Why do I do so much dryland work?

Diving is such a precise and technical sport. Any small mistake from the diving board can mean the
difference between tears or excitement. For this reason divers spend a lot of time on the dry side of the
diving pool. We will always try to keep at least one step ahead in the dryland in the diver’s progression so
that the transition from dryside to poolside is easier and smoother and learning new dives is also easier and
smoother.
Divers, especially at a young age will spend most of their time in a diving session in the dryland area. This
should weigh up to about 70% dry and only 30% water time. Hopefully, after reading the following you will understand why we spend so much time not “diving”...

The type of things you can expect to be doing in dryland area are:
1. Warm-up: In all sports a warm-up is essential prior to commencing and physical exercise. The main
reason for a warm-up is to get the blood pumping around the body and to loosen up all the muscles so
that there is a much lower risk of injury, such as a muscle tear. A warm-up for diving will make the diver
“feel” more bouncy and conﬁdent about themselves before they commence their harder work.
2. Tumbles: Diving is very closely related to gymnastics and you will see many gymnastic skills also
performed in diving. Tumbling gives a diver more body awareness to enhance their posture while
performing certain skills and it also increases agility in the athlete.
3. Dive Imitations: (or drills, or dryland runthroughs, etc). Because of how precise and technical diving is
we try to make things a lot more simpler for the athlete. To do this we practise going through the motions
of a dive while on the safe ground level. The diver will pretend they are doing their dive in slow motion
while going through each exact motion of a dive with as much attention to detail as possible. They do it so
many times that the motions become automatic so that when it is time to do the dive on the diving board,
hopefully, the motions will be the same. The divers are told that if they cannot do an imitation dive for a
score of 10 when they are in slow motion and on the safe ground, how can they get a 10 from the diving
board where the dive of over and done with in less than 3 seconds?
4. Somersaults: Divers will practise single somersaults in all directions in the dryland area in order to build
up the strength and speed necessary to perform the multiple rotational dives in the diving pool. Here they
can also work on their take-off technique for these particular dives.
5. Trampoline & Dryboard: We use these apparatus for take-off technique practise. Also because the
divers are not getting wet they can do more repetitions in a shorter amount of time. Because the diver is
doing the same thing over and over again and provided they are using the correct technique the motions
for the skills become second nature. Also, landing on a nice soft mat and they have the hands on support
from the coach, the divers feel safer performing these skills from the dryboard and trampoline ﬁrst before
they attempt them in the pool.
6. Harness: Divers can do their actual dives in the harness before they try them on their own in the pool.
That way they can learn the dive safely without the fear of going splat! We try to use the harness as often
as possible but it is never enough as there are many divers and so not all divers will always get a turn.
The harness isn’t a fun toy, it’s an apparatus to help divers learn new dives. If a diver isn’t ready to start
learning that particular dive then they don’t need any work in the harness until they are ready. For a
coach, learning how to use both the water and dry harness is an extremely difﬁcult skill to master. It is
WAY harder than it looks. It takes hundreds of hours of practise to get it right just like it takes a diver
hundreds of hours to master a dive.
7. Strength & Core Stability: Divers need to be strong to perform these nearly superhuman skills off that
diving board. Divers also spend many hours working on their strength, especially their core stability
strength. Core stability is what makes a diver. The stronger core you have, the higher you can jump, the
faster you can snap in and out of that tuck shape and spin fast, the faster you can lift those legs up into a
pike, the more balanced you are on the end of a diving board, the more likely you are to control your
come-out to slow down your rotation, the tighter you will be going through the water for that “rip” entry, the
more body control you will have in the air, the list goes on... Strong core stability will also improve your
posture and be able to maintain it in those unnatural positions a diver will get into and therefore be a huge
factor in reducing the risk of injury.

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written by Zoe McInnes, September 15, 2009

Thanks for this article Christian, I found it very interesting.

I have a question rather than a comment.
I’m studying Personal Training and for an assessment need to profile diving. Can you tell me what fitness tests you do for divers, and what the range of expected results would be for up and coming, or professional divers?
Some estimations on this would be so helpful to me as I’ve been looking everywhere for info on this and having trouble finding it.

Thank you so much in advance

Zoe

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written by Christian Brooker, September 15, 2009

In diving you may expect to find the same fitness tests as many other sports. Generally we test a diver's flexibility, power endurance, explosive power and core strength. Such tests involved would be:
Flexibility - Sit and reach for hamstrings to test to see how well the diver can make a pike shape. Shoulder stretch to determine a diver flexibility in their shoulders. Most divers can get their fingers at least 15-20cm past their toes in a sit and reach.
Explosive Power - standing vertical jump and standing long jump. For young divers (12-15 year olds) a good vertical jump would be about 50cm. Elite adult divers can jump from 70cm to 90cm for men and probably 50-70cm for women.
Power Endurance - Speedy backs which are multiple standing back somersaults performed in quick succession. I get my divers to perform 10 back somersaults in the quickest time possible. Younger divers do this in around 17-20 seconds. Adult elite divers can almost do it in about 12-15 seconds.
Core Strength - wallbar pike ups, v-sits, sit ups, dish rocks/holds, etc. One test I do with my divers is to see how many v-sits they can do in 30 seconds. Younger divers can do 1 v-sit every second and adult elite divers can get up to 45-50 in 30 seconds! Another way is to see how long it takes them to perform 20 v-sits. A good score for an elite diver is about 12 seconds.

Coaches: please feel free to add some more tests and results if you like.

Where are you based Zoe? Perhaps myself or someone here could hook you up with a local diving club where you can do some more research.

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written by Zoe McInnes, September 15, 2009

Thanks so much Christian,
That helps me out a lot,

I'm actually in Sydney, Australia.

Yes, I would love some further assistance if anyone is able/ willing?

I also need some info in the major muscles used in diving.
From what I can work out it seems like almost all of them, but if someone could shed some light on something more specific than that, or even direct me to a good website that would be fantastic too.

Thanks so much
Greatly appreciated

Zoe