The Health Benefits of Wind Tunnels

After having a decent base from the few trips to the wind tunnel I decided to take my girlfriend down to Eloy, Arizona once again as a healthy couple’s activity.  I was starting to feel like a fish in a fish bowl and could get around pretty well, which was great.  I felt like I had pretty decent control on my belly.  My girlfriend was a bit behind in her fitness development but she was gaining her bearings and was coming along quite well.  Again it was just the two of us with three minutes on and three minutes off, which is a pretty good workout pace.

I was getting to the point to where the instructor could fly in the tunnel with me so I could follow his movements.  We got a DVD again and I was amazed as to how well I was able to keep up.  The instructor and I were doing formation flying going in all sorts of directions.  I learned a few new techniques and reinforced the techniques I had been developing.

My girlfriend’s should was getting sore from an old sports injury about mid-way through the session.  I gave her the buck-up soldier speech, which was of course caught on the video.  As a result, I ended up having some extended sessions which were amazingly fatiguing.  By the end the instructor was trying to get her to put her hands under her chin parallel to the ground and she was so flexible and fatigued that the best she could do was have her hands together over her head.  It looked like an over extended ballerina position, which was quite comical.  The instructor kept trying to get her to do the move and she would shake her head no like she was trying to be defiant but she wasn’t.  She just could not get her arms down into the right position.  What she needed to do instead of fighting the air was to drop her elbows and bring her arms down.  Instead it was like she was trying to use muscle to lift her head above her arms rather than simply bringing them down under her chin.  We laughed about this all the way home.

By the last session I became aware of the camera, which is positioned away from the door so for most of the video all you get to see is the backside of your body.  I turned around and practiced the arch, reach, pull a few times really working on stabilizing the reach portion used in skydiving to open the parachute.  I was able to navigate fairly well in the reach position, which really builds confidence for safe skydiving.

I like to think that I was doing sort of a, “Signing-off for the health and fitness benefits of wind tunnels for ESPN…” type of thing.  It was pretty cool.  As before, we were both incredibly hungry and fatigued from the experience.  It felt great.

The third time I went to the wind tunnel I decided to go with my girlfriend so we could share 30 minutes of time together.  We decided to get a DVD of the experience so we could see what we were doing later on and maximize the benefits of this wonderful sport.  It was late at night possibly 9:00 pm mid-summer in Arizona so the temperature outside was somewhere in the high eighties to low nineties.  When we arrived, I was like a kid in a candy store.  They had music blaring in the wind tunnel facility, which only served to get me all the more pumped up for the workout that was about to be undertaken.

Although we were both in respectable health, I had some allergies that were acting up making my pre-flight fitness feel a bit less than normal.  The instructor was extremely well mannered and respectable.  I was able to build on the control I had gained from my previous experiences and work on more of the basic orienting movements.

The instructors at the wind tunnel are more like fitness instructors than simply a basic instructor.  They have no easy job as they are there to not only train the individuals inside the wind tunnel but they also have to make sure the people are safe no matter what trouble the student gets themselves into.  They are almost like referees of a boxing match and it is impressive as to how quickly they can step in and remedy a situation.

My girlfriend had a little more difficulty adjusting to the wind tunnel, which was strictly based on her experience level.  She kept fading to the side of the tunnel requiring the instructor to reposition her many times.  By no means does this mean that she is an uncoordinated individual as she was a top ranked gymnast back in the day along with being an avid sports participant.  Any second I figured it would just click for her and I would be the one trying to figure out how to catch up with abilities.

It was only the two of us in the queue so it was basically three minutes on and three minutes off for thirty minutes.  Life does not get much better than this.  By the end of the session, my girlfriend had pretty good control but was becoming fatigued after letting her fitness go for several years.  This disrupted her ability to learn a bit as the focus went from trying to do what the instructor was trying to get her to do to just trying to survive the final two three minute rounds.

Additionally, it seemed like the flexibility that she had gained over her sports career served more as a hindrance than help by the end of the session.  Her shoulders and back are so much more flexible than mine that it required continual muscle strength and endurance in order to hold the basic position.  Although I have essentially played every sport that has come my way, I was never very flexible.  I could essentially relax more muscles and still hold the position because my back and shoulders do not bend back as far as hers does.  In all of the sports I have ever played this was the only one where I found it advantageous not to be flexible.  My lack of flexibility was finally an asset.

When we were finished we were both so hungry that we joked about wanting to eat an entire raw Buffalo on the way home.  It was a great bonding experience and we talked the experience all the way home to Tucson, Arizona.  We were both sore the next day and we loved it.

The second time I visited the wind tunnel I decided not to do the introductory thing and spend 15 minutes in the tunnel with an instructor.  It is amazing as to how healthy the instructors are not to mention their fitness level.  They obviously spend much more time in the wind tunnel than the students.  I bet that they sleep incredibly well at night.  I decided to take my girlfriend along as well with me to watch.

The skydiving championships were going on that weekend in Eloy, Arizona and I happened to be grouped with three other people who just happened to be some of the judges of the competition.  The competitors were restricted from using the wind tunnel during the event so it was kind of nice.  I did not know that the people watching on the outside of the tunnel were judges as well.  My girlfriend is extremely personable and engaged them in conversation while they were critiquing us in the tunnel.  I had only a few jumps under my belt and was definitely the novice in the group.  There were some encouraging comments that were made about my body positioning, which is always nice to hear.  In actuality it does not really matter to me as other’s opinions do not really matter because I was having so much fun.

The skydiving sports competition was an international event and the judge from France was found to be a really nice person.  I ended up seeing her a few days later in the wind tunnel and her skill had improved by leaps and bounds from when we shared time together.  It was her first time in the wind tunnel and it was obvious that the next time I saw her that she had spent much more time in the wind tunnel over the next few days.

I realized what the instructor was trying to get me to do in the wind tunnel on my way home.  He wanted me to bring my arms in closer to being in front of me rather than out to the side.  Communication in the wind tunnel is not easy as everything is based on a unique version of sign language.  I learned sign language as a kid and strongly feel that someone that actually knew how to sign would be a great benefit to have in the tunnel.

We sat in a queue in the wind tunnel staging area and took turns every three minutes until the hour was up.  The degree of physical fitness required to stay in the wind tunnel much longer than three minutes at a time is more difficult than one might expect.  One typically gets about 45 seconds of freefall time during skydiving so the difference in physical health required for the three minutes is analogous to a runner transitioning from a 10K run to a marathon.

We all stayed on our bellies while flying around.  I realized the next day from muscle soreness how much effort it really took, my level of fitness was not quite where it needed to be.  Do not get me wrong the soreness was the pleasurable kind and I am definitely not complaining about my health as you never know what muscles one has until they are used in new ways.  Although I have been in sports all of my life, the wind tunnel was the best 15 minute workout of my life.

The next day I found myself at work imagining that I could fly around various people’s offices, which was kind of fun.  All I wanted to do was to get back into the wind tunnel and practice some more.