Never Ever Hold Your Breath But......

[DAVECOBRA]

I want to thank all of you that responded, I have learned sooo much and I have a much better understanding of the breathing picture. I will be reading and re-reading your posts.

Thanks to you all. Dave

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

All my instructors have stressed proper weight management and go to great lengths to ensure that they and their students are properly weighted. I think there diligence pays off with better trained students. I think overweighting yourself on purpose without a BC went out before the J-Valve

When I dove j-valve I do not remember wearing weight

Then again, mom was not interested in sewing sleeves ;(

 

[Windwalker]

When I dove j-valve I do not remember wearing weight

Then again, mom was not interested in sewing sleeves ;(

BAH!
How I envy you warm water Divers! ;p

Oh How nice it would be to go diving without strapping on a boat anchor.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

That doesn't make any sence. How can proper weighting be a crutch?

With regard to hoover-ish air consumption, claiming that over-weighting is the reason makes less sense to me, since I have guided hundreds of divers who dove with way too much weight and did not suck up their tanks. Lot's of divers either do drift dives or stay very close to their entry point so having too much weight does not have a significant impact on their air consumption. Fit divers that breath properly also do not in my opinion use significantly more air in most conditions when diving with extra lead.

The KEY to air consumption is proper breathing. I was already late leaving for work when I fired off my earlier response so I could not get into the details. Since Windwalker likes to "debate and hold meaningful dialog" (see profile) I will now go into MY details.

The following concerns divers that are going to move themselves mostly horizontal underwater:

If your gear is not streamlined you will have to do more work per distance traveled due to the increased drag so you will end up breathing more air per distance traveled than with streamlined gear. To control my breathing I streamline my gear.

If your body position underwater resembles an airplane wing on take-off you will have greater frontal resistance (drag) so you will have to do more work and breath more air than with horizontal body position. To control my breathing I maintain horizontal body position.

If you flap (swim with) your arms you will have more drag and flex more muscles which will demand more oxygen so you will breath more air than you would with one hand holding the other wrist down in front of your crotch with upper body very relaxed. To control my breathing I have streamlined relaxed arms.

If you do not know how to properly use fins (kicking is for soccer) you will use way more energy and end up breathing more air moving yourself through the water than if you know how to use fins (it's properly called finning). To control my breathing I use proper finning technique.

If you take DEEP slow breaths (like the PADI Open Water manual recommends) you will have a wide swing in buoyancy and since most divers breath out slower than they breath in more of that swing will be on the positive end of the equation and you will likely not fully exhale resulting in inefficient gas exchange with even more net positive buoyancy. Deep breaths is a big culprit in constantly venting / adding BC air, requiring more muscle flexing, and not fully exhaling will increase breathing rate to eliminate the CO2 build-up. To control my breathing I take normal breaths and exhale fully, with ~2 seconds in vs ~4 sec out.

I sometimes forget that many certified divers don't know those things, as my intro divers usually get it after a half hour lecture and 45 min pool session.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

BAH!
How I envy you warm water Divers! ;p

Oh How nice it would be to go diving without strapping on a boat anchor.

For what it's worth, the picture above is Flathead Lake, Montana, and the blue water out yonder is not what I consider warm, even in summer! I did nearly 100' in Priest Lake, Idaho with that same rig and had more fun watching the goose bumps on my arm at the thermocline than seeing the slimey dug-out canoe my dad took me down to see (He had, gloves, boots, farmer john as well as the hood and beaver tail shown ).

 

[berick]

From my recollection, my air consumption (and my enjoyment) became significantly better when I realized diving was really all about floating and not swimming. Of course, to float properly you need to be horizontal and properly weighted (good buoyancy). I try to fin as little as possible (frog kick when required) during a dive. Obviously, you may have to do a lot of finning if going into a current or your destination is a ways away, but, a lot of it is mindset. I recommend the OP dive enough to get truly comfortable in the water and slow down and enjoy the scenery. Hope this helps.

 

[ietermagog]

Dave - back to your Gas Guzzling (with fuel prices nowadays!?)
Think of WHY you breathe - up here or underwater. Having breathed in a lungful of air, your body needs access to that oxygen that is part of the air. You need to effectively use the air. Breathing in and immediately out is a waste of your time, and doesn't provide your brain, or the rest of your body, with the vital oxygen it needs. Picture air from your cylinder or just here around you, as a colour. A breathe sucks that colour into your lungs. From there, that colour must still travel to all parts of your body before you breathe out.
Sounds a bit New Age, but really it makes you focus on USING your air, and there being a reason why you are doing it, rather than just in and out.
You can practise good breathing technique on the surface: Breathe in from the bottom of your lungs. Hold (Use). Breathe out at a ratio of 1:3:2 ie: breathe in for 3 seconds, hold (use) for 9 seconds, exhale slowly for 6 seconds. As you get breathing fit, you will be able to increase these seconds, but the aim is not to hold your breath as long as possible.
Once your breathing is fine, you will find all the other bits come naturally. I hope this makes sense - I normally use my hands very descriptively when I talk about this, and it has proven difficult to put it into written words without the breathing sound effects. Play with it, and for now, don't stress about being the one that brings everyone up early. We saw a pod of dolphins in the shallows last week when we had to change direction early after someone signalled low on air.
Dive safe. Always.

 

[TSandM]

From my recollection, my air consumption (and my enjoyment) became significantly better when I realized diving was really all about floating and not swimming.

berick, this is so beautifully put!

 

[Windwalker]

For what it's worth, the picture above is Flathead Lake, Montana, and the blue water out yonder is not what I consider warm, even in summer! I did nearly 100' in Priest Lake, Idaho with that same rig and had more fun watching the goose bumps on my arm at the thermocline than seeing the slimey dug-out canoe my dad took me down to see (He had, gloves, boots, farmer john as well as the hood and beaver tail shown ).

Ooh. Sounds chilly! The Freshwater dives I have done were pretty boring, No current. The only life was trout and crawdads. and the only flora were cut down trees. BUT the water was very warm! Even though it was off glacial melt at the foot of Mt Hood. I also dove a clear river, only 40 feet deep and not much to see other then the fish looking at me like I was crazy.

claiming that over-weighting is the reason makes less sense to me, since I have guided hundreds of divers who dove with way too much weight and did not suck up their tanks.

When I talk about proper weight management, I am mainly referring to the compensation of extra weight through the use of the BC to drain and refill with air from the tanks. I caught myself chasing the bubble as well, I would add some air then start going up, Dump the air then start going down.. add air.. etc. I would burn through 1000psi just trying to stay off the bottom. When I dropped the extra 15 pounds of lead, I found that smaller changes in the air volume made for a greater effect, and I was able to judge better when to dump and when to add.

The Deeper you go with more weight means more air that needs to be added to offset the compression of the wet suit.

Of course, I remember when I switched from a Nighthawk BC to a Deep Outdoors BPW, My first dive with the BPW was a night dive, and I had no idea how much air it needed so I gave it a nice squirt and jumped in (Carrying the same amount of weight I had in my Nighthawk) My dive buddy was diving rebreather and I shot past him like Wile e coyote falling off a cliff to leave a beautiful silt puff where I implanted myself into the bottom of the ocean in 50 feet of water.

Because I was overweighted on that dive, and was unfamiliar with the BC, I blew through a lot of air keeping trimmed. As I got used to the gear, and removed the extra weight my air usage went back down to reasonable levels.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

BUT the water was very warm! Even though it was off glacial melt at the foot of Mt Hood.

Even though you sound a little touched in the head (or maybe numb) I will continue the discussion. :11:

When I talk about proper weight management, I am mainly referring to the compensation of extra weight through the use of the BC to drain and refill with air from the tanks.

I will stay with breath control having more importance than proper weighting with regard to air consumption. Every diver should have learned how to orally inflate their BC/Wing, both at the surface until floating and at depth to obtain neutral buoyancy. I am of the opinion requiring oral buoyancy control for the entire OW dive 3 is within PADI standards. If your dive profile is a sawtooth you could always use the naturally occurring exhalations to fill your recently emptied BC/Wing? My RDB does this on every dive and nobody ever ends a dive using less air than her.

The Deeper you go with more weight means more air that needs to be added to offset the compression of the wet suit.

As noted above, why not use your lungs to fill your BC/Wing? Also with depth, when we are the most over-weighted and have the most air in the BC/Wing, buoyancy control is much easier. The reason is because the buoyancy change of the lungs is proportionally smaller w/regard to overall buoyancy and expansion/compression is less for give depth change. As long as the lift of the BC/Wing is not exceeded exhaling into your BC/Wing a couple more times should only use a small amount of tank air. :14:

It is not that hard to dive well with too much weight, what's hard is to dive well in shallow water with too little weight. Until you learn to control your breathing you can not find your proper weighting so the only logical solution is to learn how to dive well with too much weight.