do some casual diving before re-starting a new cycle where you prepare for 60m+.
As I said above, one of the biggest mistakes that I made in my journey, and that I see many other divers making, is doing too much too soon and burning out.
There are all sorts of different opinions on how many metres you can do per year or training cycle, but a general consensus, at least amongst the other experienced coaches and divers I know, seems to be around 10m per cycle, at the most.
To be clear, I believe that after setting your 50m PB, you should wait for at least four months before peaking again for 60m, and that’s best-case. If your 50m wasn’t perfect, and you have some issues, then a 6+ months gap might be the right option for you.
In any case, this time between PBs is the best way to make sure that you don’t create any mental barriers or have any injuries during your 60m training cycle, or any other training cycle, both in the pool or depth for that matter.
As I said, in my case, my progress from 44-64 was very quick. However, it was completely the wrong approach. If I had stopped adding PBs earlier, I would have progressed quicker, to 70, 80, and 90m in the long run.
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Step 2: Work On Your Breath-Hold In The Pool
One of the biggest myths in deep diving is that the "only limits are EQ." This may be true as a symptom, but as a cause, it’s more complicated than that. Trouble equalising is often due to a lack of apnea fitness in one or more areas, dive time and CO2 tolerance being two of the biggest.
Now I agree that for 30m dives or even 45m dives, a 1:00-1:30 dive time shouldn’t require much breath-hold training. But, when the dive starts to approach 2:00 active times, you need to make sure this is something that you are 100% comfortable and confident with.
As a rule, you should be capable of reaching the bottom of your dive without any urge to breathe. This means that pool training becomes essential and is also an excellent place for testing the quality of your breath-hold.
As a “pool test”, to do 60m depth safely and consistently, you should be capable of doing at least 60m DYN / DYNb without any urge to breathe. If you have any contractions or discomfort, it will be very challenging to EQ, and you’re putting yourself at significant risk of squeezing.
Below are pool exercises we use to boost a freediver's breathhold for 60m or more and a method for comfortably and effectively training CO2 tolerance.
Master the ‘pool for depth’ exercises and pay special attention to working on your CO2 tolerance properly. By “properly, “I mean delaying your contractions, not learning to suffer through them!
Step 3: Practice RV (Forced Exhale) Exercises
Despite what some may think, RV dives (done correctly) can be a safe and effective way to practice equalizing and adapting to the chest pressure you'll experience 60 metres deep. These tips will set you up best, helping you understand what depths to do RV dives, how many within a session, and how often within your training plan for a 60m dive or more.
This will help ensure that you can equalise safely with either mouthfill or Frenzel down to depths of 60m.
!! While it can be safe to dive to 60m+ depths with Frenzel, I recommend learning how to master mouthfill correctly. At these depths, it will make your life a lot easier!
For RV training, I recommend setting yourself the goal of achieving 12m on RV – for divers deeper than 50m, I recommend RV diving to 20% of your current goal.
These RV dives will almost always be limited by chest pressure (never EQ technique), so stop if you feel any pressure on your trachea or sternum.
As you adapt to the pressure, you’ll be much more capable of equalizing safely up to and past your residual volume on full-lung dives.
Practice makes perfect – I recommend that on RV sessions, you only do a maximum of 5 dives (with no more than 3 dives in the 11-12m range), and no more than 1 RV session per week.
When you can reach 12m, with no chest pressure, on your first or second RV rep of the session, it’s safe to assume that you can equalise safely to 60m, at least from a technical and pressure-adaptation perspective.
Step 4: Develop (and Practice) A Mouthfill Strategy
If you do the RV practice and develop the ability to equalise to the depths I specify with mouthfill from the surface, in theory, you have all the skills you need to equalise to 60m. However, RV training only deals with the skills and tactics 'below' your residual volume. You will also need to develop and practice your mouthfill procedure 'above' your RV, ensuring you set yourself up correctly to apply the skills learned from the RV training.
This means optimizing the way you take & top-up your mouthfill to optimize the process and make yourself as comfortable as possible at depth.
For some reason, many instructors and coaches will tell you that you only need to take a mouthfill at 10 or 15m for 60m dives. This makes life harder than it needs to be.
I suggest you practice taking your mouthfill at 10-15m and TOPPING IT UP every 5(ish) metres until 25-30m.
With a shallow fill and frequent top-ups, it’s actually very easy to maintain a completely full mouth down to 30m!!
FYI, this is coming from a guy with completely average spirometry results (104% ERV, 95% peak flow)
Of course, this requires lots of practice to make it comfortable and safe.
So, during your 60m training cycle, you should accumulate a very high volume, around 70-75% of all your training dives, to a maximum depth of 30-35m.
However, on each of these dives, you should be using and** practising your mouthfill set-up, **taking it early (10-15m) and topping it up frequently to (25m-30m).
Once this is 100% automatic and comfortable (it won’t be right away), you’ll be ready to start going deeper.
Make sure your total metres of depth per session doesn’t exceed 200m, so up to 6x30, 5x35m or any combination of depths that fits within this maximum training volume.
Combining this systematic practice of maintaining a full mouth to 30m, and regular RV training to a maximum depth of 12m, you’re mastering both ‘pre’ and ‘post’ RV mouthfill skills, which will work together on your 60m dive to help you equalize effectively and safely to depth.
Learning Mouthfill doesn't need to be hard! Learning mouthfill and practising equalising dry and in the water is actually easy. The struggle only comes from thinking that there's one right way to Mouthfill when in reality, MOUTHFILL IS A STRATEGY, not a technique. In our Mouthfill Mastery Courses we uncover the various techniques you can learn to help you fall in love with this way of equalising, which is arguably the easiest way to EQ there is!
REMEMBER.. Learning mouthfill equalization isn't the same as PRACTISING mouthfill—more in this video.
Step 5: Don't Ignore Your General Fitness
As I mentioned, 60m will probably take you around 2:00 (+/- 10s), depending on whether you’re doing FIM, CWT, or CWTb.
This means that general fitness will start playing a factor in your freediving.
Many divers will tell you that it’s not the most crucial thing (they are right), but it’s still a factor that I believe you should pay attention to.
The way I like to think about it is this... If you can't fin (bi-fins, monofin), or front-crawl (FIM]) with good-quality, powerful technique while breathing on the surface, with a snorkel, for your total-expected dive time. How do you expect to do it on a breath-hold??
To put that in practical terms: If you can't fin or swim powerfully for 2:00 on the surface without getting out of breath... You’re going to feel like crap finning up from 60m on a breath-hold!
In general, this means you should ensure your muscles are strong enough to perform basic barbell (squats & deadlifts) and basic bodyweight (pull-ups, push-ups) movements. You should also ensure good cardio endurance by running or cycling.
Then you should also make sure to convert this general strength & endurance into ‘specific anaerobic endurance’ by doing sprint drills in the pool (while breathing), using the equivalent technique: Bi-fins, monofin, or front-crawl (FIM).
This additional physical training will make your dives feel much easier and more efficient, boost your confidence, improve the overall quality of your dives, and ensure you’re as prepared as possible to handle the dive time while finning/pulling.
Ready To Train For Your First 60m-Freedive?
Final reminders...
If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you read the 40m training guide because I included many tips for 40m PB that will apply to 50, 60, and even +70m.
One of the most important has to do with your training structure. You will have to make considerable shifts in how you train for 40m, which will continue to apply to training for 50m, and then finally 60m & beyond.
On top of the ‘40m tips’ here's a summary of the strategies discussed in this guide:
Avoid doing ‘too much too soon’ (make sure that after you do 50m, start a new cycle for 60m)
- Avoid doing ‘too much too soon’ (make sure that after you do 50m, start a new cycle for 60m)
- Train your breath-hold correctly, especially ‘real’ CO2 tolerance
- Switch to RV EQ training (instead of FRC)
- Develop a mouthfill ‘set-up’ strategy
- Work on complete general fitness (strength, endurance, strength-endurance)
All of these things together will help you be better prepared for the new challenges you will face diving to 60m.
As I always say, achieving your goals is only a question of preparation, but as with anything, the greater the goal, the more comprehensive the preparation needs to be.
These 5 steps will prepare you for dives in the 60m range and ensure the most enjoyable and good quality PB dives possible, with the lowest risk of injury or mental barriers.
Don’t neglect these extra layers of training, and most importantly, don’t rush to a PB of 60m just because you can push yourself there.
I made the mistake of pushing for it (and slightly beyond), and I paid for it.
Take your time, train for it correctly, and do it right the first time. Then, moving beyond that depth will just be a question of doing new training cycles to make smooth step-by-step progression for years to come.
Happy diving!
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