Shouldn't a couch potato have a better RMV?

[Agility]

You'll stay a lot warmer, need less weight with more fat and less muscle.

1 dm³ of fat weighs only 0.9 kg.
so for every 10 kg of fat you take into the water you will require 1 additional kg of lead to dive.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I think Dan V is correct. I view it like this: a total couch potato may well have a very low SAC if they are calm and don't do much work underwater. A muscular diver may well have a higher basal metabolism and may therefore use more air on a "do nothing" dive.

However, if the athlete and the couch potato are put into a slightly strenuous situation, the potato will be blowing through all kinds of air trying to "do the work", while the athlete may experience a very moderate bump in heart rate and their air consumption may not be elevated a whole lot... again because they are more efficient at doing work.

Another thing I have observed, if an athlete REALLY pushes themselves underwater and swims at maximum potential and does an incredible amount of work... they really can blow through a ton of air pretty fast.

 

[offthewall1]

I don't know about RMV... but I know a good DPV will pull around the most obese of divers... if they don't have the big one carrying it down to the water.

 

[spectrum]

Sigh... Not what I was hoping for. Good tip on the rum though!

Like when I had the flawed realization that one could lose weight eating ice cream since the body needed to burn energy to warm all that cold food.