How do you make yourself less bouyant?

[TSandM]

Why do you care if you carry a different amount of weight from your friends? You carry what you need -- it's that simple. I am little and don't have a lot of body fat, so I shouldn't need to carry much weight. But I have no bone mass. My Fundies instructor swore he could take five pounds off me. He couldn't. I had done careful weight checks, and was carrying what I needed, not what anybody else might. At the time, I fretted about it. But nowadays? It is what it is. You carry what you need to get down and to hold a stop, and if that's different from your buddies, then it just is. The only way you can change what you need is to change your bone density, or lose weight and build muscle.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

To summarize everything stated in this thread, everyone is different. There is no proper amount of weight for everyone. I have a friend who carries no weight when diving in swim wear in the ocean, and another who needs 12 pounds in just a skin. It is not just overall mass, but also percentage of body fat, gender, and lung size that affect buoyancy, as does what you ate that is still in your digestive tract, digestive gasses retained in your body, and other things too, like equipment. I think too many people worry about this. Focus on the right weighting FOR YOU, not for others, and noted in DevonDiver's post. Sometimes I wear about 7 pounds with a shorty, other times with a new full 3 mil and some positively buoyant camera gear I will wear 12 lbs. So be properly weighted for YOU and YOUR equipment on each dive, and have fun!!
DivemasterDennis scubasnobs.com

 

[LanceRiley]

Thanks for the replies . Less weight means less weight to lug around when moving .. meaning less effort... better gas efficiency... well... that's my idea of it http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/smilies/Standard Smiles/04.gif

ok for the record..
1.) 3 of us have exactly the same gear except for mask (this is individual fit) I have the most dives as of now.. 18 dives young. they're probably somewhere in 10 or 12 dives. ( I sneak in a few dives lol ) http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/smilies/More Smiles/eyebrow.gif and one of em managed to go by 6 lbs. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/icons/icon_cry.gif during our last dive. It's not an issue of wetsuit compression since we got our suits at the same time, same size.

2.) On a Full Tank. In the surface, I let the air out. with a normal breath of air in the lungs. water level drops to top of my head and stays there. Then I exhale with my feet crossed. I sink ... really slowly. it takes bout 2 breaths 2 drop to 5 feet. sometimes I just flap my hands up to quicken the sinking. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/icons/icon_cry.gif

3.) My bouyancy has improved. I've learned to hover at any depth by just breathing. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/smilies/More Smiles/eyebrow.gif

4.) @500psi i can hold a stop. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/smilies/Standard Smiles/14.gif

5.) ok.. these 2 other buddies. they do a lot of running. 15-21k so they have less fats? Im no fatty.. but... I just don't run that far http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/images/smilies/Standard Smiles/04.gif

6.) I remembered doing OW class. we were in the pool w/ suit on. were asked to stay a float for 10mins. with the suit on.. it was very easy.. but the other guy. would sink! ( i guess he's really dense to sink with a 0.5mm suit)

hence my question... how do you make yourself more dense.?

Lose fats and make more muscles?

 

[LanceLisenby]

Can a low volume mask really make a noticeable difference? I've been moving my weight forward trying to trim out better. Perhaps this is my answer

 

[Akimbo]

…hence my question... how do you make yourself more dense.?...

I suppose removing a lung is out of the question?

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

you can get yourself very dehydrated, since you would be losing alot of that less-dense fresh water.

And maybe don't go to the loo for number two for a while. All that stuff packed in your large intestine is pretty dense, just don't bulk them up with fiber.

 

[DevonDiver]

Colonic irrigation?

Depends if you normally have floaters or sinkers....

 

[jester1226]

Quit letting your buddies give you a hard time about using less weight than you. It is not that big of a deal.
Just enjoy your dives....

 

[vladimir]

Less weight means less weight to lug around when moving .. meaning less effort... better gas efficiency... well... that's my idea of it

Excess weight is inefficient for a scuba diver because he has to offset it by inflating his BC, creating more drag and possibly upsetting his trim. Lead weights are pretty streamlined, though, so if you're neutral, there's no reason to think shedding them will pay noticeable gains in efficiency. Taking off lead that you need to offset your body's buoyancy just makes you unable to sink. As has been suggested, shedding buoyant items off your gear--and the offsetting lead--is not a bad idea. A backplate/wing does this by replacing your padded BC with a stainless steel plate and no buoyant items. So you swap some lead weight for some stainless steel weight, which is perhaps better situated, and you lose some buoyant padding. But I don't notice any difference between my backplate/wing and my vest in terms of gas usage.

 

[farsidefan1]

Ok, I'm completely lost as to why you are worried about this. Do you have to pay a bunch for each ounce of weight you are using? Do you have it in your head that less weight = better diver? Is there a cash reward for whichever of your group uses the least weight? Those are the only reasons I can come up with for why it matters. We could start a contest and see if someone can come up with other rational reasons but TSandM hit it right on the head. Sounds like you are pretty well weighted. Nothing else matters, you are doing fine, stop worrying about it and you will probably improve your air usage