Question on lungs and buoyancy

[rjpv]

Hi folks,

Just returned from a vacation with some diving. Either my buoyancy control is better, or it is easier in warmer waters with a much, much smaller wetsuit. My lungs worked great for fine-tuning my depth.

But that is the problem. Diving in ~40fsw with a 3mm shorty, a nice deep, slow inhalation lifted me up practically out of the water, and a slow exhalation dragged me down to the watery depths. Or at least it felt like it.

I soon realized I was breathing faster and shallower than I should be just to minimize this effect. And when I wanted to go down a bit, I'd hardly inhale. Go up? Barely exhale.

Is this typical? I'm worried its a bad road to go down, since I am altering my breathing pattern.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[captain]

Hi folks,

Just returned from a vacation with some diving. Either my buoyancy control is better, or it is easier in warmer waters with a much, much smaller wetsuit. My lungs worked great for fine-tuning my depth.

But that is the problem. Diving in ~40fsw with a 3mm shorty, a nice deep, slow inhalation lifted me up practically out of the water, and a slow exhalation dragged me down to the watery depths. Or at least it felt like it.

I soon realized I was breathing faster and shallower than I should be just to minimize this effect. And when I wanted to go down a bit, I'd hardly inhale. Go up? Barely exhale.

Is this typical? I'm worried its a bad road to go down, since I am altering my breathing pattern.

Thanks for the advice!

You have discovered the secret of bouyancy control. Now apply that by using the least amount of weight and the least amount of air in the BC necessary to let you use your lungs to make small ajustments. When you get used to it you will not notice your breathing it will be automatic.

 

[jim2386]

Hi folks,

Just returned from a vacation with some diving. Either my buoyancy control is better, or it is easier in warmer waters with a much, much smaller wetsuit. My lungs worked great for fine-tuning my depth.

But that is the problem. Diving in ~40fsw with a 3mm shorty, a nice deep, slow inhalation lifted me up practically out of the water, and a slow exhalation dragged me down to the watery depths. Or at least it felt like it.

I soon realized I was breathing faster and shallower than I should be just to minimize this effect. And when I wanted to go down a bit, I'd hardly inhale. Go up? Barely exhale.

Is this typical? I'm worried its a bad road to go down, since I am altering my breathing pattern.

Thanks for the advice!

Check your weights. You very well may be over/underweighted. In AOW they teach you if you go out on the surface just deeper than you can touch the bottom, with an empty BC and full lungs of air your eyes should be right at the water surface. When you exhale, you should sink slowly. This means you're weighted properly. I found that I've been slightly overweighted for years. I think this scenario might be much more likely.

Those are my best guesses. If you're new to diving, really work on checking your weighting. Especially in salt vs. fresh water....or 3mm wetsuits vs 6mm etc. It's always good to know.

Hope this helps,
Jim

P.S. If it makes you feel any better, I rarely have to touch my BC when diving anymore. Breathe in...go up....breathe out....go down. Kinda fun actually Especially on drive dives

 

[stiebs]

Either my buoyancy control is better, or it is easier in warmer waters with a much, much smaller wetsuit. My lungs worked great for fine-tuning my depth.

Probably a little bit of both.

Is this typical? I'm worried its a bad road to go down, since I am altering my breathing pattern.

There's nothing wrong with using your breathing for subtle buoyancy changes, provided you do it right. So avoid skip breathing (or holding your breath) and rapid breathing.

Try to maintain your "normal" breath so that you don't fully exhale, nor fully inhale. When you want to lower yourself in the water column, exhale slightly more than normal. When you want to raise yourself, inhale a little deeper than normal for a breath or two.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Try to maintain your "normal" breath so that you don't fully exhale, nor fully inhale.

:no

A full exhalation should be the normal way to breathe in diving! You need to get all the bad air out (used air) in order to get fresh air in. If you need to arrest descent with your lungs, you don't exhale all the way and breathe in early, but that is the exception not the rule!

I was taught to teach a normal size breath, from completely empty to 2/3 full or so, but for most people their normal breathing pattern is not conducive to good buoyancy control.

 

[spectrum]

If your lungs were running she show, not depth changes then your weights were fine.

Dropping the neoprene does remove a whole level of interaction between the rubber and depth. The good news is that with this discovery you will now have much of that same ability in cold water. Congratulations on the breakthrough.

You were doing what some call porpoising, roaming up and down as you breathe. With a little attention and practice you should settle into a rhythm where you exhale begins just as you want to rise and inhale just as you begin to sink. It's a breathing pattern based on the inherent time delay in the reaction to buoyancy changes. It should come to you easily now with some more diving, it need not be a forced thing.

Other than that you can modify your lung volume to spend time at a range of depths but you will be doing so with a shallower breathing pattern so at some point a correction in your BC contents will be appropriate to preserve good ventilation.

Pete

 

[TSandM]

Lungs are great for buoyancy fine-tuning, but I can say that, if you overuse them, you can end up with a CO2 headache from inadequate ventilation. Always try to keep as neutral as you can with your BC or wing, and use your lungs just for brief changes in depth to avoid obstacles. As you keep going, you'll eventually get to the point where you adjust whether you are breathing at low lung volumes or at high lung volumes, and use that as a trigger to know you need to adjust the air in your BC.

 

[Campana]

When you are breathing normally, not in a diving situation but just sitting and breathing, you inhale some, exhale some, all around a certain "neutral point". In other words, you could almost always exhale more after you exhale, and inhale more after you inhale, but it is not normal and you will not be relaxed. Your breathing in diving should be very similar to that. If you are having to exhale more than normal to sink, you have too much air in your bc. If you are having to inhale more than normal to rise, you have not enough air in your bc. In other words, your neutral point should be the same underwater as above. If you find yourself with some unnatural amount of air, adjust it with your bc so that you will just breath normally underwater. If you don't do this, you will not be relaxed and may get a headache, or something.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

In other words, you could almost always exhale more after you exhale, and inhale more after you inhale, but it is not normal and you will not be relaxed. Your breathing in diving should be very similar to that.

So you are saying that however you normally breath is how you should breath in diving, because otherwise you won't be relaxed? Evidently you do not think a person can be relaxed when breathing differently than their normal breathing? I would venture that there are numerous relaxation techniques that start with learning to breath differently than normal! Part of becoming a better diver is learning how to breath properly for diving, which I will continue to believe and teach is not what most people do in their normal dry life!

 

[Campana]

Relaxation techniques do use breathing exercises. Meditation uses breathing techniques too. What I am trying to say is to not to partially "hold your breath" and breathe shallow because you don't have enough air in your bc to support you, because partially holding your breath is not relaxing. Also, you should not have too much air in your bc and have to exhale excessively to stay down. So, your breathing should be "normal".