weight belts

[Scuba~dog]

And for saving the sarcasisms!

 

[WreckWriter]

Nudibranch once bubbled...
Well if you want to get into the physiology behind it- fat content in females is higher than that in males no matter what your weight is. I was trying to be more light hearted and less technical about it.

You missed my point. I apologize in advance for this but I think it's important enough that it should be discussed. Maybe one of the moderators will move it to a forum where I'm more comfortable?

I didn't mean "BS" to your statement that women use more weight, it's true. Had you said your buddy a couple pounds less than you, I would have stayed quiet.

Fact is, NO PERSON (of either sex) who weighs 130, needs 28 lbs, no matter what suit they're wearing. and furthermore NO PERSON PERIOD needs 50 lbs.

You both need to work on your technique. I guarantee your trim is beyond bad and that you're kicking during your buoyancy check. You're both overweighted badly, the 50 lb person, hazardously so, you, only dangerously so.

You, at 130, should try about 12 pounds, assuming a thick suit, 14. The 50 pound person should simply seek additional training. She doesn't give her body weight but if it's enough to actually require 50, she risks a lot by diving at any depth for various reasons.

OK, at this point half the board is pissed at me. That's cool. I'm not good at political correctness. I am good at scuba training.

If you want to discuss weighting issues, let's take it into "basic scuba".

If not, ***** up a storm right here but I won't reply again in this forum.

Tom

 

[otter-cat]

It is not correct to say that nobody needs 50 lbs of weight. I am generally fit, but definitely carry a good amount of excess body fat in various places on my body. I wear 40-45 lbs of weight. I am certainly not the best diver out there, but I am about to finish my divemaster certification (only the map to go!) and my trim and technique are fairly good. I try to improve them every time I dive.

At the LDS through which I've done my training there are no women instructors. The instructors there, who know me well, originally said I must be overweighting myself when I told them I needed 40 lbs to descend. I told them I wasn't, as I've had to kick down to descend when I wear 35 lbs. Finally, on one of the weekends where we had an OW class in which I was assisting as part of my DM training, I had the instructor come down to the dock with me between dives, and we did a thorough weight check for me together. Guess what? He concluded that I needed 40 lbs to descend.

As I indicated before, I am not obese, but I am certainly not slim either. I think men tend not to realize how much buoyancy things like large breasts or other fat deposits on women can contribute.

In addition, some people on this board may not consider the extra buoyancy that my exposure suit adds. I wear a 7mm compressed (not hyper-compressed) neoprene drysuit, 5mm hood, & 5mm gloves. When I dive my 7mm 2-piece wetsuit, I need closer to 30 lbs. Because of the geometry of women's bodies and the shortfalls of some of the womens scuba gear designs, women tend to have less well-fitting drysuits than men, which (if they're neoprene) means a little more weight to compensate for that.

A woman and a man of the same bodyweight will need differing amounts of weight due to the difference in their respective proportions of body fat, even though their total weight is the same.

I may be a sort of unusual case, as I am overly endowed in the chest area (not bragging, I wish it wasn't true -- I'm planning on having reduction surgery when I can afford it.) However, I'm also pretty short. Someone who has a similar overall build to me, but was a taller person could definitely need up to 50 lbs in similar gear to mine. Someone else who had more body fat than me could need 50 lbs, and still be in shape enough to dive.

I'm not disagreeing that there are many people who are out there with too much weight on their weightbelts to compensate for poor skills. But to outright dismiss 40 or 50 lbs as an impossibly high amount of weight without taking into account distribution of body fat, type, amount and fit of exposure suit, and perfectly healthy differences in body fat between genders is not right.

 

[divemistress]

here's where i weigh in:

* i am overweight, both chesty and hippy.
* i am muscular.
* my buoyancy is good.


in a 3mm or 5 mm suit, in salt water, i need weight equal to about 10% of my body weight, minus two or three lbs.

what most affects the amount of weight i need: my anxiety level. if i haven't been diving in six-plus months, i will wear two to four more lbs. than i do when diving regularly.

 

[art.chick]

Our friend, Scuba dog wanted to hear some more alternative to putting all her lead on a belt, & a good one was given. While I like to see everyone carry the majority of their weight as ditchable (so we can make you positive if we need to for your own safety), I have had to think like a racing cyclist on the weight issue (and I am a big girl too): trim every detail you can to not be a floatation device.

I wear a very absorbent fleece skin under my suit which starts sucking ocean as soon as I hit the water - easy 3 lbs of negativity. This added thickness allowed me to go from a 7mm to a 5mm, bam! remove even more weight. Try thick gloves of some leatherlike product to cut neoprene on the hands...sounds extreme, but think of everyplace you can cut a little. Thinner hood with fleece hood underneath for warmth. Don't skimp on the boots. I reconfigured like crazy & went from 32 to 20 lb of weight (well, I also dived a lot & got better at it.)

I hated weight belts when I first began, too. I congratulate you on your wonderful efforts to drop body fat. Perhaps as you progress, the belt will not bug you so much. 50 sounds like a challenge, but even if u never lose another pound off of you, keep working on the diving & you will trim lots of lead from your belt!

 

[Zept]

art.chick said...
I wear a very absorbent fleece skin under my suit which starts sucking ocean as soon as I hit the water - easy 3 lbs of negativity.

I don't want to sound like the physics police, but...

Water isn't negatively buoyant (unless you are diving in oil, and that seems unlikely!). The fleece helps b/c it enables you to wear less neoprene, but I doubt it provides significant negative buoyancy. Or am I missing something?

Zept

 

[scubakat]

Keep at it Scubadog. The more you dive the less weight you will need (to a point). Work on your skills and becoming safe, compentent, and comfortable in the water. I encourage you to try as many different configurations as you can before you buy. You will learn from experience what works for YOU.

-K

ps
Let me know if you make to the seattle area! We'll go divin!

 

[WreckWriter]

otter-cat once bubbled...
It is not correct to say that nobody needs 50 lbs of weight. I am generally fit, but definitely carry a good amount of excess body fat in various places on my body. I wear 40-45 lbs of weight. I am certainly not the best diver out there, but I am about to finish my divemaster certification (only the map to go!) and my trim and technique are fairly good. I try to improve them every time I dive.

45 lbs of weight and some idiot is going to certify you as a DM? Hah! Go take a refresher instead.

Tom

 

[otter-cat]

WreckWriter once bubbled...


45 lbs of weight and some idiot is going to certify you as a DM? Hah! Go take a refresher instead.

Tom

Tom,

While I believed your original intentions in this discussion were to promote safe SCUBA, I think comments like the above do not help. You do nothing to refute my assessment of the many different factors (thickness of neoprene, wet vs. dry suits, body-fat percentage) that contribute to the amount of weight needed by an individual. I didn't even mention aluminum tanks or salt water, both of which also are contributing factors

Did you read all of my post? As I stated, in a 2-piece 7mm wetsuit, I wear about 30 lbs. In a 1-piece 7mm jumpsuit, I wear about 25. 7mm of *compressed* neoprene, in a DRY-suit is VERY buoyant, and it is in that suit that I wear 40 lbs. Wearing that suit means I have to wear a lot of weight, but it also enables me to stay very warm, and for me, it's worth it. Diving is no fun if you're cold.

Maybe the fact that you are in South Florida makes 50 lbs (or 40 for that matter) an unthinkably large amount of weight to wear. The one time that I was in Florida to dive (in the Atlantic, off Ft. Lauderdale, last March) I wore a 3/2 mm wetsuit and wore 18 lbs. Does that seem like a more "possible" weight to you? Same person, same amount of body fat (which is probably higher than many people's, but far from obese,) different suits.

My instructors are not idiots. The instructor with whom I did the weight check is a PADI MSDT, and has certified hundreds of students in the cold, low-vis conditions that prevail in the PNW. Men who are very muscular and generally "sink like rocks" are given 20-25 lbs of weight to use with their 2-piece 7mm wetsuits. Most of the male DMs and instructors here wear about 20-30 lbs, and they are all in good shape. Men with more fat on them wear 30-40 often. Why then, does it seem so improbable to you that a female, who has a higher body-fat percentage than they do, could need 40 lbs in similar gear to theirs? I know of NO one here (male or female) who dives with LESS than 20 lbs in this area.

A moment ago, another MSDT just walked in to the room, who I know wears a neoprene drysuit (although I don't think it's quite as thick as mine, but close) and I asked him how much weight he normally wears, excluding extra weights he might carry for students. His answer: 36 lbs. I asked him if he thought that 40 would be an unspeakably high amount of weight for me to wear (he knows I wear a neoprene drysuit too). His answer: No.

I do not claim to be an awe-inspiring diver (or even close to that.) However, I AM quite competent, and have progressed far beyond the basic skills possessed by OW divers, or I would not have been able to take the DM training course (let alone pass with high marks in the skills areas as I did.) I have also been trained to dive in the Oregon Coast Aquarium as a volunteer diver, for which you have to display very good buoyancy control and tight maneuvering ability, as much of the work is in very small spaces surrounded by sensitive habitat. I have even done a small amount of diving for research work for one of the universities in Oregon. Your suggestion of a refresher course is not appropriate in my case.

I realize that for most people, SCUBA is an activity that takes place in warm water in tropical environments where much less weight is needed than in my area, and that many of the instructors and divers out there are men, who maybe just haven't quite got the knack of looking at a fairly round and/or curvy woman and judging what her body-fat percentage really is, and just how much of a difference those curves really make in buoyancy. I wrote the my previous post because there ARE so many misconceptions about weighting, especially for women who are "larger" than average in one way or another. Scuba-board is a great forum for discussing these topics, and I welcome any and all well-thought out comments on what I have written.

otter-cat

 

[Uncle Pug]

otter-cat once bubbled...
I know of NO one here (male or female) who dives with LESS than 20 lbs in this area.

12# belt & 6# plate w/Andy's trilam & Steel 104


But if I dive the CF200 I take along an extra 4#.