How to fall in love with static again
Note: This page is automatically translated; this article was written in English, so if you are reading it in a different language and you get across strangely worded phrases or sentences that don’t make much sense, don’t blame me :))
I mentioned in an earlier post that I fell out of love with static: that love turned into dread, and that lasted 2 whole years before I decided to do anything about it.
Why did it happen? Long story short: I had a very bothersome arrhythmia that started mild and became more and more vicious with time, and while it was tolerable during dynamic (because you cant feel your heart while you are busy moving), it became unbearable during static. I think I was making it even worse just by worrying about it, and eventually I started having proper anxiety during my static sessions and that obviously resulted in shorter and shorter breath hold times. That killed my self confidence and eventually also affected my dynamic training, and a disastrous pool competition season ensued.
So I stopped doing static altogether. This was over 2 years ago.
Then once my arrhythmia finally disappeared 1.5 years later, I never really felt the need nor the desire to start with static training again, partly because of logistics and mostly because I was still making that negative association between static and anxiety. Then a month ago I said ok, enough with the avoidance!
I felt it was time to fall in love with static again and it is never gonna happen if I never do it.
But I was still nervous about it, about the time passing during the long holds, the silence, the feeling my heart beating, the contraction time; and I also don’t want to sacrifice a whole pool session for only doing static, and never mind the fact that none of my buddies want to do it, so logistically it’s a pain to arrange.
So I decided to start with a short table (15-20 minutes max) to use as a warm up for dynamic training, which I can do semi-unsupervised, with short holds, very short recoveries and easy to medium contractions effort: this way I don’t have to stress about long holds, but I still have a fair amount of time to spend in the nice relaxation phase before the urge to breathe kicks in. I didn’t manage to fall in love yet, this will probably need a few more dates, but I could stay calm and not think too much and I definitely didn’t feel anxious. So with that approach I am doing some more short sessions to slowly increase my mental comfort with it before I will go anywhere close to a long hold.
I gave the same little table to someone who was recovering from being ill and they loved it, so if you want to try it here you go (works also dry):
1- hold to contractions, + 10″ contractions. 10″ recovery
2- hold to contractions, + 20″ contractions. 20″ recovery
3- hold to contractions, + 30″ contractions. 30″ recovery
4- hold to contractions, + 40″ contractions. 40″ recovery
5- hold to contractions, + 50″ contractions. 50″ recovery
6- hold to contractions, + 60″ contractions. 60″ recovery
7- hold to contractions, + 70″ contraction or more if you feel like it.
You can breathe as fast or as slow as you want, but if you breathe faster you will be more comfortable, especially on the first 3 holds. Hold n. 2 and 3 will be harder, then with longer recoveries you will feel more comfortable. If you feel that 10″ seconds is too short for you and get contractions super early, then start with 20″ or even 30″ but do not go much over 1 minute on the last one, especially if you are taking faster breaths.
If you try it let me know what you think!
PRO TIP: Try not to get stuck doing the same table over and over, and always change at least 1 parameter every time, such as resting time, or contractions time, or number of holds. This way you won’t really be able to compare numbers from different sessions, as we know that plays nasty tricks on your mind: one day you were enjoying it and the next you are stressing about wanting to do better numbers and the whole point (relaxing, exploring and searching the right feeling ) goes out the window.
PRO TIP 2: When you cant have a dedicated buddy to supervise your for static, but don’t want to hold on to the wall/ladder, fix a string, or cable (I use a SUP lanyard) somewhere on the pool edge or ladder so you can relax knowing you will not float away from the wall.
