SAN DIEGO — The off-season is far from "time off" for San Diego Padres players. They have to stay in top shape and improve with constant training and workouts.
In this most recent offseason after their exciting playoff run, the team took their workouts to the deep end, training underwater at Deep End Fitness and letting CBS 8’s Neda Iranpour join by attempting to jump in.
Fans are used to seeing the Padres players out on the field - swinging the bat, scoring, catching, and throwing...but fans aren't used to seeing if they float or sink.
At Deep End Fitness, sinking is what they do best. Some of San Diego’s favorite Padres go down 13 feet deep. While underwater, they are tasked with staying calm and pulling off athletic feats like grabbing weights and walking across the bottom of the pool.
“You see all this crazy stuff underwater but how they got there, it all started from the basics,” says Prime Hall, the co-founder of Deep End Fitness. He explains how it all starts on land with breathwork, “Put your hands on your diaphragm and chest and open your diaphragm.”
A crew of dedicated athletes meets Sundays at La Jolla High’s pool.
It turns out that being 30 weeks pregnant makes Neda quite buoyant.
On the other hand, Joe Musgrove is quite graceful underwater.
Prime said he's their most dedicated Padre when it comes to this type of training, “Our star, most focused individual is Joe Musgrove. He is dedicated and focused on his career and he’s doing everything he can.”
Prime says Musgrove started out being able to stay underwater for 1 min 20 secs. After just 2 months of training, he was able to stay underwater for up to 4 minutes.
Now Musgrove, alongside Fernando Tatis Jr. is walking underwater with weights, making it seem so easy, like they’re going on a casual stroll.
“Going underwater you’re training your mind, you’re training your body CO2 tolerance and building performance,” Prime explained.
The Padres train underwater with UFC fighters. Prime said they also train Olympians, surfers, LA Chargers, and Navy Seals.
“It’s cool because we’ll have a UFC fighter with Musgrove, Olympians training,
all learning different things and they’re not in competition with each other, they’re all a community,” Prime said.
For Prime, it all started in the Marine Corps. Prime and co-founder Don Tran were training thousands of Marines as part of the First Raider Battalion at Camp Pendleton. They taught marines how to survive in the water.
While he was serving in Afghanistan, Prime was attacked, “I planned to stay in for 20 years but it was an insider attack and I was blown up and had circumstances that led me to get out.”
He came back to San Diego, still passionate about the pool. Don and Prime started Deep End Fitness about 5 years ago and now it keeps expanding into other cities around the country.
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