TG and MattB2,

I spearfish, play hockey and freedive, without being particularly good at any of them. Hockey is pretty good for general fitness & getting time in fins while freediving is great for finding your limits, training the dive reflex, training streamlining and efficiency.

From a spearfishing point of view, hockey has the disadvantage of spoiling streamlining and relaxation, plus if you train hard for a while, your body gets used to breathing too often :(. Freediving can make your dive reflex almost too strong, whereby you increase your recovery times because of oxygen debt on reasonably 'easy' dives. In other words, both help, but do them too much and they start to hurt.

Don't forget though that both are also a lot of fun on their own!

Yes, being very aerobically fit is likely to compromise breathhold diving. Doing the pool stuff will probably help a fair bit. Although noticeable it shouldn't be a huge problem for spearfishing depths; it's only at a fairly high level that the two really refuse to play nicely together, forcing you to make a choice between them. Luckily periodisation works fine - do a stint of aerobic work in the off-season and the negative effects will wear off pretty quickly leaving you with a good strength base.

And I'm still hoping for anyone pointing me to a pool where I can exercise in the north shore, perferably in Brownsbay or torbay or albany or so.

Yet again Dave, thanks for the info. I'm taking it to heart and I reckon I am going to try and put some effort into both spearfishing and freediving.

if i can get some else experinced to come along i will take out 3 newbies on my boat on a couple of  different weekends,no cost as i would be going anyway,just have to get to waiheke

Mullins this is probably a question for you.

Whats your thoughts on diet.

I imagine at your level you would be on a strict diet and you can probably notice the difference if your not eating rite.

Do you think a decent diet would do much for an intermediate level spearo in combination with a few pool sessions and then spearfishing during the weekends?  

That is the question! Easy answer before I duck for cover is 'No'. Get closer to the fish.

A thread from a few weeks ago with some useful (and not so useful) info if you are starting out:

If you have limited space or your planning on traveling then get a decent inflatable float,
you will have to take a bike pump with you every time you go out though

Don't get one of the blowup ones, they puncture really easily around rocks etc and are just crap.

The solid ones are good for diving around rocks.
The ronstan ones are good & quite cheap, they also have an indent to wrap your float line around.

Thanks Azazel, I think plastic is the way to go then.