Divers should be fit. Stretching on a daily basis improves your flexibility which is necessary for diving and also great for performing everyday activities. If you are flexible, you will suffer less injuries, improve your diving performance, have greater freedom of movement and you will be more comfortable whether you are below the water surface or above it.
Diving preparation includes certain fitness components of which stretching is one. Additionally, if you are to increase strength, then flexibility is absolutely necessary. You should stretch regularly and not only as a warm up. In fact, if all the stretching you do is prior to a dive, it will not make much of a difference and may even be detrimental, particularly if you do not warm up the right way before a dive. You should cultivate the habit of stretching and exercising on days when you will not be diving to enhance flexibility and fitness in readiness for when you do dive.
Warming Up for a Dive
In order to warm up effectively for a dive, you need to do some aerobic movements. These usually involve the large muscles of the body and are great for warming up your muscles as well as lubricating your joints. Your warm-up can be a ten-minute walk on terrain that is flat, or simply marching on the spot. This will get your blood pumping and will have your body warmed up for safe diving.
Stretching Every Day not only for diving
You need to stretch every single day, preferably after you have done your exercises on the days that you do not dive. If you have gone diving, it is important that you wait 24hrs prior to working out and stretching again.
It has been found that if you stretch before some particular exercises, you can actually hurt yourself and reduce your performance. But when you stretch afterwards, you will reduce soreness in your muscles, especially after a workout that was intense.
Static stretching is most common when one is stretching alone. It is considered quite safe because it is gradual and slow. You need to hold each stretch position for ten to thirty seconds and ensure that you do not push or pull through pain. While stretching, you need to inhale as well as exhale deeply in order to relax further. Be sure to repeat each stretch one time. Doing multiple repetitions beyond that does not add value, but being consistent in stretching daily will increase your flexibility with time.
Our team loves to stretch every morning before going on dives, specifically when we know we will do a drift dive. This kind of dive ask for us to maintain perfect buoyancy and most of the time we do not move much so our back can get tired. Check out our blog and where we do those type of dives in Bali.
