Bouyancy Control Excercises?

[scubakat]

I have a new buddy who really needs to get a grip on her bouyancy control. She's either on the bottom stirring up silt, or unable to control her ascent. The first thing I think she needs to do is evaluate her weight & tank placement. After that I am sure there must be some easy skills that we could work on together on our regular dives. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

-kate

 

[Fishkiller]

For me I just had to relax. That not only increased my air consumption but it allowed me better control using my breath
taking deep breath to rise and shallow to sink.
The other thought was that after getting your buddies weight distributed. the bouyancy doesn't have to be perfect just close and blow a couple of tanks then let them experiment.

just a wood'n nickles worth

 

[scubakat]

Thanks Fishkiller. I know that it came to me after experience and trial and error, but I think for this person we need to have some specific exercises to help her understand what happens & what she needs to do to control herself.

-kate

 

[Fishkiller]

THere is the 65 dollar option, well unless you get a discount.. I was told to take the PADI Peak Performance diver class, which of course I DIDN'T but from what I understand if you get a good instructor those questions should be answered.

 

[Mario S Caner]

The PPB class with an experienced instructor would do her wonders. One other thing she should consider is an obsticle course. We have a large, active dive club here that gets together and organizes an underwater obsticle course for training purposes. It's free to members, the pool is 14ft deep and has a glass side that enables friends and family to observe your diving. Perhaps you could find a place like that around your neck of the woods to practice in a pool. Then all you need is some basic props like hula-hoops, pvc pipe etc.

 

[ScubaBurt]

Hello Kate,
When my wife(Flo) and I started diving Flo had a very difficult time with bouyancy control. In her defense, she is very athletic and small frame. She is like a cork in the water. We tried everything the instructors knew to do to #1. get her down in the water and #2. keep her down. They wound up just loading her with weights. As we got a few dives under our belts she got a little better but still was not in that comfort zone. We found a divemaster teaching a Peak Performance class and that did the trick. He mainly worked with her weight distribuition and breathing. The weight trick, before intergrated BC's, was to put half the weight on her tank. This allowed her legs and fins to come up more horizontal position. The breathing came with practice and now she has excellent bouyancy control. As Fishkiller stated, this also helped her gas consumption. I highly suggest a bouyancy control class with a very patient instructor. It is a very frustrating experience for the person having the control problem. Take it from a dive buddy(husband) who knows, the frustration doesn't stop at the end of class. Thank goodness those days are behind us. Good luck.
Burt

 

[The Chairman]

Hey Kate,

Does your friend have an weight integrated BC??? That seems to halp a LOT a people right away. The don't have that tug of war between the weight belt pulling down on their hips and the BC pulling up on their arm pits. Its worth some thought.

 

[TexasMike]

Kate...

I overcame this problem by using three methods:

1. I dove every chance I got to increase skill.
2. On each dive, I tossed off 2-4 lbs of weight (started with 16!) until I found my sweet spot
3. Posted lots of questions on this board (It's amazing how much I've progressed since I started participating back in late April!).

Mostly the continued diving and tossing off weight was the big help.

Mario's obstacle course sounds intriguing....and I might setup something for an upcoming Swamp Divers dive.

 

[keralucu]

Hi Kate... I took PPB as part of my AOW and found it to be extremely helpful. I also practiced a lot in a swimming pool to hone the PPB skills even more and have dived as often as possible. I'm gettin' there!

 

[hphobbie@aol.com]

Buoyancy is the one single skill topic I hear all the time. My thinking is the average diver is grossly over weighted. In general I have a few suggestions:

1. Dive as much as you can in the same setup and get used to it. Then dive some more.
2. Breathing is your fine tuning, the biggest problem people have is they take deep breaths in, but not OUT so lungs are still half inflated. I tell them to breathe the bottom of the lungs as a verbal cue
3. I also give verbal clues on BC hose use for ascent technique: if it's up, let it out; if its down let it in. So it's up and out; down and in. Seems to help.
4. Also, I strongly urge that they use the smallest amount of lead possible and be in as good a physical shape as possible. Lean muscle is more dense than fatty tissue

They think I am nuts diving with an AL 80 in pool and a 3 mm suit w/no lead ... but can be done easily and is a matter of relaxing, being in decent shape, and knowing how to move your body thru the water column