[Speaker 2]

Welcome to the Freedive Cafe, episode 157 with Samo Yeranko. My name is Donny. I’m the host of the Freedive Cafe.

The Freedive Cafe is the long-form interview podcast that explores the backstories, the training, the challenges, and the combined wisdom and personal philosophies of the world’s freedivers. You can find this podcast at freedivecafe.com, freediveandthrive.com and on all good podcast players. All righty.

So here we are back in action with another epic dive into the world of freediving training and lifestyle. On today’s episode, we are welcoming back Samo Yeranko to the cafe. Samo, who first appeared on episode 86, is well regarded as one of the best and most experienced freediving coaches in the world.

For the last couple of years, he’s taken a bit of time out from his own elite level training to focus on his young family. But in the meantime, he has been providing coaching services to some of the best and upcoming freediving athletes all over the world in the form of his remote coaching programmes. This is one of the deepest and most comprehensive dives into today’s top-level freediving training and lifestyle methods we’ve done for a long time.

I’m sure you’re going to enjoy all the juicy information and no matter where you are, you’ll get some pro tips from this talk with Samo. If you are supporting the show through Patreon, then you may have already heard this interview as I released it last week for the Patreon family. The patrons also got the extended version, including the Desert Island questions section.

Supporting the show through Patreon is the best way to say thank you for the work I do here at the Freedive Cafe podcast. I’ve been producing, recording, and releasing these interviews with freedivers for seven years, all for free, and all while holding down my real jobs and trying to support myself as a freediving instructor. If you really enjoy the show and would like to say thank you, consider heading over to patreon.com slash Freedive Cafe and becoming a member. All right, grab a drink, put your feet up, and settle down and enjoy this great interview with Samo Jarenko. Let’s dive. All right, Samo, third time lucky, hopefully.

Yeah. How was your trip? You had a little trip down to… Were you in Croatia for a few days?
[Speaker 1]

Yeah, so last week I went for a very short spearfishing trip for two days. It’s been really a while since I went for spearfishing, even though I love it, you know. And it was…

I was shocked. First of all, the sea temperature is record-breaking for this, not for this part of the Adriatic Sea, but for the whole Adriatic Sea. Like we were having 29 degrees on the surface.

That has never happened before. And it, you know, and it was like stable for 29 degrees until let’s say 8 metres. Then it dropped slightly.

And it’s, yeah, it’s kind of worrying, you know. Yeah, and the second thing that I was also like surprised is, yes, as a consequence, there is no life, no fish for the first, let’s say, 10-15 metres. You have to dive really deep to see something.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I’ve noticed it myself in various places over the last few years. And from what I hear, it’s a huge issue now in the Mediterranean and all over the world that you have these record- breaking temperatures where the sea temperature is several degrees above average, you know, kind of all of a sudden in the last couple of years. Although, of course, there has been warming events for a long time, there seems to be a lot of extreme cases recently.

And yeah, let’s hope that it’s more of an anomaly than going to be a normal, the new normal, right? Absolutely. And congratulations on your new baby.

You have a new baby who’s a few weeks old and you, since we last spoke, you were first on the podcast on episode 86. You also have another daughter, right? Who’s a couple of years old.

[Speaker 1]

Yes, I have two daughters. One is three and a half and the second one is six weeks old. So, yeah, the family life is intense, but beautiful.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. Well, congratulations. A lot of the patrons have asked to say congratulations on the kids and I think everyone understands that you’re going to be, you know, tired sometimes as well.

And I mean, that brings us to the first question, actually. But are you still in Ljubljana? [Speaker 1]
Yes, I live in Ljubljana. That’s the capital of Slovenia.
[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I was listening back to the first time that we did the podcast and I was really struggling with the name of this city, you know, and I had to practise it. So I’m glad I kind of pulled it off there first time. So, yeah, one of the first questions that came in from the patrons was in relation to having kids now and, you know, to what extent has having the kids taken, had an impact on your training, on your ability to train and how do you, have you been training

regularly and how do you find time to train?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, so, you know, life with the kids is much more fulfilling. It’s, yeah, you have extremely wonderful moments, but it’s much, much harder, you know, let’s be honest and for athletes it makes planning of your recovery and planning when you’re going to be, you know, healthy, significantly harder.

[Speaker 2] Correct. [Speaker 1]

And, you know, you never know what’s going to happen during the night and you never know what the kids are going to bring from the kindergarten or daycare, you know. Yeah. So this is definitely a huge, you know, factor that affects your training and recovery.

And, you know, let’s be honest, you also have to, how to say like, work out things with your partner, with your, in my case, with my wife, because if this part of your life is not working well, if you, you know, if either of us is unhappy, this also brings another issue which needs to be resolved as soon as possible because, you know, all the fights from your home can really affect your training, your mental state and it’s I think impossible to be a happy person, which is a necessary thing to be successful in freediving if these things are not, you know, solved.

[Speaker 2]

But I remember seeing you at the World Championships last year in Roatan, is that right? Yeah. So you managed to make it to one World Championship last year in Roatan.

How was it for you? You know, also with respect to being kind of a new dad and that would have been your first time going to a major competition since you had your daughter, right? Apart from the pool competitions.

[Speaker 1]

So, actually the first time I went for a World Championship was when my daughter was 8 months old in 2021 and in 2022 I didn’t participate and in 2023 I did participate. Training-wise, let’s say the base training which is done in Ljubljana and is mainly pool and gym was not really affected because I managed my lifestyle that, let’s say, I wake up together with the rest of the family. I take care of the kids or I help with the kids.

I take them to kindergarten and then I go to the pool or gym. And with my wife, we kind of have a, let’s say, agreement that Monday she takes them to the kindergarten so I can do an early morning session. On Tuesday, I take them and I do a little bit later session in the gym.

Wednesday and Thursday, it depends on our activities and then Friday, again, I do an early morning session. And then weekend, it’s some family activities, maybe a short training for me in the gym. So, this is the schedule when I can still do, let’s say, two pool sessions, two gym sessions, sometimes three pool or three gym, but mainly two pool, two gym and it’s been enough to sustain my performance.

To go a little bit further to stay down longer, yeah, it would be better to have additional training session, but it is what it is. The more difficult part is how to do depth adaptation and train for depth. And for obvious reason, I’m not going for huge training, let’s say, camp or training vacations.

Far, you know, I want to do it in Croatia where I can be with my family. So, even my wife can train with me and the kids are basically on the surface playing with us. And this has become a family activity more or less, you know, but things get a little bit more complicated when you try to combine like high-performance training and deep dives because during that time, you need more recovery.

You’d also need more focus. And for that, I simply went like 10 days before the World Championship in one case to Kaš and in 2023 to Roatan. And that’s when I managed to do some, let’s say, deeper dives, but obviously everything was in CNF.

I didn’t have enough time to do like depth adaptation for deep constant wave dives or free immersion dives. So, my maximum depth has been 100 metres for the last couple of years, but I really enjoyed doing CNF, which is more physical and, you know, you can adapt a little bit faster for 80-90 metre dives and I can still, you know, fight for the podium.

[Speaker 2]

Do you, have you, you know, either yourself or thought for yourself or discussed with your partner something of a kind of a long-term plan where you foresee a kind of evolution of your current situation that in the future, in some years time that you’re able to kind of step up the training volume and the depth again and sort of, you know, head more towards elite depths and bigger performances. Is that something that you envision or has your family life and priorities overridden this concern of depth and performance?

[Speaker 1]

Well, in my case, definitely family life is the priority, you know, at one point and this is what happens with many athletes and also with the athletes that I coach. We have these discussions. So, how to combine everything and look combining training and family.

It’s, it’s, I’m not going to say it’s simple, but it can be done but combining family, training and job. It’s almost, I’m not going to say impossible.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]

But this is when things start to get really hard. And this is also when, you know, families fall apart, which is I think very sad situation. So I definitely don’t want to bring myself in that situation.

I love training and with my wife. We have like similar vision that the training is part of our everyday routine and we want to do it, you know, systematically. I still believe with, you know, like over 25 years of training or first swimming then freediving.

I don’t have to do such a huge volume as before. I need to focus on the proper intensity and, you know, also the training methods has changed, has, you know, evolved in the last few years and I simply, you know, I found ways how to be in a very good shape with, you know, three to four sessions per week. Regarding depth, you know, you cannot avoid spending a month or a month and a half or even more, you know, if you want to go 120 plus somewhere to adapt and to master the equalisation to give your body enough time to be safe on the depth.

So our goal is to, you know, put the family life as a top priority at the same time, maintain the lifestyle when training is part of our everyday routine and deep diving is kind of our time together family time together. And this is this is how we see ourself and let’s see where it’s going to bring me.

[Speaker 2]

Well, I’m really happy to hear that. I, you know, I really have a lot of respect for how you are, you know, prioritising your family, of course, but also trying to find a balance where, you know, all parties have some opportunity to do what they love and to pursue the athletic side of things and talking about the job, when you talk about your job, primarily you’re talking about your role as a coach to other athletes, right?

[Speaker 1]

In my case, it’s yeah, it’s coaching. It’s, you know, teaching level one or basic and advanced courses in Slovenia and Croatia and running a free diving and swimming club in Ljubljana. So these are my three main activities that I can call my job, but also my passion.

Yes.
[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So over the last few years, you’ve been doing a lot of coaching and also remote coaching for athletes. You know, I’ve bumped into many, many people who have been, you have been

guiding them in their training and towards their best performances, even our own former podcast co-host Jordi Duncan, even breaking the 200 metre barrier in the pool under your tutelage. How has, and I guess there’s a relationship between having the young kids and, you know, diversifying into this kind of remote coaching role a little bit.

I would, I would guess. How has this experience been for you to move in that direction?

[Speaker 1]

So at the beginning it was just, you know, Matt Malina and I, we were, we were discussing training for so long. And at one point you say, come on, like we, let’s see if we can help others. And then at the beginning, I was really sceptical.

I, I was, I was doubting my knowledge, my experience, if I can really help someone to, you know, go for a world championship or guide someone for a world record attempt. But now over the last three, four years, I, I learned a lot and I learned a lot about, you know, how, how to, how to mentally guide someone towards the, let’s say world championship and how to physically prepare and design a plan. But at the same time, I noticed that my role as a coach is maybe 40% designing a training plan and everything else is just, you know, being there for a discussion for advice, managing rest, managing lifestyle activities.

And at the end of the day, we are all humans. And you know, this is something that is, you know, when, when you see the struggles of others, you understand that it’s part of the process. It’s part of the life.

It’s we are not the professional athletes with let’s say tens of people’s people who are helping us. In our everyday life routine. So this things needs to be well organised in order for our life to, you know, to work well.

[Speaker 2]

Absolutely. Yeah. I was just before we started this interview.

I was just watching some some videos from the the Norwegian triathlon team, you know, Christian Blumenfeld and yeah, and those guys and I forget the name of their Complicatedly named coach shoes and the kind of laboratory that they have in facilities there and testing that they do is unbelievable, but more than anything. It’s the support that the athletes have to literally wake up in the morning and be led by the hand to the to the next room to the next test to the next training session and have everything sort of taking care and it also helps that they are now able to make, you know, benefit significantly financially from their sport as well.

[Speaker 1]

Yes, I agree like we call this a Norwegian training approach, which is not only in triathlon. It’s also for cross-country skiing for for running for like lots of endurance sports and yeah, they

spend lots of time in the laboratory testing different parameters. Yes, you know free diving unfortunately still far from that.

It’s hard to find funding for even, you know doing all these tests on a weekly basis, but nowadays with all the you know, all the wearables that we have all the bio trackers we can do a lot of things just with a you know, consumer available gadgets to monitor to to see how our body reacts on different training inputs. So remote coaching is getting easier with the help of all these devices that we have them.

[Speaker 2]

Well that that nicely leads us into the next question from this is from patron Matthias moving into a little bit more the technicalities of this kind of coaching system. Do you do any specific tests on the athletes? For example, you know when they first start their process with you or at regular interview inter at regular intervals through the process.

Do you do any specific tests to find out their weaknesses or help design their programmes and like what kind of metrics do you track in your athletes over time? Like as you know, do you track weight heart rate variability blood pressure anything like that?

[Speaker 1]

So for now, it was more. Let’s say an interview a discussion. I try to make made an impression like an overview.

What’s the actual performance level of the athlete also looking at the other videos of their past performances. I couldn’t I could make a pretty good picture, but I noticed that it’s not enough. We have to implement some other metrics.

For instance, you know, we all the time talk about okay, how anaerobic capacity is important for freedivers and that we have to train mainly anaerobic capacity. But what I’ve noticed lately is that most of the athletes they might have like from previous sports good aerobic and anaerobic capacity and then it’s easy to transform it into the let’s say actual freediving performance, but some athletes have it from other sports and the transformation from other sports into swimming is completely different thing, you know, if if we want to build up anaerobic capacity during the season, we have to do some kind of base training where we develop aerobic capacity if nothing else for the recovery and the better the base the higher the final performance. So if I don’t get the good.

Let’s say image. What’s the basic fitness level of an athlete? We can start doing anaerobic training too soon, which leads to quite fast progress in the let’s say first third of the season and then you reach a plateau over which you cannot go or even lead to a burnout simply because the base strength and conditioning is not on the sufficient level.

So this is one thing, you know, getting the image of aerobic capacity. The second thing is co2

and O2 tolerance and for that it’s it’s quite simple, you know, let’s say the regular test I’ve done is doing 10 times 50 DNF and the goal is not to swim as fast as possible, but with the shortest possible recovery time and for someone who is in swimming you can do it like in a quite short recovery talking about even like less than 45 less than 40 seconds someone who is not in swimming. We’re gonna will probably struggle with one minute recovery or even going to one minute 15 or one minute 30 for 10 times 50 and this is already a good sign that okay, we we have to work either on the aquatic capabilities to reduce the energy input for 50 metres swim or need to work on co2 O2 recovery or probably at the same time which is a which refers to the previous test.

Maybe the the overall strength and conditioning is not on the sufficient level. So stuff like that. If we talk about deep diving, of course discussion about equalisation depth adaptation, but these are like simple questions.

What I noticed lately that during the like the regular calls with the with the athletes you don’t usually get the honest picture. What are their fears? You know, what are their what are their like make mental barriers and they usually come up with during the order deep dives or in the last couple of days or weeks before the big competition and then we have to discuss these things as well.

Then there is one more thing I wanted to say where we struggled the most. So this is like something that the listeners really need to put into the consideration. It’s not about you know, what’s your current fitness level.

It’s not about your your fears and everything like the biggest mistake the athletes make when they are when they are planning their season and training is they are not aware how much free time they have for training and recovery. So they want to train too much with too little recovery and that’s due to work family travelling whatever. So everyone is too optimistic how much training session per weeks they can do.

So this is this is probably the main thing that everyone who is interested in in training needs to needs to solve first.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I’ve also experienced this myself as a coach and doing the the personalised remote coaching is that anyone who’s who doesn’t come from a professional or amateur sport background someone who’s never done an intense training programme or intensive training programme and structured training programme. Almost everybody underestimates the the the accumulated fatigue and and recovery necessary, especially in the first two or three weeks. And this is then what leads them down the path of you know, missing sessions in the third and fourth weeks and then coming to the end of the month feeling like they haven’t achieved their goals and then the psychology starts to kick in where they’re starting to doubt their ability to train.

So I always suggest that people, you know, imagine how many hours you have to train each week and then reduce it by 40 or even 50% just so that we can get the ball rolling for the first few weeks. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned this 10 by 50 CNF.

It’s funny. You mentioned that exercise as an example because that’s kind of like basically the only thing I do in the pool when I’m when I’m, you know, maybe I do that once a week at certain certain points and you know, when you say you’re using that as a test, but would doing this then gradually reducing the rest times like having, you know, maybe finding your baseline for the first for the first session where you’d see, okay, this is where I feel good rested and then and then gradually reducing the rest time. Does it then serve as a good exercise in itself for for co2 tolerance and conditioning?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, it depends. It depends on the level of of the athlete. It can be 10 times 10 times 50 or 6 to 8 times 75 DNF this kind of exercises are in my opinion like fundamental because you can you can train everything with them.

Like if you shorten the recovery time in 8 times 75 to 1 minute, it’s gonna be like extremely challenging from both co2 and o2 perspective. If your dive time is already at around 55 or between 50 and 1 minute for 50 DNF, then it’s enough to do 10 times 50 or 8 times 50 because you will experience the same effect as someone with a better technique with more training capacity during the 75 metres dives. If you extend the dive, if you extend the recovery time and increase the speed then it can be already it then it can be more anaerobic.

It can be more for speed.

[Speaker 2]

So you have lots of variabilities that you can play with this distance, you know, let’s say someone talking about specifically co2 tolerance when a client of yours does not have access to the pool or very irregular access to the pool. Do you have a strategy for dry training? Do you still use dry co2 tables or apnea walks or anything like that?

Would you programme that for them?

[Speaker 1]

So if there is no pool available, then we have no other option than going to the gym and do the co2 table on a stationary bike or air bike. Apnea walks are okay also dry statics in my opinion co2 tolerance is extremely important for freedivers both for static and dynamic, especially at the beginning of the season doing pure aerobic training is not ideal for freedivers, but doing I call it co2 aerobic training. That’s what we are looking for without this.

This kind of training is going to be really hard and to put your fitness level to a higher level,

especially when you will implement the high intensity during the breath hold level. So let’s say o2 anaerobic training and so on. So I would definitely recommend not skipping this kind of this kind of workouts, but it depends on the volume and depends on the intensity.

We have several options and doing at least some kind of a breath hold on a stationary bike. Let’s say doing a breath hold hold every every minute for as long as you can during the activity is already going to trigger some adaptation and then you can increase the intensity.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, because I mean these kind of questions come up a lot for me because a lot of the listeners of the podcast, I would say the majority of them are people who kind of freedive vicariously through the podcast because they may be living in landlocked places countries where pool training is considered unusual or even you know, not tolerated and people who don’t have access to bodies Etc. Etc. So that you know that leads us on to you know, there’s a to talking a little bit about depth and there’s a question from Vittorio who wanted to sort of ask you to elaborate on you know, not just you know, the key components of your depth adaptation programme, but how you you know, you use dry dry exercises to facilitate your depth adaptation and what kind of dry exercises people can do to to help with that adaptation before they finally get to the water.

[Speaker 1]

So I do a lot of dry training with the purpose of depth adaptation for obvious reason because I don’t spend that much time on the sea doing actual actual deep dives. So we have we have two types of training for at first is implementing empty lungs dives or empty lungs dynamic activities where you have to let’s say hold your breath and perform a certain activity on empty lungs and these exercises are really useful because you have to learn how to relax your abdominal muscles how to relax your diaphragm how to relax your intercostal muscles during the activity which is then actually going to happen during the dive.

I still think that most of the most of the lungs quizzes for the beginners happen because of first, you know being afraid of going deep and therefore subconsciously being tense and the other reason is during a contraction or performing the dive you keep tensing certain muscles which then blocks the compression of your lungs which leads them to a barotrauma. So learning that dry land and developing self-awareness is going to be very helpful for the dive itself. And then the second type of exercises is just pure pure stretching where you want to target a specific muscle or part of the body that you want to stretch.

It’s maybe it can be a rib cage or it can be diaphragm and there you can you know, you increase the intensity for stretching this particular part but it’s not really helpful if you don’t learn also how to do it during the actual movements. So you have to do both like static stretching and let’s call it dynamic stretching or stretching during the activity when you said that you would have someone empty their lungs and perform a specific exercise.

[Speaker 2]

Like what kind of movement are you talking about? Would you simulate the pool of the three immersion dive or the arm stroke of a CNF dive or something like that?

[Speaker 1]

So if you are if you have at least access to the pool that you can either swim on the surface or doing like regular dynamic. This is this is the best, you know, because you you do the FRC or passive exhale dive and you are actually simulating the actual activity that’s going to happen during the deep dive. If you don’t have access to that to that then I found the best training method doing the empty lungs the assault bike, you know, the air the air bike where you are using both legs and arms at the same time.

The more intense version of dry empty lungs training is of course doing the skier, you know in the in the CrossFit gyms, you have this this kind of machines and doing the skier on empty lungs. It’s I think it’s dangerous, but it’s it’s it can be like very very very helpful. So for this exercise we have to start like very gradually slowly first just not inhaling then maybe after a couple of weeks exhaling a bit and so on and so on but if you learn how to relax dry land doing this exercises, then it’s a good chance.

You’re going to be much faster with the depth adaptation.

[Speaker 2]

If you if you have you mentioned squeeze there if you have an athlete who is working through a programme with you and they suffer a squeeze and let’s say they are that, you know, they’ve identified that it was a barotrauma in the in the chest somewhere, you know, or the lower trachea, which are considered to be quite a critical, you know, still quite a critical place and you know, what strategy do you employ to rest them and protect them and help them move on?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, this is very very delicate delicate thing, you know, and also coaching someone for depth. It’s it’s not so easy because you don’t see what the the freediver is actually doing during the dive. So I always encourage people to have, you know, additional coach or a person on the side looking at them during the dive if lung squeeze or equalisation is is an issue and I had a case like that in in the spring and it’s, you know, it’s rare.

It’s really hard to judge what’s gonna, you know, how your lungs and chest are gonna react just from reading the comments and feedbacks from a person because there is so much, so there are so many details that you have to consider that it’s yeah, it’s hard. I’m not gonna I mean, it’s very hard for a for remote coaching to say someone. Okay tomorrow, you can dive to 75 or tomorrow.

You can go to 85. So what I what I usually do is to say, okay. For tomorrow, you’re going for a deep dive, but your maximum mouth fill charge depth is 8 metres.

So in the maximum depth is let’s say 50 metres. So already by by saying that you cannot charge deeper than 8 metres. You’re gonna first protect their lungs by not charging too deep and not recharging and second.

The maximum depth is going to be limited by the you know, mouth fill capacity from 8 metres and if the feedback on that dive is good, then we move a little bit deeper, you know, so now you can charge at 9 metres and then 10 metres and so on. So by charging deeper, I guide athletes towards deeper dives. And this is also something I do for myself, you know, what what is your thoughts?

[Speaker 2]

What are your thoughts on partially empty lung and full exhale dives for training? You know, do you use them? Do you programme them for others?

And how and when do you use them?

[Speaker 1]

Not much. Not much. If someone though, you know, doesn’t have access to to to great depth or the training the lake or somewhere then yeah, we can do a passive exhale mouth from the surface and then you go down and you you can do kind of FRC and empty lungs dives.

Otherwise, I prefer doing like not 100% inhale like not going for full inhale with packing but just like a deep inhale mouth fill from the surface and you go as deep as possible as an exercise where you can like practise mouth fill. If you dive regularly regularly, then doing FRC dives is not really necessary.

[Speaker 2]

Not specific enough if you have access to the depth already.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah. So at the beginning of the season, it’s dangerous because you are not adapted and when you are adapted, you don’t need them anymore. So FRC dives are highly individual.

Some people they really like to do it and if they have, you know experience with that then I let them doing it. Otherwise, I don’t really encourage athletes to push FRC dives to max.

[Speaker 2]

What about hyperventilation, you know, obviously living, you know, we have a sort of a standard attitudes towards hyperventilation over breathing in the freediving education

organisations. And then, you know living in a place like that have of course I get exposed to a lot of people doing their own thing and having their own thoughts on things. I’ve you know, definitely personally felt the you know, huge disadvantages and even dangers of hyperventilation from by accidentally hyperventilating in deeper dives.

But there are some who are sort of trying to not only implement hyperventilation into their depth training but also to coach other people to use hyperventilation. What are your thoughts on hyperventilation in especially in depth diving? Hey guys, excuse me for interrupting this episode for just a minute to remind you that you can find me here in Dahab, Egypt where I am teaching freediving courses of all levels and providing professional coaching and guidance to aspiring deep freedivers from all over the world.

Dahab is one of the best places in the world to experience the culture of freediving in all its beauty. Most entry-level freediving courses are two or three day experiences. But with me we take a minimum of five days training.

So you have the best opportunity to fully immerse yourself in the world of apnea to allow your body and mind to properly adjust to the underwater environment and to allow us to cover all aspects of freediving theory and practise thoroughly without rushing anything. On top of that we have our own dedicated space right beside the ocean in Dahab with classrooms, equipment storage and hot showers and we even have a fully equipped apartment available to rent for those students who wish to be as close to the action as possible. Visit freediveandthrive.com for detailed information about the unique courses I teach and to get in touch with me personally. All right, let’s dive.

[Speaker 1]

Look, hyperventilation is no go for both depth and the pool. Subconscious hyperventilation in my opinion is one of the main reasons why athletes fail on big competitions. Yeah, that’s really the case, you know.

For deep diving you have to ask yourself what’s the purpose of hyperventilation. If you want to delay the contractions then we have to find a reason what’s causing your contractions. It’s poor CO2 tolerance, it’s poor swimming technique, it’s poor anaerobic capacity.

Are you experiencing contractions on the way down or on the way up? And then we have to, you know, find a solution for that. You know, hyperventilation is at one point is going to lead to a blackout.

If you are not limited by hypoxia, then you’re might going to be okay for, let’s say, a couple of dives. But when you’re going to reach the depth where hypoxia is going to be your limit, then first thing you’re going to have to get rid of is hyperventilation. I think it’s much safer way to do a couple of warm-up dives than performing hyperventilation.

But performing warm-up dives with hyperventilation, it’s not safe. And as I said before, delaying

the contractions, putting yourself in a more sympathetic mode, because with hyperventilation you definitely stimulate your sympathetic nervous system. You are just cheating your body.

You are consuming more glycogen because, you know, sympathetic nervous system is taking glycogen as the main energy source and you simply run out of energy before you would normally do. These are just a couple of reasons why hyperventilation is not good. But in my case, it’s a no-go.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot of really good points. I also try to explain to people something along the lines of especially if you are, you know, somewhere in the kind of a 40 to 50 metre depth range that, you know, for most people, most healthy people who have some background in freediving here, you’re going to have enough oxygen, low oxygen hypoxic tolerance to go much deeper than that naturally anyway.

So you might be using hyperventilation now to kind of, you know, give yourself that little boost into the 50s, 60s, 70s kind of range. But at some point you are going to run up against a wall where you do not only reach your hypoxic tolerance, but reach it quicker because you’ve used this hyperventilation. And then you’re going to have to change your pattern, to change your habits to stop hyperventilating in your training, which can be really, really hard.

If you’ve been used to these dives where you have less urge to breathe and you feel more comfortable on the dives and you haven’t done the foundational work to improve your CO2 tolerance.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I agree with that. I’ve heard many, let’s say, famous equalisation coaches and trainers encouraging athletes to hyperventilate during their mouthfeel training classes, you know. And look, if it’s part of a learning process for a specific skill, when you have, I don’t know, you are in a, let’s say Y40 or deep spot or whatever, you know, the maximum depth is 40 metres.

You are solving some details, some tiny movements to be better with mouthfeel. Then it kind of, I mean, I’m not going to say it makes sense, but it can be part of a learning process. But at the same time, it really has to be emphasised that this is extremely dangerous.

For spare fishermen, hyperventilation is one of the main causes for shallow water blackout. You know, if you combine hyperventilation with adrenaline, with the fish and so on, you simply lose track of yourself and you kind of don’t notice the symptoms when you have to finish the dive. It’s extremely delicate topic.

If it’s used as part of a learning process, it also has to be explained when and how it can be done and when it should not be done.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. And what you mentioned there about the spearfishing and the shallow water blackouts. I don’t know if you heard the interview that I did recently.

It was a few episodes back with Frank Pernett. So he just defended his PhD thesis, which was exactly on this topic and they had some really, you know, interesting information about not just, of course, the risk of hyperventilation, but the risk of accumulated oxygen debt through the multiple shallow dives, which is another reason why you have to be very careful because it can catch up with you and you don’t realise that it’s happening. All right.

A topic that I wanted to, that perhaps should have been better covered a little bit earlier on, but which I definitely want to still ask you about here. Strength training. So going to the gym, lifting weights, getting in good physical condition.

This, what are your thoughts on the periodisation here? Because I know that a lot of, something that I struggle with definitely is the fact that, you know, I’ll be doing, you know, two or three strength training workouts in a week where I’m underneath a barbell. I might be doing, you know, not super heavy, but semi heavy squats.

And then the next day, you know, because of the way the, you know, because I also have other obligations other than just training for free diving. So the way things work out, I might have planned to do a bifence dive or something like that, you know. So how long into a block do you continue to do strength training?

And at what point do you pull people back from the gym and have them taper off? Do you do that? Do you have strength training quite far into the block up towards the competition or do you have them pull back quite early?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I think it’s a great question. And here we have two topics that are really important and interesting. One is strength training.

Another one is periodisation for a competition. So strength training is extremely important. Of course, the number of repetitions, the intensity change if you are training for static or for dynamic, obviously, but also for static, you need some sort of strength training, if nothing else, just bodyweight exercises like Pilates or whatever kind of movement that gives you a bit of a tone.

For dynamic and depth, first we have to analyse the dive itself. So I’m going to do, for example, the CNF dive. During the CNF dive, for the first, let’s say, five to ten metres, you are going on pure creatine phosphate energy system.

You know, you do a couple of very intense and strong kicks and pulls, and for the first, you

know, four, maybe six seconds, you are burning the ideal energy system, which is creatine phosphate, because it doesn’t consume any oxygen, you know. Then you have the, let’s say, from around ten metres till the freefall, you are in more aerobic than anaerobic energy system. You know, there is not enough oxygen available, the urge to breathe didn’t come yet.

So you are more aerobic than anaerobic. Then the freefall happens. You are not moving, but still consuming a bit of oxygen, and then you are swimming up, which is pure anaerobic energy system.

Right? So if you want to be good on a deep dive, you have to train hard for, you know, all the energy systems. Aerobic is the fundamental energy system, which is going to help you to recover while doing your primary energy system, which is anaerobic, you know.

So during the strength training, you improve your shoulder mobility, hip mobility, so you become stronger in the full range of motion. It is really hard to do it in the pool with, you know, it doesn’t matter what kind of training gear you are using, the intensity and the trigger which you can do in the gym is, you know, much much, much better. In the gym, you can adapt your muscles much better than in the pool.

And in the gym, you also develop the muscle endurance and then you transform it later on in the pool or in the ocean, in the aquatic motion, you know. So how to implement it in the training? So I never stop doing gym.

You know, I do gym probably till two days before the world championship. Yeah, but what is the goal, you know, for a deep diver? It’s a goal to be strong and flexible.

That’s the goal. You have to be flexible enough so you can dive deep and don’t injure yourself and you have to be strong enough so you have enough, you know, strength not to consume too much energy, too much oxygen and to be able to swim up. And in the periodisation process, if we say, let’s say we have eight weeks of base training and then we do cycles of four to six weeks, you simply, you know, start with two or even three gym sessions per week.

It depends on the time available, of course, and then I usually stick with two gym sessions. So after base training where you can do three, then I stick with two and, you know, gym session is after the important apnea session. So let’s say if on Monday you have very intense and hypoxic focus apnea session, then the gym session, of course, is going to be on Tuesday.

And then the second gym session in my case is Friday or Saturday. So I try to have not more than three days between the gym sessions.

[Speaker 2] Yeah. [Speaker 1]

So what kind of exercises? Look, you have to be strong. So in base training you can do, you can do eight to twelve repetitions, four, let’s say three to five sets, doing complex movements where multiple joints are involved like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups.

This is great. And then you have to, you know, transform this strength into muscle endurance. This is what we need, but also at the same time, keep the strength.

So you’re going to lose, of course, the maximum strength while approaching the competition, but you want to lose as little of it as possible, you know, but really be good in muscle endurance. So towards the competition, we decrease the volume. When you are doing just, you know, strength training to maintain the maximum strength, you can do, let’s say, four to six repetitions, three sets, it’s enough to just to maintain.

And when you are doing muscle endurance, you have to do more repetitions. So either you are doing them by, let’s say, you do them one minute or one minute and a half, or you do, I don’t know, 20, 30 repetitions per exercise. I combine both static movement, isometric movements, complex movements, everything.

So at the end, the goal is that when you approach the competition, when you are deloading the strength training, you also get much better super compensation because the training input from freediving is not so strong as it is from the strength training. And if you want to have the, like, really good super compensation and, you know, performance improvement, you have to do both. And that is, when I started answering your question, I said that we have two important topics.

So one is strength and one is periodisation. So I described a little bit about strength and I want to talk just a little bit about periodisation. You know, in theory, you have, like from the sport medicine and sport strength and conditioning, you have different, let’s say, approaches, you know.

The traditional approach is you have base training, then you have a little bit more specific training, and then before competition you have, you know, the competition tapering, you know. But the modern approach is a little bit of base training. It depends on the previous sport background of the athlete.

And then you have small mesocycles of four to six weeks, where you combine, so we call it accumulation, transformation, and then recovery. So for instance, if you have a five week of mesocycle, you have two weeks of accumulation. So high training volume, then you have two weeks of transformation where you have high intensity, and then you have one week of recovery.

And there is one like very important thing, which is the difference between male and female athletes. The fact is that for female athletes, you really have to consider the menstrual cycle. And this is, I think, the topic that is not discussed very much.

Like lately, you can like hear the podcasts. I think just today or yesterday, Andrew Huberman had Stacey Sims as the guest, and Stacey Sims is like really good source of information for female training. Why I’m saying this?

Each menstrual cycle is different. Like each girl has a different cycle. It also depends on the training intensity of your, let’s say, period of life and so on.

But talking about the girls between 25 and 40 years old, this is really, really affecting your training. And I would like to emphasise the importance of following the menstrual cycle to give your body rest when it’s needed and not pushing high intensity workouts when your body is not ready for that. Why I’m saying this?

You know, I started with this five or six weeks mesocycles with both male and female athletes. Looking back at the training feedback and so on, I noticed that the recovery for female athletes needs to be adjusted to their menstrual cycle. And if we ignore that, the, you know, girls are going to burn out.

They are also much less, they have much less capability of, let’s say, absorbing carbohydrates when they are high on progesterone. They are much more likely to hyperventilate when the progesterone is high. So these things need to be considered when you are planning your either maximum performance for a competition or, you know, just training.

So for girls, I would definitely recommend like four weeks mesocycle and doing recovery week, maybe one or two days before the menstruation starts and then, you know, until the bleeding stops.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. Thank you for raising that issue for our female listeners because it’s something that I think is overlooked and it’s something that I’ve definitely, you know, over the last couple of years, there have been plans. There have been, you know, I’ve been talking to people about doing some good podcasts, good interviews and putting out some good information on this subject with some of our female colleagues, but it hasn’t materialised yet.

So, you know, apologies to our female listeners and thank you for making that point.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, there are just few, sorry to interrupt you, but there are just few things, you know, girls need to put into consideration. So absolutely, you know, fasting or doing training sessions on empty stomach is not ideal. As I said, you have lower capacity on accessing carbohydrates.

So a bit of energy before the dive or training is necessary. And after the ovulation, when the progesterone is going high, you are more sympathetic driven. So you are more likely to hyperventilate, more likely to, of course, you know, be more angry and nervous.

And this is, yeah, I think important to consider, you know.

[Speaker 2]

So that nicely leads us on to the sort of final training topic, which is the extremely important subject of recovery. How do you, you know, how do you suggest maximising recovery? What are your techniques or, you know, what do you implement for your coachees that they can get the most out of their recovery and prepare themselves for the next session or the next big dive?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, recovery is extremely important. And as I mentioned before, this is where coaches struggle with our athletes because everyone is a little bit too ambitious with how much training they can do and how much recovery they need for it. So there are three fundamental things for recovery.

First one is nutrition. Second one is hydration. And the third one is sleep.

So you cannot avoid having a proper sleep, good food and drinking enough during the day. And then there are another, like there are more, there are more details or another approaches, techniques, supplements that can speed up the recovery. So there is a huge difference if you train in the morning or in the afternoon.

Training in the morning is much more, let’s say, friendly on the nervous system. It’s easy to track with, as I said, with different gadgets, how your heart rate and heart rate variability changes if you train in the morning or in the afternoon. So if you train in the morning, you have all day basically to recover before you go to sleep.

So your sleep is much better. You have more deep sleep, lower resting heart rate, higher heart rate variability. Then nutrition.

So high quality, high quality food during the competition. A lot of athletes forget to bring a proper meal to, you know, have a lunch or breakfast immediately after the dive. So you eat a little bit in the morning, then you go to the competition, you do a big dive and then you have nothing to eat and this is going to affect your performance on the following days.

So bringing your food to the training or to the competition is, I think, really important, especially if you’re training in the afternoon. You want to give your body a proper nutrition immediately after the session because if you wait another hour, let’s say, if you finish the training session at 7 or 8 p.m. before you go home and you start eating, it’s going to be 9 or 9.30 p.m. And then your sleep is going to be affected by that.

[Speaker 2]
Too close to your sleeping window.

[Speaker 1]

Exactly. So, you know, planning your meals according to the training and competition is really important. Hydration, like stay well hydrated during the whole day.

And I personally stop drinking after 7, 7.30 p.m. So I don’t spend the whole night going to the toilet, you know, and it really, you know, improves your sleeping performance and then sleeping, you know, be in a dark room, have a healthy sleeping routine, screen time, you know, reduced to a minimum and it’s going to improve your sleep. Everyone that I coach, we all notice the importance of having two days rest, not just one day rest and you can see how much your body recovers after additional day off. And you know, I always try to put more recovery days if the training is getting harder or if other parts of your life are going to get more intense because if you, you know, have this mindset like, look, I want to do one more training session and then I have two days off, you might, it might work for the first time, but then when you’re going to do it third or the second time, third or the fourth time, then I don’t know, you get sick, you’re not going to just lose one week of training. You’re going to lose one week of training plus one or two additional weeks to get back on track. So in total you lose three weeks.

So if you ever have a doubt, either rest or not, always rest, because the biggest, you know, back set in your training season is to get sick. So more rest and regarding the supplements, look, this is the huge topic. I would just say that the under, I think the underrated supplement is creatine for both male and female athletes.

Taking five grammes of creatine is really important.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, and you know, there was a question from Tessa about how she can, she was asking something along the lines of how can she repair her nervous system after she’s burnt out? And I think, you know, I wanted to also, you know, reply to her on that topic myself that I think it’s all covered pretty much in everything that you said there, that sleep is absolutely fundamental to recovery of any kind. And I think, you know, before we have to, before we start looking for special techniques or special meditations or special breathing, you know, breath work techniques or something like that, that are meant to improve the health of our nervous system, people have to honestly look at their lifestyle and be able to answer the question like, is my sleep optimal?

Do I get, you know, seven plus hours sleep a night? Do I sleep through the night? Do I have good sleep quality?

And then what am I eating? Am I eating a standard American diet or am I eating a Mediterranean diet or am I eating, you know, whole plant foods or highly processed foods? And can you honestly say I’m eating real food and I’m eating a good variety of food that provides a good variety of nutrition and am I hydrating, you know, regularly and unless all of these boxes

are ticked, I think that you, you know, you can’t really start to look into other, you know, more specific ways of improving nervous system recovery.

Would you agree with that?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, absolutely. Like in my case, you know, sometimes I have a rough night, you know, the kids are up or they are sick. I want to train or I know that my recovery is not good, you know, and now for already, I think three or four years, I am trying to practise Transcendental Meditation as regular as possible and Transcendental Meditation is two times per day 20 minutes and when I have, let’s say, sleep deprivation, if my nervous system is down, I always fall asleep during the meditation, you know, and once I reach, you know, 20 minutes without falling asleep, I know I’m good, I’m okay. And, you know, doing some kind of meditation during the day, I think it’s extremely good. I’m just sharing this, you know, my case story.

Maybe someone is going to, you know, find themselves in it because it also correlates with my performance, with my mood, with my productivity, you know, find something that works for you. In my case, it’s Transcendental Meditation.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah. Yeah, as a lifelong, you know, meditator, I, you know, I can’t speak anymore about how important it is for me to have some kind of meditation practise. But, you know, sometimes people might think, okay, well, it’s meditation that I need to do that is going to, you know, improve my, you know, help me recover from a burnout.

But what I find and I think what you just alluded to is that if you’re not physically recovered and well-slept, then the quality of your meditation is going to be affected. Like when I’m particularly highly strong and I’ve been doing two sessions a day in the water and I haven’t had enough recovery and I’ve been diving deep and I’m not, then I’m not getting enough sleep. Then the next day in, let’s say in the afternoon, I’ll do some like guided meditation, stroke, deep relaxation kind of thing, you know, I can lie there and I’m just, my body is like, it’s lit up from nervous energy.

So it makes the effectiveness of the meditation less effective. So, you know, first of all, it’s about sleep. It’s about getting good sleep.

And that’s where the basic recovery comes from because that is not going to just affect your free diving, but also your ability to do the other things that are complementary to your free diving, like your meditation, like your workout. One last question from Darren here about, I really wanted to ask Darren’s question because he did so, he made such amazing progress in the pool over the last couple of years going from, you know, basically a 30 metre diver in the pool to I think 150 plus in the pool. And, but he had a bad blackout and he asked the question about how to rebuild trust in himself after a blackout.

What I think is a really good question because for those people that do suffer bad blackouts, you can have quite a negative psychological effect, right?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, it does. I remember my first blackout. I think it was 2010.

I pushed too much. I stayed under the water in dynamic. It was all good until I saw the pictures and videos and then I couldn’t, I mean, I basically stopped free diving for five months.

I just did swimming and gym and nothing else. My last blackout was, you know, 2017 when everything went wrong during the European depth war championship. And yeah, it was also like mentally super, super hard.

So, you know, blackout, we have to learn something from it. Why it happened? It happened on the training or it happened on the competition, you know, I think there is a huge difference between training session blackout or a competition blackout.

So if it happened on the competition, you know, most athletes are not aware that competitions are extremely hectic. They are hectic for the organiser and they are hectic for the athletes. And, you know, performing well on the training doesn’t mean you are ready for a, you know, for a competition chaos that is going to happen before or during your dive.

For the competition you have like obvious reason like competition anxiety. As a consequence, you have subconscious hyperventilation. Maybe you didn’t plan your meals properly and you are running low on sugar.

Maybe your coach is not doing the job as it should be done. Maybe the organiser is, you know, messing up, did mess up something, you know, and this is everything that these are just a few things you have to have to consider before going to competition and try to, you know, get ready for it. On the training, usually the reason is, the reason for a blackout is just putting certain distance as a main goal of the dive.

Like I always try to explain athletes that you cannot control the final distance. You can only control the process which is leading you towards the certain distance. While the certain distance or the or the depth during the deep dive needs to be a surprise.

So the final result is going to get to you. You’re not getting towards the final result, you know, so the mental approach that I try to share with the athletes who experience the blackout or LMC is, you know, setting a goal. If you know your maximum performance, safe maximum performance is let’s say 150, then the goal for your dive is to continue swimming after the hardest, mentally the hardest part of your dive.

So if you are a 150 metre diver, probably mentally the hardest part is going to be from 60 metres till 100 metres. This is when the vasoconstriction is kicking in, the urge to breathe is

getting strong, your mind is fresh. So it’s really the most unpleasant part of your dive.

So your goal is just to do the turn at 100, but what’s going to happen after 100? You don’t know. Maybe your daily shape is excellent and you’re going to do another turn at 125 and then another one at 150.

Maybe your daily performance is not as good as you thought it is and you’re going to have to finish the dive earlier. So after this, let’s say safe distance in this case 100 metres, you just have to start paying attention to all the symptoms of hypoxia. So tingling, tunnel vision, losing the control over your body and the mind and you have to end the dive absolutely on the safe side.

So when you finish the dive, you don’t know how much more you can do it. But you know, it’s a safe daily maximum and from then on you are just slowly building, building, building your performance and this is going to improve and bring back your self-confidence.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, great. Great answer. Thanks.

Thanks for answering that and good luck Darren with your free diving progression and absolutely incredible so far. Talking about organisation and competitions and everything and moving, you know, changing the subject here as we start to wind down the interview. What do you think about the current state of the free diving organisations and the competitions and the dichotomy we have between IDA and CMASS?

And you know, what do you think about these last four years of development in free diving as a sport? Are you impressed by what you’ve seen?

[Speaker 1]

I am impressed by what I’ve seen, but I’m not sure if in a positive way. Yeah, so look, I started as an AIDA free diver, you know, everything as an AIDA instructor, AIDA athlete, being given by the president of AIDA Slovenia. But in 2015, I had like really bad experience with AIDA competition, world championship and I stopped participating AIDA world championship.

And since then, I think it’s in huge decline, the level of professionalism, the level of improvisation, the level of income, like how incompetent the people who are running the events is just incredible. And I’m really sad that it is the way it is.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, it’s funny, but it’s not really a laughing matter for those who are involved in the sport. [Speaker 1]
It’s really sad. And then you have CIMAS, which is obviously the governing body in terms of the

International Olympic Committee for free divers. And I think they are really trying hard, but the things are, you know, moving a bit slower than expected.

But if you look back, you see the improvement. So, yes, I hope CIMAS is going to be the organisation recognised in the future as the main, you know, free diving competition organisation. But then it’s not just about the organisations, you know, it’s about the organisers of the big events.

And as I mentioned before, when answering the question, you know, world championships are extremely hectic and it’s not just in free diving. It’s in any sports. Like if you look at the Olympic Games, you know, there are maybe just you’re looking them at the, you know, from televisions from your living room.

But if you ask the athletes who are actually there, and I don’t know, they were in Brazil, in London, in Beijing, in Athens, or now in France, like they are all saying that, you know, it’s huge. There are big problems. Things are delayed.

Things are not working the way it is, but it’s part of the story. So, what I want to say is that sometimes athletes have too big expectations how perfect and nice these events are. It’s a world championship.

You go to the world championship to achieve the best ranking. Yes, at the beginning, it’s usually a learning experience. So, you see how things work.

You know what to expect in the future. But then you start participating world championship to achieve the best possible ranking. And now in Belgrade, you know, Belgrade, I know the organiser.

The organiser is great. It’s super capable. It’s the, you know, when you go to the pool in Belgrade during the world championship, it’s really impressive.

But, you know, the Belgrade was in the middle of the heat wave. There is no air conditioning on the pool. So, the athletes were basically melting down at 35-40 degrees and it’s really affecting their performance.

And now, and then when you want to make freediving more interesting for better live stream, it’s hard to show each dive if you have six or eight athletes diving at the same time. So, they had to reduce the number of dives to two per official top, which is great for the audience. You can see like really nice dive technique, everything you can analyse.

But as a consequence, instead of ending the competition day at 11, it ends now at 5 p.m. You know, and this is not ideal for performance. It’s nice for the audience. So, it’s the evolution of the sport.

So, I don’t know where it’s going. I don’t know how it’s going to be in the future. I just know

that for me as an athlete, it’s mentally extremely stressful to participate in the World Championship because you are dealing with so many things that you think should be like obvious, but they are not.

Yeah, and you have to adapt that. It’s really hard, you know.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, and of course, you know, we can’t talk about this subject without asking you your thoughts on the emergence of high-profile doping accusations and the use of PEDs in our sport in the last couple of years. Now, how has that been affecting you and what are your thoughts on that?

[Speaker 1]

My thoughts on that is that it’s a sad story. It’s the very sad and dark side of the sport. I think, you know, you have very sad stories in all sports, not just in freediving, but what happened in freediving in the last three or four years.

I think it’s exceptional, you know, all the cases and how they divided the community. It’s sad, you know.

[Speaker 2] Yeah. [Speaker 1]

You know, in the past, I was not thinking about doping as a I was looking at it as an unfair advantage. But now, you know, when I’m raising my own kids and I want them to be, you know, active in sport, not necessarily on a performance high level, but, you know, recreational or maybe some like intermediate level. I’m just, you know, questioning what kind of image do we send?

But now I’m talking generally about doping, you know, what kind of image do we send to young athletes? You know, before social media, there was a doping case, maybe a week or two. There were articles in the magazines and that’s it.

But now when there is a doping case, you have these open debates and arguing on the social media, which basically stays there forever.

[Speaker 2]
And it’s the worst place to have a discussion on these topics. [Speaker 1]

Yes, then newcomers, kids, you know, whoever is reading these fights and discussions. And at the end of the day, you really get an impression that you cannot perform well without using the performance enhancing drugs. And I had like several discussions with my athletes because they really wanted to, you know, try out different substances.

And like my simple answer to an athlete who is considering taking performance enhancing drug is very simple. So you have to take your life as a whole. You have sport, you have your loved ones, you have maybe your kids, your work, and you have to, you know, also be in peace with yourself.

And your life is a balance between all the things you do. And if you put one part of your life out of balance, other parts are going to destroy, other parts are going to suffer. And I know, I personally know all these athletes who are involved in these doping scandals over the last four years.

And I know that the life they have and the life outside the freediving, it’s not something I want to leave. And they are paying like huge price for that, like really huge price for it. So if you want to put your life completely out of balance and suffer, not just, you know, health wise, but also like mentally and destroying other parts of life, then go ahead and do whatever you want.

But then please stay away from me, you know? So yeah, life is a balance of all the aspects. And if you start doing this kind of shit, you’re going to, you know, you’re going to pay for it eventually.

Yeah, and your life is going to be like really miserable. [Speaker 2]

All right. Thank you for giving your thoughts on that topic, Samo. All right, Samo, let’s crack on with the Desert Island questions.

Let’s change the topic to something a little bit more positive. And we’ll start off with the first question, which is, what would be your ideal or perfect morning routine, if you could have it anyway? This section of the podcast, Desert Island Questions, is a little addition we put on for the listening pleasure of the Patreon supporters.

It’s about eight, nine questions. I ask the guests fun questions, things like, if you could take three books with you to a desert island, what would they be? If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

If you could meet one famous person from history, who would that be? Questions like this. If you want to hear the answers, you can consider supporting the show and supporting me on this freediving journey by going to patreon.com slash freedive cafe. Yeah, I just want to finish up by asking you, you know, you would have answered the question on the first episode, but maybe there’s, in these last four years, you have some new answer to give or some extension

of your idea. Why do you freedive?

[Speaker 1]

I don’t know what my answer was back then.

[Speaker 2]

But I just listened to it, but I have such bad idea brain, I forget.

[Speaker 1]

No, I will, I will. Because I, look, I still haven’t found any other activities where I would just feel better, enjoy more. And that’s why I freedive.

I just feel incredibly alive when I put the mask on and jump in the water. [Speaker 2]

Perfect. Thank you so much. Samu, Jarenko, thank you so much for coming back to the freedive cafe podcast.

It’s been one of the best like deep dives into training methodology and I think also especially like with the focus there on yourself as a coach. There’s a lot of great information for other coaches and also for the coachees to sort of hear from this side in detail how it works and how you work. Thank you so much.

And it was great to have you on.
[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Don. It was really a pleasure and thank you for having me. [Speaker 2]

That was Samu Jarenko, absolutely fascinating deep dive into the world of freediving training. All right, if you want to keep up to date with me, best place to do that is Instagram at freediveandthrive. If you want to send me an email with questions, with suggestions, with any kind of comment or thoughts that are going through your head, then do that at donny at freediveandthrive.com.

That’s d-o-n-n-y at freediveandthrive.com. All right. I think the next one up is going to be a solo sode for the Patreon supporters.

That will be the first priority on the list. And then after that, finally, we should have Lotta Eriksson, absolutely legendary figure in the freediving community, especially here in Dahab. Lotta will be joining me for the next big interview and until then, I hope you have an amazing