Breathing control!

[mathauck0814]

It sounds disingenuous, but it's something that really does come with time. Comfort in the water and how relaxed you can be (read: not apprehensive) play a big part on breathing rates. Other things that help are good trim and buoyancy, tidying up your gear to reduce drag and that nagging physical fitness bit. In general just keep at it, eventually you'll have a good sense for what your breathing rate should be and you'll know if you're high or low on that by a quick look at your bottom timer and spg readings.

 

[z28lt1]

Going hand and hand with all the buoyancy suggestions is to get properly weighted. Seems like the majority of those newish to diving are over weighted. I always was and my philosophy was that better to be over (can compensate with the BCD) than under. I was always pretty good on air, but once I got a new philosophy and got properly weighted, I notice a nice difference. Find time to do a weight check with a near empty tank. Don't sink.

And yes, it will get better with time.

 

[@sea]

Having the proper amount of weights also helps to maintain good buoyancy. As a result use less air too

 

[aquaregia]

also an athlete will usually use more air.

Is this true? I've been trying to increase my athleticism to decrease my air consumption.

 

[ClayJar]

Trying to reduce your air consumption by controlling your breathing is like trying to *push* a rope. It just plain doesn't work.

As has already been mentioned, weighting, trim, and general relaxed comfort in the water are what you have to work with. I spent quite a bit of time in my parents' pool just enjoying being on scuba (in less than a three meter cube of water). That got the relaxed, properly weighted part down. That got my air consumption to not-bad levels, and I was quite at home in the water.

Then in the middle of a spring-diving trip, I bought an extra cam band so I could move about 1/3 of my lead to the shoulder of my tank. When I came up from the next dive, I calculated my surface air consumption numbers (as I had been doing since I was certified) and discovered that I had cut my SAC by a third! That was considerable enough that I figured I should gather more data, but as I came up from each dive and calculated my SAC, I found that it was just as stable at the new baseline as it had been at the higher baseline before I fixed my trim.

In a normal healthy person, your breathing is controlled by carbon dioxide. Burning calories generates carbon dioxide, whether due to physical effort, stress, or any other reason. (I can document a significant difference in air consumption on comparable dives differing solely by the wetsuit I'm wearing. In the chilly springs, the thick, warm suit will always give me better air consumption than the old, thin suit, as the thinner suit means I lose more heat, which my body needs to replace... by burning additional calories.)

To optimize your air consumption:

• Dial in your weighting
• Trim yourself so you're balanced when horizontal
• SLOW DOWN (drag losses increase with the square of velocity, after all)
• Stay warm
• Relax

Forget about your breathing. Your body's been handling that well for however long you've been alive, so don't try to fix it now. Obviously, if you're stressed and hyperventilating, think about your breathing to make it slower and deeper, but in any normal situation, thinking about breathing just means you're doing it wrong. :biggrin:

 

[fnfalman]

Don't gulp in big lungfuls of air and then exhaling back out quickly.

Get into a cadence like counting 1, 2, 3, 4... while breathing in and then do the same while breathing out.

 

[fnfalman]

Is this true? I've been trying to increase my athleticism to decrease my air consumption.

That makes no sense to me either. An athlete or at least a person of better than average shape will use less air because their cardiovascular systems are more efficient at processing oxygen.

 

[TSandM]

It's a double-edged sword. Becoming fitter means losing fat (low metabolic rate) and gaining muscle (high metabolic rate). The basal metabolic rate on athletes in higher than that of sedentary people, so an athlete's SAC rate while sitting still at the surface will be higher than a couch potato's. BUT . . . we don't sit still while diving. The athlete needs to recruit a great deal less of his muscle to achieve the same work as the couch potato, so while moving, the athlete will do better on CO2 production, and therefore on gas consumption.

Efficiency of oxygen processing does not come into it at all.

 

[CamG]

Greetings Sergio you have gotten some really great advice, Buoyancy control, mastering fin technique, focusing on being the best diver you can be.
Diving more, practicing skills and finning can and will improve your breathing rate but relaxing underwater becoming more comfortable will also provide a better breathing rate.

We all begin using plenty of gas and almost immediately once the anxiety subsides we start to relax and breath more normal using less gas.
The next step is the buoyancy / mastering technique once you start to grasp these and become a more efficient diver your gas consumption will go down again.
When you reach a plateau and feel you are there then take some more training and you will once again be working on it.
It is a ever changing quest that gets easier the more you dive.

So take heart and rock on, keep working on it and you will notice changes soon.
Safe diving.

CamG Keep Diving....Keep Training....Keep Learning!

 

[RTee]

It's a double-edged sword. Becoming fitter means losing fat (low metabolic rate) and gaining muscle (high metabolic rate). The basal metabolic rate on athletes in higher than that of sedentary people, so an athlete's SAC rate while sitting still at the surface will be higher than a couch potato's. BUT . . . we don't sit still while diving. The athlete needs to recruit a great deal less of his muscle to achieve the same work as the couch potato, so while moving, the athlete will do better on CO2 production, and therefore on gas consumption.

Efficiency of oxygen processing does not come into it at all.

I do not consider myself an athlete however, I do train on a very regular basis (cardio). While I may breathe a little more than others on drift dive it becomes quite the opposite when I need to get more physical like going against the current, swimming with more vigor, etc. For one I do not get tired easily and two...my air consumption becomes much lower than those who do not train