Suunto Blog

Shark professional, cave diver, and PADI course director Cristina Zenato is taking over @suuntodive on Instagram for a week, beginning today. Make sure to follow to learn more about the world of sharks!© Victor Douieb Tell us about yourself I am originally from Italy. I grew up in the African rainforest and I have lived the last 22 years in the Bahamas, where I follow my work and passion, which tend to blend into one activity. I am a shark professional and behaviourist; I specialize in human and sharks interactions. I’m also a cave diving instructor and active explorer and a PADI course director. I love to dive and share my diving through teaching it and through my images and presentations. My passion is my work, my work is my passion. Where do you dive? Primarily in the Bahamas, but I am always trying to find places where I can further my experience and knowledge about sharks and caves. I have been in many locations in the world to meet other people who work with sharks and learn more about cave, technical diving and exploration. Among them were Italy, England, Fiji, Rhode Island, California, South Africa, Mozambique, Dominican Republic, Cuba. What inspires you about the ocean? There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the underwater world and from nature in general. The most beautiful inspiration is in how everything seems to connect and flow together, in a perfect balance between beauty, life, death, darkness and light. The underwater world teaches a valuable lesson in the power of now and the power to accept all those around us and learn to coexist. Is there a story you wish to tell with your images? The story I wish to tell is the one of inspiration, I want people to see that dreams do come true, that if we listen and work where our hearts want to go we can get there. It's a story of communications with other animals, specifically with my sharks and one of acceptance and respect. It's a story of discoveries, of imagination, of a life rich of extraordinary mundane events. Visit Cristina’s website and Facebook page for incredible shark images.

Coach to elite ultra runners Jason Koop says there’s more training insights we can get from our Ambits than most of us realise.© zooom.at/bergermarkus.com When it comes to trail running, coach Jason Koop says gaining meaningful information demands more effort than required for cycling or road running.  “Coach Koop” – as his athletes call him – has recently published a book called Training Essentials for Ultrarunning, which condenses the knowledge he’s amassed over his sixteen-year career. It’s received positive reviews and is a must on the bookshelf of every dedicated trail runner. He’s also the director of coaching at trainright.com and is a big fan of using cutting-edge technology like Suunto Ambits to achieve better training results.© zooom.at/bergermarkus.com There’s more in there Koop says many trail runners don’t know how to extract high value information from their “wrist-top computers”. It takes more effort and know-how than gaining high quality information for cycling and road running via power meters and pace. “It’s the same type of information – how hard the workout was, what energy systems were tapped into, how much stress was put on the body, but the tools are different and with trail running it takes a few more steps to extract it,” Koop says. © zooom.at/bergermarkus.com Trail running makes it tricky When it comes to cycling and road running this is easier, says Koop, because it’s simply a matter of calculating the time of a workout session with the power output for cycling or the pace for running. This simple formula makes it easy to score how hard and stressful a workout was. “It’s not as easy with trail running because you have all these other factors like the trail surface and the elevation gain and loss so you can’t work it out as easily – it just takes a few more steps to extract meaning from the information,” Koop says. “A lot of trail runners are stuck at the information stage.” © zooom.at/bergermarkus.com Moving past the basic numbers Numeric information such as distance, time, elevation gain and loss, pace and heart rate are interesting, Koop says, but in of themselves don’t offer the necessary insight to build and guide a systematic trail running training programme. Achieving this, he says, requires a “physiological tie-in”. “There’s a big difference between just looking at the usual information your watch records versus using all of it to determine how hard the workout was, how much training stress was involved, and which energy systems were tapped into. That's the bridge that ultimately needs to be gapped – taking the statistical information and having an actual training tie in.” © zooom.at/bergermarkus.com Taking the next steps There are two key steps to get past the information stage. “Firstly, you need to normalise your pace so when you’re running a 10 minute per mile pace uphill you know what pace that equates to on the flats. Strava and Training Peaks have algorithms that do this for you. This gives you an apples to apples comparison for workouts that have different elevation gains. This first step sharpens the picture of the workout from a blurred mess to something where meaningful analysis can take place. It allows you to see how hard a workout was. “The second step is to compartmentalise the aerobic stress a workout session generates, which is predominantly during the up hill and flat sections, from the muscular-skeletal stress predominantly generated in the downhill sections. “If your normalized pace on the flats and uphills are getting better, your aerobic system is adapting. Similarly, if you are handling the total amount of descending or the rate of descending better, your muscular-skeletal system is adapting.”  

The X-Adventurer Freetracker is going to be a game changer for freediving.The X-Adventure Freetracker following William down. © Daan Verhoeven When Suunto ambassador William Trubridge attempts to break his own freediving world record in July, an underwater drone will follow his dive. He and his team tested the drone, called the X-Adventurer Freetracker, during Vertical Blue 2016 and hope at next year’s competition it will offer live video to audiences around the world. It’s mounted on parallel tracks adjacent to the competition dive line, and descends and ascends with the diver, capturing the entire journey from the surface to the plate and back again. See how long you can hold your breath as William dives! “For this year we just got a proof of concept,” Will says, “but for next year’s Vertical Blue we hope to have it hooked up to a live internet feed, so people can watch from the other side of the world while an athlete grabs the tag at 120 m.” “I think it’s going to be a real game changer for the sport because once people can tune in and be in their living room watching someone dive to 100 m as it happens, then that will really increase the spectatorship of the sport.”© Daan Verhoeven Aside from making freediving more accessible to spectators, The X-Adventurer Freetracker will also improve safety. Never before have safety staff been able to see what’s happening for an athlete at depth before. If anything goes wrong, the safety crew will see it immediately via a live feed at the surface. “It will definitely help with analysis of technique also,” Will says. “Because there's such a logistical difficulty in videographers going deeper than 40 m, a lot of freedivers have never seen what their technique looks like at depth from a good angle.” William is attempting to break his current world record of 101 m this July and the X-Adventurer Freetracker will follow his journey into the depths. Stay tuned!

Mårten Boström says that the process of developing a new compass was an interesting one. “I have realized how much I as an elite orienteer can give insight to the product development team into how the product is actually used,” Boström says.  The team came up with an innovative design that supports three methods of direction finding. You can easily switch between methods, even during the same event, to match the challenges of your current terrain or the distance to the next control point. With the AIM compasses it is possible to find and follow the direction in different ways. Which methods do you use and when? On short legs I simply place the compass on the control leg and turn my body facing the next control to align the map meridians and needle north. After I have picked a distinguishable object in the terrain to aim for I check which color/symbol -combination the north arrow is pointing to and aim for that same visual combination on every glimpse while proceeding towards the next control. If I only need a course direction towards a big object (e.g. a lake) I might just use a whole sector in a similar manner. On long legs I turn the compass capsule so I can see the north arrow fit in the orienting indicator – thus I don't need to keep the compass on top of the map on the rest of the leg. In all of these I'm of course AIMing into the correct direction where the red arrow on the far end of the compass plate is. The new Suunto AIM-6 can be used with a magnifying lens. When do you use that? A loupe (or magnifying lens) is starting to be a popular accessory even for orienteers with good eyesight. There are more and more details on the maps nowadays and the loupe really helps. Place the loupe in front of the thumb compass so that you can see the corner of the compass baseplate but mainly magnifying the map. READ MORE Learn more about the new AIM-6 and AIM-30 compasses  World champion’s 10 tips for orienteering Meet the orienteer who runs a 2h 18m marathon

Mårten, when did you start working on this project? I have been involved in the development of Suunto's new orienteering compass line from the beginning of the year. Product development is exciting as I have realized how much I as an elite orienteer can give insight to the product development team into how the product is actually used. Mårten Boström worked closely with Suunto's compass business line manager Henrik Palin and designer Heikki Naulapää. What did you want to change or improve? As the compass is an orienteer's most precise aiding tool in navigating it's been an interesting task to refine the current compass to become an even better friend when out in the woods. I wanted to redesign the needle in order to achieve a better contrast on to the map, make the needle much more stable while keeping it fast and take away some markings on the baseplate. The graphics on the baseplate and the compass capsule were designed based on Mårten’s feedback. Since the use of the compass needs to be swift I wanted to add color and symbol codes on the edge of the bezel so that there's no need to rotate the compass capsule. Using the colors and symbols one can simply memorize where the arrow is aiming and advance rapidly. Our goal was to make the colors and symbols on the AIM distinguishable but easily memorable. What are the key characteristics of a great compass? A great compass should be easy to use and have a fast & stable needle. How do you actually test a compass? The compass is best tested in actual orienteering conditions out in the forest where temperatures vary from -10°C to +35°C and twigs hit your face while you are trying to navigate through unknown terrain over hills and through marshes!      Learn more about the new AIM-6 Thumb Compass Learn more about the new AIM-30 Compass

Marine biologist, author and pro photographer Alex Mustard is taking over @suuntodive for a week, beginning today. Make sure to catch his incredible images and the stories behind them! What’s your story, Alex? I’m an underwater photographer and marine biologist from the UK. I have been taking underwater photos since I was nine years old and diving since I was 13. I’ve recently distilled all I have learned into the new book Underwater Photography Masterclass. Where do you dive? All over the world! In salt water or fresh water. In crystal clear blues of the Pacific Ocean to murky green-browns at home in England. What inspires you about the underwater world? The diversity. This can be the biodiversity of life – the ocean is home to such a variety of animals, that getting to know them, watching the different ways they live their lives, is certainly many lifetimes worth. But more than that it’s the diversity of diving experiences I love. One week I might be aiming my lens at a great white, and the next week I am just as excited to be framing up seaslugs back home. Then it is on to shooting in caverns, with cathedral like light beams spilling in through gaps in the ceiling. And next diving deep inside a wreck, searching for secrets that nobody has noticed before. How would you describe your photography style? I would say diverse. The non-diving world sees me as a specialist underwater photographer, of course. But within underwater photography I challenge myself to be able to photograph everything well, from shipwrecks to seahorses. Is there a story you wish to tell with your images? Most of us who dive are very passionate about the underwater world. Yet we all see how humanity is hurting the oceans. Taking out too many large predators, damaging fragile environments with destructive fishing and polluting the seas. I think that all photographers hope that their images will inspire a change in attitude from the general public. Follow @SuuntoDive to see Alex’s images or follow him on Instagram and Facebook. Check out his book Underwater Photography Masterclass.