Cliff Diving
The Red Bull Cliff Diving athlete reveals the value of high-diving into a Cornish quarry, the cardio benefits of walking a giant wolfdog and the power song that transformed a competition.
The question many viewers of the can’t-tear-your-eyes-off-the-screen Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series have asked is ‘How does anyone train their body to hit the water at 85kph from a 27m-high platform?’ For Aidan Heslop, the answer is simple: he had one built especially for him.
“When I was 14, me and my mum messaged loads of different companies looking for sponsorship so I could train at a place called Area 47 in Austria where there are high-diving platforms,” he says. “We contacted Adrenalin Quarry in Cornwall and they said they couldn’t give me any money but they could build me some boards in the quarry instead. They literally couldn't have given us anything better.”
Now, thanks to Adrenalin Quarry, he has access to a 16-metre, 20-metre and 24-metre diving board just 40 minutes from his house in Plymouth. “It’s ideal,” he says.
Ideal is an understatement – few high-divers have access to such a perfect training set-up, especially when most pools’ platforms only go to 10m. And when combined with the facilities at the Plymouth Life Centre, the 20-year-old British diver has exactly what he needs to push his body and mind to a point where he can pull off performances such as ‘the world’s hardest dive’ during his Red Bull World Series dive in Boston earlier this year.
Here’s how he trains to become one of the best divers in the world.
I tend to have seven or eight training sessions a week
What’s an average day’s training for you?
I tend to have seven or eight training sessions a week, all in the Plymouth Life Centre. The sessions are about two and a half hours, with half that time in the dry dive and the other half in the pool. The dry dive is our little gym just for divers – we have a weights area for strength and conditioning. There's also springboards, trampolines, sprung floors and a foam pit, with springboards and platforms into that. It sounds fun but plenty of work gets done.
Training involves a lot of conditioning and flips into the foam pit and on the trampoline. So generally, about 50 per cent of my work is done outside of the pool. In total, I’ll do around 20 hours of training a week.
We also have access to a gym and a tumble track, so we do a bit of everything. Even ballet, sometimes.
How do you train in the pool?
It depends on the time of the year and how close to a competition I am. If there’s a competition coming up, it will focus on the specific dives that I have in that competition, and that will usually be split throughout the week.
On Monday I'll work on the first two dives, Wednesday I'll work on the other two dives, and Friday I'll work on the last two, as there are six dives in total that I do in my 10-metre list.
The rest of the time I spend working on my entries and spatial awareness, which are both important in diving.
It's all well and good being able to do the dives exactly the same every time, but if one little thing changes at the start of the dive, it affects the whole thing.
What drills do you do to train spatial awareness?
We do something called Russian skillchains, which is where I do a dive in one direction, then a somersault in that direction, then one and a half, then a double, then a two and a half, then a triple and a three and a half. And you work up like that in every direction, which is good for you because it's a different dive every time but you have to know where you are each time because you're switching up so much. It’s good for your brain.
I could finish a training session and then go rock climbing or walk the dog and I'll be fine the next day as long as I get enough sleep.
Do you work with a coach?
Yes, Sally Freeman. She plans what I need to work on to make my dives the best I can, as when it gets to a certain level you know what divers will be doing in a competition.
Do you do any cardio work?
Not really. I've got a huge Czech wolfdog, so taking her for a walk takes effort because she's so big and she has so much energy. Even after a two-hour walk we'll come back and she'll go in the garden and still want to chase rocks. So that’s pretty good exercise for her and me.
Do you use any tech in your training?
I don't wear an Apple Watch or Fitbit or anything, but we do use one thing this year in the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series. I’m one of six divers wearing a heart-rate monitor on my arm. It's used to track how different things affect my heart rate, like what dive it is, the different conditions, if I’m jet-lagged or if I’m in competition compared to training.
How important is sleep to your training?
It’s hugely important. I could finish a training session and then go rock climbing or walk the dog and I'll be fine the next day as long as I get enough sleep. I can work off five hours’ sleep, but it's definitely harder, especially if it's early morning training – when I arrive and have to do somersaults I don't want to be tired.
I mentally prepare for my dives by using visualisation
Do you train yourself mentally to focus?
It's something I struggle with and I know I have to improve on it, especially when something goes wrong. I'm sure that will get better, but I don't quite have the experience yet to deal with it.
I mentally prepare for my dives by using visualisation. The night before, or even just before the dive, I close my eyes and do the dive in my brain over and over.
Music helps me during a competition. I put my headphones on and find a song that works for me and put it on repeat. It keeps me in a good mood and good frame of mind.
Any examples of songs that have worked for you?
In Ireland last year my first three dives were quite poor and I was struggling mentally to find the motivation to put in a good last dive. I was in last place and I didn't feel good about my diving. I put on my headphones, went through my playlist and got to the song My Head Is A Jungle by Wanklemut. I put it on repeat over and over and over in my head. It got me in a good frame of mind and I did the dive and it was the best dive I'd done in my career. It was the first time I ever got 10s at a Red Bull competition, and it was the best dive of the whole competition, and I think it was a lot to do with that song.
How do you overcome fear?
Every time I get up on the board, I'm confident in what I'm doing and I believe I have the ability to do the dive. If I go up onto the platform and there's any shred of doubt that I'm not going to be able to do it this time, I won't do it. There's still that element of fear, and that’s an important part of diving.
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