Interview with Adam Freediver Stern

Adam Freediver Stern is the Steve Irwin of freediving. His contagious enthusiasm has inspired thousands of people to discover the joy of freediving and freedive spearfishing. It was with much excitement that I got on this call with Adam and we had a great time exploring his freediving journey including his struggles overcoming the ‘hard charger’ mindset and dealing with the resulting issues. We also get into a heap of questions from the Noob Spearo Community and really get into equalizing issues. There is a tonne of info in the interview that smashed some of my ideas and I found this conversation sensational. Love to hear what you think about it in the comments!

Adam Stern lives on the Central Coast, NSW and is an Australian 8 x Australian freediving record holder.

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Time Stamps

5:00 Welcome Adam to the show

9:00 What is the difference is between freediving and spearfishing?

11:00 Adam’s non-romantic but quite intriguing introduction to freediving

18:00 Adam Freediver Stern age:31

19:00 Overcoming the ‘Gung Ho’ and reprogramming the mind

30:00 Kurt “Can you give us a rundown on what the various freediving course levels are?”

37:30 Sven “How can we level out properly when at depth without causing issues of lung squeeze etc (leveling out at depth goes against everything we are taught to do for deeper dives)?”

39:30 Jason “Fantastic, I love Adam’s positivity and mindset. Maybe any questions regarding tips on how he enters a state of calmness during a dive to increase bottom time. I feel like I get caught up in the moment sometimes and get too erratic.”

43:00 Discussion about Deepweek and what I think about it

45:40 Todd “Adam stern was and still is huge inspiration for it just myself, but everyone in our dive group SinkPhase. We all started out watching his YouTube videos and that’s how I learned to Frenzle. Some of us are part of his Patreon. Please thank him on our behalf of us. The dive group was talking about breathe ups we learned while getting certified. We all had a slightly different breathe up. I started with a 4/1/8/1 but went to a 3/1/10/1 after my course. What breathe up does he personally think works best? We are spearing if that changes it.”

52:50 Cameron “I suppose this is a pretty common question but would be interesting to hear Adams opinion: What can a beginner do to see the most improvement in their breath hold?”

56:40 Kyle “How can duck dive effectively with a gun in hand?”

58:00 Adams spearfishing life

73:00 Veterans Vault: Equalizing Masterclass

The Basics. What is equalizing and why do we need to do it?

Most common equalizing issues and how to approach them.

What to do when one ear equalizes but one doesn’t.

Luke asks “I’ve been struggling with Sinus infection past few months. What is the best way to recover from Sinus / cold symptoms to get back out diving?”

Kelly “Hands free equalization. I got his course. I just can’t do it 😩”

How do you clean your ears?

How do you keep your ears ok for multi-day diving?

“Be patient with equalizing as you are trying to do something really weird with your muscles to do a really weird activity.” – Adam Stern

98:00 What is one of the funniest things you’ve experienced out spearfishing or freediving?

102:00 Spearo Q&A

What does the spearfishing experience mean to you in one sentence?

Who has been the most influential person in your freediving journey so far?

What is the single best resource for spearfishing or freediving?

Connect with Adam Freediver Stern;

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