Exercises to enhance my diving

[BlueTrin]

If that helps you, the most incredible diver I met so far, was not big in size, I think being too muscular will play against you for diving.

He was a guy doing all kind of endurance challenges like ironmans and marathons. He was very lean, so lean that he was negatively buoyant with the kit and had to wear a second layer of neoprene in the summer of Malta to stay more buoyant.

I found him incredible because he was using so little air even compared to other instructors. (he has good diving technique as well)

 

[KevlarCoated]

Bicycling, spin....best for legs/cardio. Swimming, great overall workout....squats, the absolute worse thing one can do to their back and knees unless your in your 20s.

Squats aren't bad for your knees if performed correctly, this is a common misconception with absolutely no scientific backing (unless you have existing knee problems in which it may not be a good idea but it has also been known to help with knee problems depending on the issue.)

I would suggest a lot of swimming, if you can do it with your fins on you that will be even better (same muscles just some extra load on them like when you're diving.
There really is no reason you need to do a lot of weight lifting to dive (increased muscle mass will generally increase your air requirements.) Improving your cardio will help more.

You sound like a realatively fit person and really just maintaining your fitness and doing what ever you enjoy will give you the best quality of life. If you love lifting then lift, if you love cardio then do cardio as long as your base strength and cardio performance are sufficient neither will make you a substantially better diver.

Having said that yoke carries and keg carries probably have a pretty good carry over to carrying dive gear around and will help with cardio.

 

[button]

Beachbody coach here ... I'm a big fan of the LIIFT4 program. It's weightlifting combined with HIIT (high intensity interval training). It's four days a week, so avoids the overtraining. I've seen big improvements in my strength with doing those workouts. I do all of the modified exercises and low impact because I have knee issues as well.

Personal training or making sure that you're focusing on proper form is VERY important in any exercise, but especially weight training. Very easy to mess something up!

 

[seeker242]

Is walking up the stairs with a twinset on, good?

I do a weight belt packed with all my weights

 

[DavidFL]

I've been doing stairs with tanks. Interesting that you mentioned it. If you do it, let me know how it goes.

 

[EireDiver606]

@KevlarCoated im young, strong, and healthy, I would not call myself fit. I an barely do 1.5 miles in 10:30. I hate running.

Cycling is good.