Does More (exercised) Muscle = Better Efficiency?

[Addison Snyder]

Halfway there, cardiovascular fitness also improves oxygen uptake efficiency.

Also frog kicks are a slow twitch muscle activity. Bulking out will do nothing for you, low weight high reps will.

Lots of detailed material to choose from, but the answer I was searching for. I'm gonna start jogging on inclines for 30-60 minutes at a time now. Maybe do some calf and/or leg raises.

 

[NothingClever]

Lots of detailed material to choose from, but the answer I was searching for. I'm gonna start jogging on inclines for 30-60 minutes at a time now. Maybe do some calf and/or leg raises.

Don’t forget to add TRX leg spreaders from the push up position.

Those’ll dust off your core muscles and posterior chain and tune up two muscular movements (abduction and adduction) of your thighs.

 

[TuckerIdaho]

If you want to keep it simple other than some cardio this isn't horrible:
Stay at home, stay fit : GovSchwarzenegger
And you get to say you did the same workout the governator did.

 

[dberry]

Not quite. Just was frogkicking for 3 1/2 hours over two days.. Maybe I'm not the specimen of perfect health, but is it so uncommon to be a bit sore after that (serious question)?

Any time you repeat a new (to you) motion for a long time it's not unusual to feel those unused muscles for a couple of days. In answer to your question, no, I wouldn't expect to feel sore after a few days of diving using primarily frog kick. But, I typically use a modified frog kick continuously when I'm just slowly cruising looking at the pretty fish, so this would not be a novel motion to me.

I've been using the hip adductor machine at the gym to slowly open up my hips, in addition to building strength. The hip abductor is good, too, but doesn't help loosen the joints as much. One hour in a yoga class showed me how incredibly tight my hips were. I think loosening them up has helped my frog kick as much as anything.

 

[Dark Wolf]

I look at freedivers and learn from them what the most efficient kicks are. They have to dive on one lung-full of air so oxygen efficiency is everything. They don’t have the option to huff and puff from a big tank.
Do they do any other kick besides a slow full standard kick with long freediving fins that originates from the hip, and also a full body dolphin kick? ...usually on ascent

I think it depends on the location. Here locally, if you want to do more than one free dive in a certain spot it certainly helps to frog kick while near the bottom. I very, very rarely use any other kick while near the bottom. Flutter kick may be used on the way up, after you are well away from the bottom.

DW

 

[Blackcrusader]

I'm hardly a fitness guru.....but my understanding is bigger muscles need more oxygen. If improving SAC rate is your goal, I'm guessing cardio is more important than strength training and bulking up
I'm guessing a body builder has a better SAC rate than your 'average' adult male......but I'm also guessing that a scrawny 120lb guy that runs 2x a week has a better SAC rate than both of them

Bad guess really. I weigh near 300 pounds. I work out on my rowing machine and walk trails in the mountains where I live. My average sac rate on dives is less than 8l min at average 14.22m depth. This dive max depth 35m average depth near 15m 93 minute dive. Sac rate 7.86 l/min AL80 with 210 bar start 50 bar at end of dive.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Anecdata, ahoy: I've been mostly out of the water since July, when I sprained my ankle. I started long-distance lap swimming in September and my typical workout is a 2 mi swim (72 laps, 3.2 km) in breaststroke, which has similar mechanics to the frog kick. In six weeks' time, my waking resting heart rate has dropped from 78-80 bpm to 58-60 bpm. I just finished a 3.1 mi swim (112 laps, 5 km) yesterday.

I won't have a chance to test the theory because I'm done diving for the year, but I expect that my SAC has probably dropped from my out-of-shape rate of 0.8 cfm (22 L/min or so?) to something more in line with my practiced 0.45-0.55 cfm (14 L/min?).

I just turned 60 and went to see a heart lung specialist to make sure I am still in OK health. He had me take the elevator back down to the third level basement car park then walk back up 8 flights of steps where he then took my heart rate and blood pressure. He was a wee bit surprised.

 

[Blackcrusader]

A friend took this video of me diving at around 30m depth. Count the time between bubble trails, around 15 seconds. I like to let the water carry me as much as possible and don't frog kick so much. After all it's not a race between the traffic lights. If people want to improve efficiency then actually going slow and not moving around so much is the key. I also get to see far more tiny critters and get some good photos and videos of things other divers miss.

 

[DogDiver]

70 years old here. Been diving since 1966 and cave diving since 2000. Granted I live in North Florida. I’ll do usually 2, 90-110 minute cave dives At 110 feet a week. And do one mile lap swims twice a week in under 40 minutes. At depth, my heart rate is in the low 40’s and my respiratory rate is 6. Check with all the DAN publications and fitness and diving go hand in hand.

 

[NothingClever]

I just turned 60 and went to see a heart lung specialist to make sure I am still in OK health. He had me take the elevator back down to the third level basement car park then walk back up 8 flights of steps where he then took my heart rate and blood pressure. He was a wee bit surprised.

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Yeah, I’m just not buying all of your assertions here. You post as if we should marvel at your naturally-gifted dive physiology. Anybody can learn to stay motionless and breath hold and that’s what I see in the video.

But what’s your consumption like when the sh*t hits the fan? Or solo guiding in coral tunnels with a group of seven where you have to cover the whole group from front to rear? Or having to beat into a current to get out of the direction of drift? I think more proficient divers will talk about the increase in their consumption under various conditions rather than try to convince everybody how low their SAC is.

I just don’t see the consumption you’re sharing as extrapolating into optimal performance under all conditions. I remember the last video where you were on a reef and wiggled a fin once or twice. While the resulting SAC rate is impressive, I don’t think it would withstand exploratory dives where one covers hundreds and hundreds of meters.