Dan

I would love to do just a pure endurance swim in full gear with you, I
may or may not be as fast as you,( I need to work on my dog paddle some)
..This is the kind of thing I enjoy and I imagine you do to, so it should
be a lot of fun for both of us. I think it will really be enjoyable.

I have had my years of full contact too, and it is always a pleasureable
and challenging experience to workout in a ring with someone you do not
know, have no backgroud info on, as to there techniques and personnel
style of fighting. To me being in the ring is like a great chess game
plotting individual skills against each other. I always enjoy it win ,
lose or draw. If it was not so far I would try to talk you into training
with us all the time as you seem to have a lot of energy and that leads
to good crisp workouts. 


On the discussion as what it appears to me you are stating overall as
would apply to all of us divers, and please correct me if i have
misunderstood your message. But it appearsas if by your guidelines I
guess anyone with over  10% body fat is not physcially competent and
anyone with 10% or less is perfect. Interesting when you look at English
channel and other long distance cold water swimmers, guess they are all
unfit as they certainly carry and deliberately put fat on in training
for those swims so they can maintain body heat.

 It has been my experience that a lot of overweight people are superb
atheletes. No they would not ride in the Tour De France,( with the
speeds of averaging 30 to 35 mph you posted you should be in that race
as you would be amoung the top competitors in it). Yes this is the group
that has the highest Vo2 of all atheletes according to what I have read.
But how would they do in a boxing ring or english channel swim or
football game? Another of my lessons in life has been you can excel in
one sport and be in perfecrt shape for it and then find you are not in
shape for another sport. That is one of the reasons why I like cross
traing and you also do from your workout descriptions. When I was
younger before i wore out so many parts of my body(see even in training
there are stress related injuries and down sides) I trained for (did not
compete) triathons, i ran in  marathons where I competed against myself. 
 I still compete with myself on events from time to time. This week I
shaved 2 minutes off a combined run and cyle trail and was even fighting
the wind at the time. I do not do much swimming in the winter and guess
what, early spring when i swim again wow, is it  different conditioning
than all these other sports.

Dan, You and I  represent what most people would consider extremes in
dedication to working out. Most people can not or will not take the time
we do (apparently you do even more than I) although my wife exercises
and supports my beliefs in training and fitness, It would be difficult
for me to spend more time training and still maintain a business , go
diving and a relationship at home.

Lets see a typical week for me has 4 to 5 hours cyling and running, 2 to
3 hours rollerblading, 2 to 2 1/2 hours weight training(combination of
free weights machines and a total Gym when i wish to get a fast intense
resistance workout in. On the total gym I can do dozens of sets going
from one exercise to another for max intensisty in about 20 minutes), 5
to 6 hours in martial arts and then on weekends I'm not diving more time
training. add to this a couple of more hours each week on machines(I use
a stair master for what I call survival training, plus a couple of other
machines) and I simply run out of time.

I do not think most people who are divers can or even have an interest
in dedicating this much time to training. I think most are doing damn
good to get in 3 x week for 20 to 30 minutes of CV training. I would be
thrilled if all divers devoted at least that minimum time to working
out, and I think most can manage to steal that amount of time from their
busy schedules. But we both know many will not.

I also know as you most likely do many people who dive every day that do
little or no training but are in excellent condition for what they do
DIVING. In fact these are most lokely the most fit for doing diving
alone. Many cave divers do long swims rountinely in full gear, they use
the muscles required for this activity more than we do, they practice
breathing for this activity more than we do. I do a lot of diving but
not as much as some of these people do. There are cave instructors and
dive masters at resorts who do 400 to 500 dives a year(every year),and
that is a lot of time in the water. Of course some of that time would
not really be comparable to working out but yet it does increase
waterpersonship.

While I encourage everyone to be in shape, I do not think you have to be
a dedicated athelete to be a safe diver or safe instructor. I do not
think you need to be void of all body fat to preform in the water. I
think this point is well proven in many areas. So unlike you I beleive
there are many divers who are superb who may not meet your no fat
criteria. i do not think someone overweight is automatically a scumbag
or less than human. I also disagree with you that being overweight
prohibts one from being in good physcial condition.I was watching a 10
round heavy weight boxing match on ESPN last night both atheletes fought
hard all 10 rounds and both definitely had in the 20% body fat range.

Dan, I tend to respect most people until given a reason not to rather
than judge them by how they look. In Andres case I know first hand as do
many others how strong and capable he was as a swimmer in dive gear,
nothing to do with the accident , just the point that although he was
overweight by you standrds, he was still quite strong and enduring in
the water. Also I do not know how you determined his body fat ratio,  as
I understand prior to determining the body fat on a person you must
determine there muscle mass, at least that is what I have always been
taught and done. I carry by calibres 12 % body fat and by the wrist vs
waist/weight/height method 18% body fat and I really have no interest in
reducing that amount of body fat. 

I guess in your model of a human being (a diving one that is) anyone who
is overweight period, smokes(and I really wish everyone I know and care
for would give up this dangerous habit)or drinks (On this count I'm
certainly guilty as I have my two and sometimes even three glasses of
wine after 6PM every day) is a useless slop who should not be allowed in
the water, and should not be respected by anyone. Surely you are not
serious about this. Your message seems to be "duplicate me or do not
consider yourself a worthy human being". 

So although I wish peole would not smoke I know people who smoke who can
swim, run, and fight all day, I train with some of these people from
military units a few times a year. They are young and the smokes have
not caught up yet. If they did not smoke in my opnion they would be in
even better shape. Opps these same gusy can party all night to and get
up early in the morning and do it all over again, guess that is the
beauty of youth.

I know overweight people who are also excellent athelets and in some
sports it helps them to excel (such as the channel swimmers, football
players, heavy weight boxers  etc)

I have a lot of friends i enjoy diving with who are not atheletes by
mine or your definition who some of them are overweight, some are
smokers and many drink at least a beer or two daily. A lot of these
people are really good in the water.

I also respect many people as friends who ar also overweight, may smoke
and may drink, Hell they may have even inhaled when they were younger,
who knows. I respect people for who they are and what they accomplish
for themselves(not for what my goals are for me but what they wish for
them), they do not need to workout like I do, be bone thin, 90% muscle
or even lift a finger. My respect is not based on who is the biggest,
baddest, most attracive and most conditioned. My respect is to the
person not the image I would have of them.


Dan, on aging and muscle mass and conditioning at the level of one
individual vs himself at age 60 and 21, have you totqlly figured out how
to stop the biological clock. Do you know how the have the GH receptors
continure to release GH at the rate it did at 21. I do feel I have
offset the clock but I certainly am not at my personel 21 yeasr old
stage. i take supplements and 4evetrything,, I;m even looking into the
possibility of taking pro GH1 which is suppossed to allow the GH
receptors to release GH more efficiently, I just need to gain more
knowledge about it befors I add it to my supplement diet.


Dan, all of us on this list would really like to see these test on the
OMS wings. I have heard people stating opnions on them but i have never
had the priveledge of seeing a published scientific test on them. I
really would appreciate it if you would publish this on the list. It
would be a great service to us all.

I did not know Dituri was one of Georges guys but he is also one of the
IANTD guys. What are you guys doing going down the list and seeing those
who workout and stating mine not yours, I think you will find a lot of
IANTD guys who also happen to be WKPP divers, I did not realize they
were owned by someone.  Joey, is one of our IT's and on our BOA( the BOA
is the group that develops and changes standards), the entire BOA list
is with our standards on the web page. I trained him in mix and cave
diving and on the Halcyon. I talk with him a couple of times a week. We
are rather good friends.

Tom 


Dan Volker wrote:
> 
> >> -----
> >>
> >> 
> Tom, when a guy is around 6 foot tall and has average muscle mass, he can
> hold 20 pounds of fat without looking like he's really fat. When the guy has
> a HUGE fat belly, with big rolls around his back, etc., he is alot more than
> 20 pounds overweight.  The standard of fitness here is NOT what you read in
> a fitness guide for men, with age gradations----you must fit the same
> fitness parameters as the 21 yearold. Some may prefer to say for a man his
> age he  was 20 pounds overweight----I'm saying, he can't use his age as a
> crutch to justify less fitness----if he was 21 years old, how much
> overweight was he????If you still insist only 20 pounds, lets get some
> photos of him and I'll have an analysis done. As to his swimming speed, I
> have heard that from some.... George tells me your best stroke is the dog
> paddle <grin> and perhaps you might not want to compare your swim speed
with
> someone who trains like George or myself :) Care to do an "upcurrent"  race
> dive with us  from one end of breakers reef to as far as you can go on a
> tank of air??? Just for fun :)
> 
> >> 
> >What is the signifance of this statement, So does Billy Deans and
> >hundereds of other divers that cettainly is not a safety violation
> 
> When you know the bondage style reduces bouyancy, and in this case, he has
> already chosen 4 tanks which will make him incredibly negative at 250 feet
> with a wetsuit, the gear choice for wings should be one which could
> guarantee lift at the bottom---from the tests George and other WKPP divers
> have done on the OMS wings with bungee nonsense, the lift capacity of the
> wings were severely decreased. This made the OMS wings a BAD choice.
> 
> >.
> >>
> >
--
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