Local hero Rhiannan Iffland talks about training the body to withstand a dive from 21m…
Unfortunately for the rest of us, cliff diving isn’t the sport the average punter can take up in their free time, or join a social comp on a Sunday morning. It’s a highly technical pursuit that requires a unique combination of strength, flexibility, and acrobatic skills.
Rhi says that many cliff divers get their start in diving, gymnastics, or even circus backgrounds. But no matter where they’ve come from, it takes a lot of work and persistence to get to the Red Bull platform.
“It’s not like we walk straight up to 21 meters and do the dive. It takes a lot of work to master the basics and then take it step by step to get there.”
Rhi’s training schedule varies throughout the year to prepare for the World Series.
Pre-season sees her in the pool five or six days a week at the New South Wales Institute of Sport, training with the diving team. In these sessions, she’s working on take-offs, twists, and rotations - doing it over and over and over again until it becomes second nature.
Additionally, there are three or four gym sessions, as well as some gymnastics-based training with trampoline work to not only keep that consistency but get better and better.
While there are a lot of similarities to Olympic diving, there are plenty of differences too.
Given the extra height of the platform, cliff divers need to land feet first to absorb some of the impact, rather than head first. That means adding in a half twist or more of a rotation to ensure their feet hit the water first.
Then there’s the mental discipline required to launch yourself off cliffs regularly.
“Mentally, it's a whole different ball game,” says Rhi. “There’s a lot more going through your mind when you're standing at 20 metres in comparison to 10 meters. So when I made the transition [to cliff diving], that was the hardest thing to adapt to at first, and to understand that it was a normal reaction that when you're standing there, you are going to go through the rush of emotions, adrenaline, fear, all of those sorts of things.”
Check out the rest of the interview here:
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