PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy - worth doing?

[The Kraken]

Buoyancy is one of those things like being an ace fighter pilot. You've had an instructor teach you how to get up into the air, do a few stunts and land without seriously damaging the aircraft or killing yourself.

But becoming an ace requires time in the sky and learning the capabilities and limitations of the aircraft and the pilot/aircraft entity.

It is the same in diving. You must learn to really feel yourself and understand your position in the water column before you will be able to hit that "peak performance buoyancy".

But for starters, I recommend getting to a tank where you can get down to about 13' with a nearly empty tank (the type which you most frequently dive). Get on the bottom and get rid of as much weight as possible (this exercise will help you also in establishing correct weighting).

Practice lying on the bottom taking a breath to make you rise in the water column. Take note of the attitude in which your body starts to rise, this will help you in adjusting your primary and trim weights, as well as redistributing equipment, if necessary.

When you get to the point that you can, by breath control and riding the inhalation/exhalation curve, maintain about a foot off the bottom of the tank in a horizontal position, you've reached the peak.

Now, to the question at hand . . . is it "worth" it to buy the course, that is a subjective question only you can answer, and that would be after the instruction is completed.

Best of luck!

Safe dives, safer ascents . . .

 

[Bogtrotter]

I did it a while back when I decided to get back into diving, and treated it as a refresher and opportunity for some practise before I went on a real dive again. From what I remember we did some inhaling-exhaling- fin pivots, and swam through some hoops and then worked on trim for awhile. I got what I wanted out of it at the time, but will admit that I was not taught anything that you could not find online through youtube etc.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

But how else can I learn to control my buoyancy expertly? Has anyone done PPB? Did anyone find it useful? What other options are there?

I never took PPB, but I improved my buoyancy doing a few things. First, I dove as much as I could. And when I did, I didn't look for fish, I actively tried to improve my buoyancy. If you can't do that, see if you can get in a pool. Second, I got into a pool and tried to stay as level as I could. This gave me an appreciation for what my breathing does to my buoyancy. I video taped this for feedback. Your breathing can screw you pretty quickly if you hold your breath a little, or exhale deeply, etc. Third, I worked hard to get my trim right. If you're out of trim you'll constantly be pushing yourself up or down, and always feel out of control.

Good trim means that your stomach/chest is horizontal, parallel with the floor. Your knees are bent with your fins behind you pushing water behind you (not down toward the bottom). I video taped this in a pool too. What you want to be able to do is just sit there horizontal. If you can't do that, then you need to move your weighting around. If your head sinks, you need to move some weight toward your feet. If your feet sink, you need to move weight toward your head.

If you can improve in these ways, your buoyancy and air consumption will improve.

 

[Diver0001]

A neutral discussion on this topic is not possible because of extremely unfair and highly prejudice moderator policies.

Those of you who know me know that I spend considerable time on these boards. You will also recognize me as one of the cooler heads here. I have been in the middle of some extremely passionate debates and I still do not have a single enemy here. I take pride in that. I have personally benefitted a lot from scubaboard and there are many members on this board that I am personally grateful to for helping me with their advice without even charging anything for it.

I honestly believe that PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy is really not a course. Buoyancy is a skill that you learn when you learn diving and master / polish as you progress. It is not anything that anyone should be charging anyone money for. It would be like going to a driving school and then doing an additional course on how to apply breaks!!! This particular breakdown of training actually creates a financial incentive for instructors to graduate bad students so that the gaps in their training could be corrected later with more fee. It may be profitable but constitutes bad practice IMHO.

If the above view is going to be deleted on the reasons that:

a. It is irrelevant to the OPs question
b. It is agency bashing of PADI

then in order to remain a member of scubaboard and to continue to learn from all the people that I have grown to respect, I must modify my response as follows:

PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy is a great course to learn. You will soon notice that tech-divers with a 1000 dives, whose lives depend upon stopping at a particular depth and holding that depth for their deco really have horrible buoyancy because they never took the "PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy Course!

Long live PADI and Long Live Peak Performance Buoyancy Specialty!

Moderators ... I hope you guys are happy.

Cheers -

CS

Your frustration and lack of respect makes me wonder why you continue to put up with staying.... Not one thing you said in that post makes any sense to me but it will be left up because it doesn't violate the TOS.

As for the PPB "specialty". I agree that it was created to make profit by plugging a hole that should not exist. As an instructor I don't like that. Be that as it may, the reality on the ground is that many divers profit from giving extra attention to this skill. The fact that it is necessary is an indication of poor prior training but given the state of affairs at the OW level, I don't see it as being an unnecessary part of the system.

As for your "learning to drive" analogy, I'll say this. The PPB specialty is NOT like learning to put on the brakes after you've gotten your drivers license. It's like getting extra practice with merging onto the freeway. Not something you didn't learn, but something that, regardless of how well you learned it, can always be refined.

R..

 

[Jude Reilly]

During OW and AOW, there is not a lot of time for instructors to spend time fine tuning buoyancy. I did the PPB course in a group of 3. We had time to try various configurations, if that one didn't work well, no problem, lets try something different...until we found something that suited. If you are fortunate enough to have a well experienced dive buddy or someone in the group who can/will take the time to help you, that would work just as well. From my personal standpoint, I'm a knowledge junkie and I like to know the whys and wherefores of everything I do so it was great to apply the theory and have an instructor correct/ assist it where needed. I'm still fine tuning but now i know WHY I'm fine tuning and what tweaks will work. I would recommend it.

 

[DevonDiver]

As for the PPB "specialty". I agree that it was created to make profit by plugging a hole that should not exist.

I'm not sure if that was the rationale for creation. There's always scope for improving buoyancy - and expert tuition can significantly fast-track development compared to self-directed experience development.

That said, it has evolved into a remedial course, that becomes a greater necessity due to declining expectations of buoyancy 'mastery' at the entry-level.

I provide buoyancy refinement for advanced/technical level divers... so there's always scope for improvement. The key factor is 'progression', not 'remediation'.

 

[Diver0001]

I'm not sure if that was the rationale for creation. There's always scope for improving buoyancy - and expert tuition can significantly fast-track development compared to self-directed experience development.

Yeah, I'm obviously not privy to the reasons why the course was created. I know from my own training that buoyancy control is given more air-time now than it was 30 years ago. I think, due in part to the PPB specialty, that instructors are now aware that buoyancy control is a skill like any other and that it can be taught. Based on my own experience, this is obviously a major step forward as compared to the manner in which the previous generation(s) of instructors were working. As always there were certainly exceptions, but delivering "yoyo" divers was very much the norm where I learned to dive 30 years ago. We were just told to "go easy" until it sorted itself out.... And no... it wasn't just my instructor... When/where I learned to dive, it was seen as perfectly acceptable to give buoyancy control lip service and leave it to the diver to sort it out.

however...

That said, it has evolved into a remedial course, that becomes a greater necessity due to declining expectations of buoyancy 'mastery' at the entry-level.

^^^ this is what gets under my skin. Instructors who are aware of the importance of buoyancy control (ie, the role it plays in accidents--and avoiding them!) and aware of *how* to teach it, simply don't. Many delay teaching it to acceptable level because (a) it gives them reason to sell a specialty and (b) there is a "catch net" called PPB that can be used to compensate for their sloppy teaching. This is what bothers me.

To me, it's a bad sign if a shop offers PPB as a "standard" or "required" part of the AOW course as opposed to an elective part. That's a sure sign that they're not doing their job at the OW level. It's not always a bad idea to take it and there's nothing wrong with making students aware of its value so they can choose it if they feel it will benefit them, but if a shop is building their training philosophy around the assumption that the student MUST take it so they can "accelerate" the OW course by short changing students on this very important (but time intensive) skill then something is very very wrong. This is creating accidents waiting to happen. I see this happening around me at certain shops and it just makes me want to shake people until their heads come loose.

I'm sure once instructors get the hang of the new standards for OW that this will improve things, but there will still be those who will look for loopholes in the standards so they can "avoid" doing the right thing instead of just getting their shoulders under it and acting like a "professional".... and if you're an instructor and you felt insulted by what I just said, don't respond to me. Go look in a mirror.

I provide buoyancy refinement for advanced/technical level divers... so there's always scope for improvement. The key factor is 'progression', not 'remediation'.

I agree. That's exactly what I said to Captain Cynical. No matter how good your buoyancy control is, it can be better and I do believe that how some instructors use PPB is not what PADI intended when they created it. With my regular buddy we do very non-trivial buoyancy training (running free swimming deco stops starting from 35+ metres with zero visual reference on 1/2 hour runs) on a regular basis, about once a week. It's important. If you want good buoyancy control, you have to train it!

R..

 

[mike.chuanshi]

I'm still a fairly new diver who dives with my 14 y/o, so I place a lot of emphasis on safety and on constantly improving core skills like buoyancy. I agree with what many here have posted already, especially what was stated about buoyancy being a progression and how there is always room for improvement (I believe this is true for other skills as well, but often these other skills can't be effectively or efficiently addressed without focusing on buoyancy first). As a part of my AOW training I did PPB and found it to be immensely helpful, so I continued on and finished up the specialty. I know that a huge part of why it was so helpful had to do with the instructor - he placed tremendous emphasis on self-awareness, awareness of the surroundings, breath control, and visualization. After I "got it," the results were astonishing - so much so that others came up and asked things like, "How do you just fly around effortlessly like that? It's like you aren't even trying." Needless to say, this made me pretty happy, and I was even happier when the same questions were directed toward my little dive buddy. Having had good instruction, however, I also knew that there were plenty of things that we needed to work on still, and - more importantly - I knew what these things were. Our instructor continued to give us pointers long after the course was over, but the PPB course was a great starting point. Is the PPB course absolutely necessary to have good buoyancy? No, but there are many things for which instruction isn't absolutely necessary, and anyone who is committed enough can figure out many things through trial and error. The whole point of being taught something is so we can be more efficient in our learning. PPB certainly did that for us. Will you have perfect buoyancy, or be anywhere close to your "peak" performance" after PPB? I highly doubt it. But the course does do its job as far as getting you headed that direction.

To answer your question a bit more directly:
Yes, I believe PPB is worth it.

 

[Bill Parker]

Take it if you think you will enjoy the class. You don't need it, however. If you just
go diving your buoyancy will improve. The cert card is totally useless. No one will
ever ask you for it.