Fins and manoeuvrability

[scubadada]

I learned long ago to wear my equipment lower than most, as when you jump out of a helicopter or aircraft with the equipment we wore, you didn't want it to hit your head on either exit or landing in the water.

I routinely use the dolphin kick, and have developed new underwater swimming techniques using that kick as the basis for this. I'm simply not yet ready to disclose the details, but suffice it to know that it is much more efficient. Here are some trials I conducted in 2010 with various fins. Note that some of the efficiency gains in the dolphin kick had to do with extending my arms to the front, which gave a much better, more streamlined profile to the water.

SeaRat

With the exception of the Jet fins, those are respectable 100 times with fins and a dolphin kick. Many would like to swim as fast

 

[danvolker]

Faster than a scooter with scuba equipment? I have to see a video in order to believe this to be true

Well as you may already know....I often enjoy using videos to underline a point I am trying to make
So, no problem, I'll be happy to put my camera on Bill Mee's Gavin, and have him shoot me swimming with Matt on his Suex on the other side...in the back ground. Will 5 minutes of video be enough, or do you want me to fill up the data card in the camera...probably 30 minutes or so ?
Next good day we go out with the scooters.

 

[Freewillow]

Thank you DAN, I believe you but would love to see it on Video. 5 minutes would be enough . How old and fit are you?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Thank you DAN, I believe you but would love to see it on Video. 5 minutes would be enough . How old and fit are you?

very...

 

[danvolker]

Thank you DAN, I believe you but would love to see it on Video. 5 minutes would be enough . How old and fit are you?

Age....50-something....actually irrelevant. Age itself has not changed any of my activities.

As to fitness, there is aerobic fitness, and fitness for a sport, and fitness in an ideal sense.

Most of my life I was lean and muscular from competing in many sports...Then about 12 years ago.... in the course of a couple of months, I got a huge increase in waist size....I tried every diet, and none would work. Still, my VO2 Max remained much higher than most people's, so in bike rides with 30 year old bike racers on flat roads like A1A, I could still dominate, and pull for an hour at 24 to 25 mph....and the same went with fin swimming and scuba diving or freediving....the girth had no effect on power in the water, or efficiency.

However, I hated being 230 pounds....And after reading about Dr Mercola's ( Nutrition guru on Internet) theory that obesity was typically tied to people that had the WRONG gut bacteria in their intestine ( think probiotics) , and that with the wrong bacteria, your food would be converted to fat, almost regardless of how hard a person might try to diet...AND...that as long as you eat Meat, milk and eggs, no amount of good probiotic pills would be able to kill off the bad gut bacteria....The solution was to go on a Raw Vegan diet...which would allow good gut bacteria to triumph over the bad, and recolonize your intestine properly...as mine had been into my 40's.

Now I don't even like vegetables...but I don't like being fat even more.... So, the last 40 days I went on a 3 to 4 month long strict Raw Vegan diet...Protein to come from Organic Sunflower sprouts ).....and as of today, I have gone from 231 to 210....Goal is 190.
Even though I look much better than I did at 231 today, my aerobic base has not changed much, so speed on the bike or in water has not changed much....It would make a BIG difference if we had mountain climbs on the bike here--which would change the strength to weight ratio enormously, and is why tour De France riders tend to weigh 140 to 170 pounds....and why you just dont see riders in mountain races over 200 pounds...

On the other hand, by the time I am at 190, my VO2 max will have increased significantly, as this is oxygen per pouund of body mass it has to be absorbed and utilized through---dropping 40 pounds can have spectacular effects on VO2 max....so speed on the bike will go up, and fin swimming with the scooters buddies will be even easier for me...

I share all this, because this gut bacteria issue is a huge revelation, and I am thinking that it could help a great many divers...not just me
When i get to my target weight, of 190 or 185, I will switch to a Paleo diet, with small servings of strip steak allowed, or eggs, fish, etc...and since the probiotic issue will have been fixed, there would be the same metabolic activity I had in the first 40 years of my life...or close to it....I don't feel any slow down in recovery or anything else that would suggest age is hampering athletic performance. At least not in road cycling, mountain biking, snow skiing, fin swimming, scuba or freedivng, Kick boxing, gym workouts, or enjoying my basically childish and immature approach to get through life, the same way I did when I was 20

 

[Freewillow]

Very interesting Dan .

 

[tekkydiver]

oh
never mind

 

[gkrane]

Oh Dan.....You evidently are an endomorphic body type like me...Consume less than you burn. Dr. Mercola is regarded by many as a quack and or snake oil salesman. More fin talk less veggies.

 

[danvolker]

Oh Dan.....You evidently are an endomorphic body type like me...Consume less than you burn. Dr. Mercola is regarded by many as a quack and or snake oil salesman. More fin talk less veggies.

Ghrane...I was a mesomorph, but I had the issues discussed in last post...regardless of what people like tekkydiver want to say (a guy making nasty insults with anonymous posts)...Around 2000 when I was in the DIR 3 video https://youtu.be/TD4K0SzZijI I was weighing about 200 pounds, and this was due to muscle mass, not fat....I was benching 320 and squatting sick amounts of weight. 185 pounds was what I was weighing to win bike races....It was such a low body fat level as to be un-healthy.
Today, I no longer do gym workouts to maintain huge upper body mass, so 185 could be practical today.

As for Mercola, he has been right on some many issues over the last 20 years, that most in the medical world he has been at odds with, should be embarrassed for their failings. More importantly, he is dead on with this, and when I do the video of me doing the dolphin kick with the scooter buddies, you will see the proof of the entirely different body mass.

 

[Rusty Roo]

I share all this, because this gut bacteria issue is a huge revelation, and I am thinking that it could help a great many divers...not just me
When i get to my target weight, of 190 or 185, I will switch to a Paleo diet, with small servings of strip steak allowed, or eggs, fish, etc

that is genuinly very interesting, i stopped following this thread because it seemed to be going round aaaannnnnddd around, just thought i would look today out of curiosity.

dan, please tell me no fish though? or only pole and line?