How To Train For A Contraction-Free 100m DYN/ DYNb: A Step-By-Step Training Guide

Before setting your sights on higher, ensure you can comfortably dive for 50m without any contractions or urge to breathe.

This might be the most challenging and longest step for beginners. But, once it’s achieved, you can start to do ‘proper’ no-contractions training for 75-100m.

If you cannot do 50m without any urge to breathe. Here are some things that you can do;

• Exercise 1: 25m reps with ‘short’ recovery. Choose a time or number of breaths that allows you to complete 8 reps of 25m without any contractions. Over time, decrease recovery until you are ‘about to have your first contraction on the last 1-2 laps.
• Exercise 2: Try my ++reverse CO2 table training ++(starting at 4-6 breaths)
• Exercise 3: Do 25m ‘doubles’. Swim 25m, take 1-3 breaths and return 25m. Take 1:00-2:00 minutes between ‘doubles’. *Only perform this exercise if you can do both 25s without contractions starting at three breaths.
• Exercise 4: Perform contraction-free ‘max attempts’. Perform "max" dynamics up to or just before your first contraction. Perform multiple reps and see if your comfortable distance increases.

These exercises should help you reach at least 50m without any urge to breathe, becoming the foundation of working up to 100m+ without contractions.

Once you’ve got to 50 meters contraction-free, it will become an ‘anchor’ point in your training around which you’ll build more specific exercises to help you achieve 100 metres comfortably.

But, for this to happen, you must build 50m fitness and confidence first.

Think of this like jogging for freediving. You’re simply gaining experience underwater and building comfortable mileage in your fins, wetsuit, neck weight, and pool(s).

• Start with 2:30 recoveries between reps of 50m.
• Decrease recovery progressively, ensuring that you can complete all reps of 50m without any urge to breathe.

With this step, you should have two goals;

1. With any recovery time, be comfortable performing 10x50m (500m, which is 5x the goal of 100m) without any decrease in dive quality. The first and last rep should look and feel exactly the same.

2. Perform 6x50m (3x your goal of 100m) with a 1:1 recovery ratio and no contractions. If your dives take 45s, recover for 45s (building up to this 45s recovery always without contractions).

It might take time to achieve both these training mini-goals correctly and without the urge to breathe, but they will translate directly to your target goal of 100 meters.

Remember, it’s essential to focus on consistency.

You’ll struggle in the long term if dive quality fluctuates too much. Try to make each rep of 50m, session after session, as identical as possible. This will help anchor you during your following exercises and longer dives in years to come.

To freedive without contractions up to 100 meters, you must use ‘specific’ exercises to improve your comfort level.

These exercises are designed to help you REPLICATE the total dive time or total metres involved in 100m, without having to do 100m each time, which builds physical and mental adaptation (comfortably!)

• Exercise 1: Continue with no-contractions max-dives beyond 50m. At this point, you should be super comfortable up to 50m, so now start adding in the turn, always coming up at, or just before, your first contraction. Slowly but surely, this will get farther and farther. Aim for getting up to around 70-75m without contractions.
• Exercise 2: STA + DYN. Starting at 15s + 50m, work your way up to 50s + 50m (about equal to 100m), only adding 5-10s at a time until you can perform this total dive time without any contractions. **After achieving 50s + 50m, you can remove time and add metres beyond 50: {40s +60m}, {30s + 70m}... Always working in the no-contractions zone.
• Exercises 3: 50m + 2x 25m (total 100m). Performed as a set, this total-meters-based will help you get comfortable swimming for 100m without losing focus. To avoid contractions during the set, take between 2 and 8 recovery breaths between each lap. (start at eight, and remove recovery breaths until you can do the exercise with 2 and no contractions).
• Other exercises: Continue to use other exercises, including 25m tables following the 'about to have your first contraction' rule.

Another part of not having contractions (or having great dives in general) is making sure to peak correctly. Your nervous system (and subconscious) needs to learn that a 100m dynamic is 100% safe for you to do, and the peaking process allows for that adaptation to occur.

At this point, you should have mastered steps 1-4. All the exercises should be easy to do and are ‘maxed’ out. This can take time and patience, but it’s a worthwhile investment in your future diving.

To get the absolute most out of your training and maximise the distance you can dive without (or even with) contractions, you’ll need to temporarily stop all forms of training and focus solely on target dives.

This will tune your body and mind to doing 1-rep max dives, desensitising yourself to the process.

For a 100m DYN, whether it’s your first time doing it or your first time attempting to do it contraction-free, you’ll probably need around six peaking dives.

This means setting aside six sessions, where all you do is;

**Warm-up **(I recommend a 45s STA + 30-40m DYN), which should be very easy for you at this point of your training).

Perform one target dive each session. (I recommend 70m, 70m, 75m, 80m, 85m, 85m)

On session 7.. Go for 100m.

You may have a few contractions during your peaking dives, but as your nervous system adapts to the 1-rep max, your body and mind will remember all your training, and your 100-metre dive is likely to be super comfortable.

**With peaking, Sarah achieved her first 100m (106 in comp) without any contractions.