AIDA New Zealand

Supporting New Zealand's Competitive Freedivers

Team World Championships 2012

The 2012 Team world champs are fast approaching us, The event is being held from the 8th June to 16th September in Nice, France. Further information on the event can be downloaded here and more inforamtion can be found on the official website.

AIDA NZ is looking for an expression of interest from those interested in being put forward for selection. Should we have more athletes come forward than there are spots available, we will be making selections based on performances in competition over the last 18 months.

AIDA Worlds Team Shirts Available

We've had some interest in the Team Shirts that were worn by our Freedivers who attended the 2011 Worlds so we've decided to put some short sleeve copies of these fantastic shirts up for sale for a very limited time.  Thank you to Kathryn Nevatt for making this possible.

Order your NZ Worlds T-Shirt here

What are Freedivers in New Zealand up to?

Freediving Depth Nationals 2012

07-12-2011

The AIDA Freediving Depth Nationals are coming soon to a Lake Taupo near you.

The competition will consist of three sessions over three days. For each session, competitors can nominate any of the three AIDA depth competition disciplines. Disciplines can be repeated, although final ranking will only take into consideration the best result in each discipline. As this is our national championship, competitors are encouraged to take part in all disciplines and challenge for the final ranking, though this is up to the competitors.

There will be a recreation grade available for those not interested in international ranking and just wanting to challenge themselves. Divers in the recreation grade will compete in the same disciplines, but with relaxed rules and against other recreation grade divers. These dives will not be eligible for international ranking.

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AIDA New Zealand

AIDA NZ is charged with the responsibility of supporting our elite athletes by facilitating competition in New Zealand and internationally as with any sport grassroots activity is important too and AIDA NZ wants to promote the sport at club level.  To maintain consistency in the sport AIDA NZ engages the rules of AIDA International standards and selects internationally qualified judges for every world ranking competition.

AIDA NZ believes that divers should be aware of the risks of the sport and promotes safe diving by compiling appropriate references and contact information for freediving courses run in New Zealand.

Training Tips

The Importance of Rest
Level: Intermediate

In every sport rest has a critical part to play in a training cycle, and rest days should be scheduled according to training load and where you are in your competition build-up (the harder you are working, or the closer you are to competing, the more rest days should be scheduled).

It is while our body is resting that the greatest physiological adaptations are made to the training stimulus provided by training.  Think of it this way: a training session is a request to your body to change itself so that it performs better at the exercise you've been doing, but it can only execute that request when it has 'down time' and sufficient nutrients to make the changes.  Erythropoiesis (generation of red blood cells) and anabolic muscle growth are two examples of these requests.

Our body also needs time to replenish its energy sources (e.g. glycogen in the muscles & ATP in cells), rid itself of waste products like lactic acid and return to normal levels of acidity and hydration.

It is also important to anticipate rest days, as this means we get a full psychological break as well as a physical one.  For example if we don't decide until half way through the day that we are going to take the day off from training then this is very different to if we go to sleep the night before knowing we have a completely free day tomorrow.

Light exercise (walking, throwing a frisbee around) can be a good way to keep blood flowing and clean waste products out of the system, but if we do something strenuous in another sport then we can't really classify it as a rest day.

Re-printed with permission from William Trubridge
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