Air Consumption

[Dan Bower]

hi guys
just a quick question for all you por scuba divers out there.
With being new to the sport i was wondering if you had any tips on how to bring down my air consumption so im not burning tanks in quick time.
any help would be grate.

 

[lowviz]

When you begin to trust your life support gear, it will come down.

When you slow down, it will come down again.

 

[chrisch]

Just keep diving and it will improve. The more you dive the more it improves. My top tip - you are overweighted so try to get some help in getting your weighting right and your buoyancy stop on. Then you can breathe the gas instead of putting it in the BC.

 

[Dan Bower]

Just keep diving and it will improve. The more you dive the more it improves. My top tip - you are overweighted so try to get some help in getting your weighting right and your buoyancy stop on. Then you can breathe the gas instead of putting it in the BC.

i only use between 2 to 4k depending on suite i have on with temp changes at some sites here but ill try re weighting see how it goes thanks for the advice.

 

[Dan Bower]

When you begin to trust your life support gear, it will come down.

When you slow down, it will come down again.

ye my instructor always tells me diving is a lazy sport and the slower you go the better

 

[billt4sf]

Keep diving REGULARLY, buy your own equipment (after you take some time to decide what you want), go slowly, try to relax and enjoy the dive, maybe take a class to help with buoyancy.

I have been working mine down for 9 years and I still am.

- Bill

 

[Diver0001]

hi guys
just a quick question for all you por scuba divers out there.
With being new to the sport i was wondering if you had any tips on how to bring down my air consumption so im not burning tanks in quick time.
any help would be grate.

The main thing is to relax your body (and mind) as much as possible and to slow down your movements to a crawl,if feasible.

The better you are in trim the better your air consumption will be. Air consumption is not a "skill" that can be trained. Air consumption is the result of refining skills like trim and buoyancy control, and it is the result of becoming more and more comfortable with diving.

R..

 

[Koalaroo]

Whilst I am not a Pro, it's one of the things I have been working on throughout my last 20 dives.
On my latest dives, I had a really phenomenal buddy who watched me for a while, then took me to the surface and gave me some real pointers and advice on my breathing techniques which helped tons on my second dive and helped with air consumption.

For I was breathing too deep, and not exhaling as much. That meant, I constantly retained a lot of air in my lungs, which added to my buoyancy. He had me fully exhale, then practice breathing into the "top" of my lungs, rather than taking deep belly breaths. And doing that slowly and "deeply" without turning into a full, belly breath really helped. I never had the feeling that way as if I had too little air.
Exhaling slowly: Either exhale through nose, or stick your tongue out just a little, making the hole in the regulator "smaller" really extends the time between breaths, and you need to take fewer breaths as a result.

Granted, that will take more practice, and much, much less movement for me. Key to being at least even partially able to succeed in that exercise was:

- Doing a weight check, and properly weight myself (That is very much still a work in progress)
- Doing less hard work, be stiller and more quiet in the water.
- Don't breathe deep belly breaths and then NOT exhale all of it (that kept my buoyancy positive and I had to fight constantly just to stay below the surface, leading to me over-weighting myself and constantly working way, way, way too hard.)

That one dive, when he tutored me, we ended up having a 73 minute dive. Granted, average depth was only 6 meters and had we been at more depth, that would have impacted that dive time significantly, I am sure. But 73 minutes on one tankfill for a n00b such as me was HUGE!

In a nutshell:
Having someone to watch you and give you real pointers and advice can really help practicing the good stuff. If he had not given me those pointers, I might not ever have known where to improve, because "just practicing the old method, without change" in my mind, doesn't help changing away from bad habits. And gulping the tank empty just because one didn't know better breathing techniques to begin with, didn't really help matters in the slightest

So yes, practice, but also change technique and find out what works best for you!

 

[Dan Bower]

Keep diving REGULARLY, buy your own equipment (after you take some time to decide what you want), go slowly, try to relax and enjoy the dive, maybe take a class to help with buoyancy.

I have been working mine down for 9 years and I still am.

- Bill

thanks for the advice

 

[Dan Bower]

Whilst I am not a Pro, it's one of the things I have been working on throughout my last 20 dives.
On my latest dives, I had a really phenomenal buddy who watched me for a while, then took me to the surface and gave me some real pointers and advice on my breathing techniques which helped tons on my second dive and helped with air consumption.

For I was breathing too deep, and not exhaling as much. That meant, I constantly retained a lot of air in my lungs, which added to my buoyancy. He had me fully exhale, then practice breathing into the "top" of my lungs, rather than taking deep belly breaths. And doing that slowly and "deeply" without turning into a full, belly breath really helped. I never had the feeling that way as if I had too little air.
Exhaling slowly: Either exhale through nose, or stick your tongue out just a little, making the hole in the regulator "smaller" really extends the time between breaths, and you need to take fewer breaths as a result.

Granted, that will take more practice, and much, much less movement for me. Key to being at least even partially able to succeed in that exercise was:

- Doing a weight check, and properly weight myself (That is very much still a work in progress)
- Doing less hard work, be stiller and more quiet in the water.
- Don't breathe deep belly breaths and then NOT exhale all of it (that kept my buoyancy positive and I had to fight constantly just to stay below the surface, leading to me over-weighting myself and constantly working way, way, way too hard.)

That one dive, when he tutored me, we ended up having a 73 minute dive. Granted, average depth was only 6 meters and had we been at more depth, that would have impacted that dive time significantly, I am sure. But 73 minutes on one tankfill for a n00b such as me was HUGE!

In a nutshell:
Having someone to watch you and give you real pointers and advice can really help practicing the good stuff. If he had not given me those pointers, I might not ever have known where to improve, because "just practicing the old method, without change" in my mind, doesn't help changing away from bad habits. And gulping the tank empty just because one didn't know better breathing techniques to begin with, didn't really help matters in the slightest

So yes, practice, but also change technique and find out what works best for you!

well im gonna keep all this in mind for my next dive friday morning should help me lots thanks