How to Prepare for Your First Freediving Competition
- Anthony Feoutis
- May 18
- 6 min read
Why Most Divers Misunderstand Competition Preparation
AIDA & Molchanovs Instructor Trainer
He is the founder of The Depth Collector and VD Freediving Taiwan. With over a decade of experience, he focuses on solving real-world freediving problems, from equalization to depth adaptation, using practical, field-tested methods.
I recently started coaching divers preparing for their first competition. While building the course and guiding athletes through the process, I realized something important: most people completely misunderstand what competition preparation actually is.
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to experience competitions from multiple sides. I’ve organized the Liuqiu Cup in Taiwan, worked as a judge and safety diver during competitions, and in 2023, I was the head coach of the Taiwanese athletes at Vertical Blue in the Bahamas.
And honestly, after spending years around competitions, watching successful dives and watching dives fall apart, I’ve realized that performance often has much less to do with physical ability than people think.
People think competition preparation is about pushing deeper.
It’s not.
│The real purpose of competition preparation is to reduce chaos.
Reducing uncertainty. Reducing the number of things that can go wrong when the stress starts building.
A good competition dive should not feel heroic. It should feel familiar. Predictable. Controlled.
The athletes who perform well are usually not the ones trying to prove the most.
They are the ones who stay stable when everything around them becomes chaotic.
That’s why I created this framework.
Not to create fearless divers.
But to create divers who arrive prepared.
Freediving Competitions Are Controlled Chaos
Competitions are strange environments. You spend months training for a dive that might last three minutes. Then suddenly you are standing there surrounded by judges, safety divers, cameras, noise, delays, other athletes announcing big numbers, and your brain starts doing what brains love to do under pressure: creating problems.
That’s where preparation matters.
And the deeper you go, the more every small detail matters too:
your wetsuit
your buoyancy
your warm-up
your hydration
your timing
your ability to stay calm when things stop going according to plan
And by the way, this also includes stupid little things people forget to train. Grabbing the tag efficiently. Knowing exactly where you will store it. Repeating that movement enough times so you don’t, on the day of the competition, start fumbling around like an idiot at depth while your brain is already overloaded. Those details matter too. Competition stress amplifies everything.
People often imagine freediving competitions as something extreme. And yes, sometimes they are. But the athletes who usually perform the best are rarely the most emotional ones. They are rarely the athletes trying to force huge performances out of pure motivation and willpower.
The best dives often look effortless...because they trained...a lot.
Everything is organized. Efficient. Calm.
That’s not accidental.
Rehearse your competition dive long before the actual event. Ask your buddy to do the official countdown. Practice your final breath. Practice grabbing and storing the tag. Practice your surface protocol until it becomes automatic. The less your brain has to improvise during the real dive, the more mental energy you keep for what actually matters.
│Good competition preparation is really the art of removing unnecessary variables before the dive even begins.
Use the Exact Same Equipment You Train With
One of the first things I tell athletes is simple: competition is not the time to experiment.
Your competition equipment should be exactly what you train with:
same wetsuit
same fins
same lanyard setup
same weight and weightbelt
People underestimate how much small changes affect a dive. A slightly different wetsuit changes buoyancy. Different buoyancy changes the dive plan, and the entire feeling of the dive.
Uncertainty creates stress.
And stress consumes energy.
I also strongly recommend bringing backup equipment. One broken nose clip or damaged lanyard should never destroy a competition day.
Do a checklist before the competition and double-check your gear. You do not want to arrive at the competition site only to realize you forgot your monofin. And yes, I’ve actually seen that happen to a very famous diver at a very famous competition.
How to Warm Up Properly Before a Competition Dive
A lot of divers over-warm-up before competitions. They burn oxygen, glycogen, and mental energy before the dive even starts because they think “more warm-up” means “more prepared.”
I once saw a diver attempting a 30-meter CNF personal best during a competition who thought it would be a good idea to try the dive first on the warm-up line before the actual performance dive.
He blacked out.
People stop thinking clearly and start confusing preparation with proving something before the dive even begins.
Usually, it means the opposite.
The goal of a warm-up is not fatigue.
It’s preparation.
You prepare the body, activate relaxation, and enter the dive feeling ready, not exhausted.
Learning when to warm up, how much to do, and how to avoid unnecessary fatigue is a real competition skill.
The Countdown Before the Dive Is a Skill
Competition environments are noisy and chaotic. There are judges moving around you, safety divers talking, cameras filming, announcements happening in the background, delays, schedule changes, and other athletes trying to look relaxed while secretly stressing out.
│You must learn to stay inside your own process while everything around you moves.
That is a real skill.
Breathing rhythm, timing the final breath correctly, staying calm under pressure, and staying focused despite distractions are all trainable.
Emotional Control Is One of the Most Important Freediving Skills
Honestly, emotional control is probably one of the most underestimated aspects of freediving competitions.
Not every warm-up feels amazing.
Not every dive feels perfect.
Sometimes the water feels strange. Sometimes equalization feels off. Sometimes your contractions arrive earlier than expected. Sometimes you fail a dive you know you should be able to do.
That happens.
│ A failed dive does not define you as an athlete.
But your reaction to it does.
One of the fastest ways to destroy your competition is to start diving somebody else’s dive.
Comparing yourself to other athletes is mentally exhausting:
announced depths
confidence displays
performances
social media posts
rumors around the competition site
None of it helps you.
Your only real job is to execute your own process.
Stay inside your routine.
Stay inside your dive plan.
Stay inside your own competition.
The Importance of Recovery Before a Freediving Competition
Another thing many athletes misunderstand is recovery.
The final days before competition are not the moment to prove how strong you are. Trying to push hard deep dives right before a competition usually creates:
fatigue
stress
loss of confidence
nervous system exhaustion
│The final 72 hours before a competition should feel almost frustratingly calm.
No hard freediving training.
No hypoxic punishment sessions.
No “one last deep dive.”
The work is already done.
At that point, your goal is freshness.
72 hours. That’s what the nervous system needs to properly reset. A fresh nervous system will always perform better than a tired, strong body.
Hydration, Nutrition, and Nervous System Stability
Hydration matters far more than most divers realize.
Good hydration improves:
Blood circulation
Equalization
Recovery
Oxygen and nutrient delivery
Showing up dehydrated to a competition is like starting the dive already behind.
Nutrition also matters. During competition preparation, I generally recommend:
nutritious foods
easy-to-digest meals
low-inflammatory foods
stable hydration with electrolytes
Supplements like creatine monohydrate and vitamin C can also support recovery and performance during intense preparation periods.
I actually go much deeper into all of this in my book Fueling for Depth, where I break down hydration, recovery, supplementation, glycogen management, and how nutrition directly affects performance, equalization, and nervous system stability during training and competition.
Every Deep Competition Dive Needs a Plan
By competition day, the dive plan should already exist:
pace
equalization strategy
alarms
freefall entry
ascent strategy
surface protocol
│You should not be improvising at depth.
The deeper the dive becomes, the more efficiency matters. The turn should become automatic. The ascent should stay controlled even when contractions become violent and the legs start burning.
Many dives fail in the final meters not because the diver lacks ability, but because they lose mental control.
Recovery Breathing Is Part of the Dive
Recovery breathing is not optional.
It is part of the dive itself.
It must become automatic under stress, because the dive is not over when you reach the surface.
A clean surface protocol is part of competition performance and safety.
How to Prepare for Your First Freediving Competition
The more years I spend around competitions, the more I realize that great performances rarely come from heroic moments.
They come from preparation.
From consistency. Organization. Emotional stability. Intelligent decisions repeated over time.
A competition dive may only last a few minutes, but everything behind it starts weeks before you ever break the surface.
The athletes who perform well are usually not the ones trying to force greatness. They are the ones who arrive calm, prepared, adaptable, and mentally stable when pressure starts building around them.
Because at depth, chaos gets expensive very quickly.
That’s why competition preparation matters so much. Not to remove fear, but to remove unnecessary uncertainty.
In the end, freediving competitions are not really about proving how deep you can go.
│They are about executing a process under pressure while staying relaxed, efficient, and in control.
And honestly, that might be one of the most valuable things freediving can teach.
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