Breath training for scuba

[AdivingBel]

I had an instructor suggest humming a tune. I guess that's similar to extending your exhale. It worked for me for awhile. I had to stop 'cause I can't carry a tune in a bucket and my dive buddy kept rapping on his tank and asking "Can you hear the siren song too?" Anyway, when I'm diving at my preferred, extremely leisurely pace, I just "sip" air. If I have to exert myself beyond "napping speed," I breathe as much as necessary to make myself comfortable. If I blow through a little air, I figure that's what it's there for.

 

[TSandM]

The "least skilled, trained and experienced" diver has already demonstrated his ability to swim for at least 30 seconds without inhaling -- that's the horizontal practice of the CESA in the OW class. He has also demonstrated his ability to do the skill vertically in OW. And one hopes that that diver has been schooled about remaining close to his dive buddy (the new class specifies 2 seconds).

I would certainly hope that "least skilled, trained and experienced" diver would be avoiding overhead environments and places where serious entanglement is likely.

 

[RJP]

Yeah, and airplanes aren’t “supposed” to fall out of the air either. You are expecting the lease skilled, trained, and experienced divers to stay in easy reach of an equally ill-prepared buddy to save their butt???

It's no wonder that tens of thousands of divers die each year.

Oh, wait... they don't.

 

[Bagster]

Well, I stick with my dive buddy/daughter like glue. I am not suggesting breath training as a way to circumvent the buddy system for working through problems.

It just seems to me that extending calm, confident working time without air should be one of many parts of a diver's development. Not saying it should be prioritized over other things, but I am surprised that it goes completely without mention in the curriculum I have studied so far (PADI OW and AOW).

The 30 second horizontal swim and CESA from 20 ft really only proved to me that I can't go very long without wanting a breath of air.

 

[Akimbo]

It's no wonder that tens of thousands of divers die each year.

Oh, wait... they don't…

Did anyone imply that they do? However, the statistics do show that panic contributes to a considerable percentage of fatalities and near-misses — including incidents on the surface. Ask any dive boat crew member. Freediving skills go far beyond just being able to hold your breath. It has a profound impact on your self-confidence in the water.

I’m sure that most instructors have seen it. The great majority of student divers with competitive swimming backgrounds consistently perform better in the water than most of the rest of the class. They often also do better in the classroom since they can relate it to the environment better.

Freediving is a superset of the more focused skills the OP asked about. The fastest and most entertaining way that I have seen to develop an even higher level of comfort in the water is freediving. It has certainly made me a better diver.

 

[charlier]

Akimbo's freediving suggestion is on the mark. Freediving training will give a diver a calm and relaxed comfort level underwater. The freediving breath holding skills are not part of the standard OW repertoire. On a side note, these skills give me the ability to check out a dive site or even set a buoy line without putting on all my gear. It does simplify my underwater reconnaissance foray's.

 

[CptTightPants21]

Well, I stick with my dive buddy/daughter like glue. I am not suggesting breath training as a way to circumvent the buddy system for working through problems.

It just seems to me that extending calm, confident working time without air should be one of many parts of a diver's development. Not saying it should be prioritized over other things, but I am surprised that it goes completely without mention in the curriculum I have studied so far (PADI OW and AOW).

The 30 second horizontal swim and CESA from 20 ft really only proved to me that I can't go very long without wanting a breath of air.

Extending working time without air does exist, it is called doing an out of air drill with a PADI diver......bc you're probably going to be waiting awhile.

 

[Smudger]

There seems to be several different questions in your first post. I'm not sure how you are going to constantly exhale in an out of air situation (at a fixed depth I mean). Once your lungs are empty that's it. The need to constantly exhale relates more to the emergency ascent and to changes in depth during diving and is to prevent serious lung damage. Also I'm not sure why, in an out of air situation you would be wanting to mess around attempting to diagnose and fix problems, surely you should be heading straight for your buddies alternative air source.

Smudge


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[RJP]

Extending working time without air does exist, it is called doing an out of air drill with a PADI diver......bc you're probably going to be waiting awhile.

Are you suggesting that SSI teaches an OOA skill that is demonstrably faster than the OOA skill that is taught in a PADI course? Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the SSI Open Water course or training standards, but I would like to learn about this superior way of doing it. Or perhaps, you've got significant experience in OOA scenarios - either real or or in training - with divers from a wide range of training agencies and have determined that divers with PADI certifications are demonstrably slower in such situations? (And by "experience" I'm not including time spent on internet chat forums.)

It's amazing that in a thread that has absolutely nothing to do with training agencies, it only took 17 posts before someone came along and kicked PADI in the shins for no reason.

Oddly, the OOA drill I was taught by my NACD cave instructor was exactly the same as the one that I learned from a PADI instructor. Go figure.

 

[Akimbo]

Extending working time without air does exist, it is called doing an out of air drill with a PADI diver...

Drills like that do very little to extend working time. They do increase efficiency, thus reducing time to execute. Apniests (advanced freedivers) use a number of breathing exercises to increase high CO2 and low O2 tolerance.

CAUTION TO ALL:
This is not something you want to attempt in a piecemeal fashion. Like Scuba diving, there are several things you must understand to perform aggressive freediving with reasonable risk. Take a course.