Controlling and reducing air consumption

[Joneill]

Fat cells do not use much oxygen. If you ever cooked meat or at least saw it in a grocery you've probably noticed that lean meat is red but fat is pink or even white because it lacks blood vessels. Muscles need blood flow, fat does not. So adding a spare tire around your waist wouldn't increase your air intake.

Fat also floats which requires a diver to add carry weight which won't help their air consumption either.

Also, tell a chicken that his white meat should be red as it still has blood vessels running through it! The red color of SOME meat is not driven by blood vessels- it has to do with the presence and amount of myoglobin the muscle tissue. Myoglobin is red when bound to oxygen and certain muscles have more myoglobin than others based on what they are used for.

 

[Jay]

Another BIG one for me is staying warm. I started out diving in a 3mm shortie in tropical waters. Now I wear a full 7 mm suit with a hooded vest underneath. While others in the dive group are surfacing because they are cold and have run out of air, I am ALWAYS the last diver up with the DM with loads of air leftover. I am not inexperienced, so that helps also.

Would you happen to know what bottom temp those tropical waters were that your 7mm works well in? My SP Everflex 3/2 is good is lovely for me at 28/29degC (82/84F) but too cold after long dives at 26degC (79F). According to the Everflex Documentation (https://ww2.scubapro.com/media/791773/suits_overview_eng.pdf) I am off the chart: B=5/4, C=3/2

 

[dmaziuk]

Well, you are certainly digging deeper than @halocline though you are also prone to bringing up irrelevant matter, like martial arts.

What you're saying is these kinds of exercise will lower one's resting heart rate but have no effect on one's breathing rate. Judging from my representative sample of one, that is not true.

 

[tarponchik]

What you're saying is these kinds of exercise will lower one's resting heart rate but have no effect on one's breathing rate. Judging from my representative sample of one, that is not true.

No. What I am saying the heart rate and breathing rate are not the only factors that determine air consumption. Breathing can be deep or shallow, the lung volumes are variable between people, the heart sizes vary too, etc.

 

[tarponchik]

Fat also floats which requires a diver to add carry weight which won't help their air consumption either.

Also, tell a chicken that his white meat should be red as it still has blood vessels running through it! The red color of SOME meat is not driven by blood vessels- it has to do with the presence and amount of myoglobin the muscle tissue. Myoglobin is red when bound to oxygen and certain muscles have more myoglobin than others based on what they are used for.

Thank you for bringing up another irrelevant topic.

 

[Joneill]

Thank you for bringing up another irrelevant topic.

Irrelevant how? I was correcting your incorrect statement on meat being red because it has blood vessels. So how is correcting with actual facts incorrect?

 

[dmaziuk]

No. What I am saying the heart rate and breathing rate are not the only factors that determine air consumption. Breathing can be deep or shallow, the lung volumes are variable between people, the heart sizes vary too, etc.

So effectively you've just downgraded your opening statement "exercise don't help" to "well, there's so many variables that... who TH knows", is that correct?

 

[The Chairman]

Back to reality: your breathing is governed by the amount of CO2 in your bloodstream. The more CO2 you produce, the more you have to breathe. So, if you want to stay down longer, avoid producing CO2. Swimming laps is a good thing but more important is avoiding aerobics while submerged. The worst diver I ever met was a Navy Seal. OMG, he was all over the place and quickly. Up, down, left right he literally swum circles around me. He lasted 20 minutes on the Spiegel Grove and I got another 60 minutes in after I took him to the surface. In shape? He was ripped! Unfortunately, his dive craft was crap.

 

[Joneill]

Back to reality: your breathing is governed by the amount of CO2 in your bloodstream. The more CO2 you produce, the more you have to breathe. So, if you want to stay down longer, avoid producing CO2. Swimming laps is a good thing but more important is avoiding aerobics while submerged. The worst diver I ever met was a Navy Seal. OMG, he was all over the place and quickly. Up, down, left right he literally swum circles around me. He lasted 20 minutes on the Spiegel Grove and I got another 60 minutes in after I took him to the surface. In shape? He was ripped! Unfortunately, his dive craft was crap.

True - a DM on a recent dive said it best: "A good diver is a lazy diver " (in the water, obviously). But marrying good technique with good aerobic fitness from routine excercise will make it evern better.

 

[The Chairman]

But marrying good technique with good aerobic fitness from routine excercise will make it evern better.

I have no issues with a fit diver... but technique is far, far more important in the short and long run.