Diving in the 21st Century has developed to a new level of excellence. In order to win a high level competition, an athlete must perform high degree of difficulty dives with the highest quality. Consistency and precision are the indicators of high quality dives and for a diver to perform at this level, the answer is dry land training.
In order to control body position and perform a graceful and precise difficult dive, a diver needs good body awareness and excellent spatial orientation. This is an essential ability for a diver. The way to improve and enhance this ability is to open the eyes and use vision to spot the water and see reference points during the somersaults. Visual spotting helps the diver develop better judgment of his/her body position, somersault location and somersault speed in the air. This will enhance the body’s awareness and spatial orientation. After the diver masters visual spotting and correct come-out techniques, the diver will become far more consistent and precise performing these hard dives.
Modern indoor dry land training has taken the sport to a new level and has raised the bar in training techniques. It has also allowed far greater number of dives to be performed in training in a shorter time frame and has of course provided safety for the diver whilst attempting these difficult maneuvers’. Dry Land is also part and parcel of a competition requirement now and at every meet and in particular, at the senior and international level, many venues that previously hosted international competitions had them taken away and a facility with modern dry land facilities were chosen. It is now standard even for the host of the Olympic Games to have a dry land area for training despite the Games only running for 16 days.
Indoor Dry Land training is now a common practice in the sport of diving and any new facility that is built these days must incorporate an indoor dry land facility for training programs, club training, hosting of national and international competitions and for domestic and international camps.