Freediving Reloaded : Taking Stock

Posted By Paul Kotik on 6 June 2005

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Re:one reader's suggestion about iron supplementing. Kotik's medical consultants are unanimously against it, in fact, one doctor insists it is better in Kotik's case to avoid iron. There wasn't time to go into details, but I've learned two things that seem to back him up: there are types of anemia (my wife has one of these, sickle cell is another) which require patients to avoid iron like the plague, and, when I obeyed the doctor and went to buy iron-free multivitamins, I discovered that the drugstore shelves are full of them, mostly but not all in formulations branded "Silver Citizen" and things like that. Evidently, there is some consensus that middle-aged folks ought to limit iron intake. In any case, the blood numbers are rising at a happy rate without sucking nails, at least so far, so we'll see how far we can get.

So: help ! What about the fat problem ? What about the excessive buoyancy in the pool training and the head-down attitude it causes ? And what is it that is both critical and missing from this start-up training program ? There's a big, big hole in the wall. Help this eager beaver find and remedy it.

Heavens, I wonder if our hero can still fit into his wet suit......