Fundies and SCR Changes

[sffrenchman]

I recently took fundies and had ~350 dives under my belt at that time. I very much enjoyed the challenging class and managed to get a rec pass. I went on a dive trip shortly thereafter and noticed a significant increase in my SCR. During the trip, I was practicing s-drill and smb deployment, as well as focusing on my trim, buoyancy and frog and back kicks.

I would be interested to know if anyone with a significant number of dives noticed a change in their SCR after taking the class.

Cheers,

Christophe

 

[kathydee]

Congrats on your Fundies pass Christophe! Well done!

When I first learned these skills, it took quite a bit of extra effort and focus to retrain the body into new positions and remember to do everything right.

With time & practice, the skills become virtually effortless. Your SAC may still be slightly elevated from the extra workload, but over time it should return to near-normal or perhaps even lower.

 

[eelnoraa]

I also noticed a slight increase in SCR after fundie. More noticeable in warm water dives. I used more of my lung to control my buoyancy as opposite to before - I was negative. Once I realized what I was doing, I was able to make adjustment and saw improvement. Basically, I tried to get close to neutral with my bc and let my lung handle less buoyancy

 

[TSandM]

I suspect both Kathy and eelnoraa are right. Bringing all this skill to consciousness to practice it reduces your relaxation and probably causes a more anxious breathing pattern. But in addition, overuse of breathing to control buoyancy definitely affects gas consumption. When I first started cave diving, it annoyed me tremendously that my gas went way too fast when I had to run the reel. This continued until a good friend pointed out to me that I was managing my buoyancy during tie-offs with my breathing. He told me to adjust my wing to neutral before putting in the tie, and then breathe normally while doing so. That single piece of advice returned my SAC rate while running line almost to my baseline.

 

[stargost]

Felicitations Christophe!
I think I remember the same thing. Mostly because of the focus to have as low as possible buoyancy variation as possible.
It bothered me at the beginning as well, but now in many situations, I don't care about looking too good (i'm hopeless anyway) so SAC/DCR has improved (probably a very little bit for this reason, as only thing which seems efficient to improve my SAC is running)

---------- Post Merged at 06:30 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:22 PM ----------

I also noticed a slight increase in SCR after fundie. More noticeable in warm water dives.

Interesting. In warm water dive it's soo much better for me, almost 30% reduction. I thought because 3mm & single tank comes to less crap compare to what we wear for cold water dir diving. Maybe because no other dir/gue divers are looking ;-)
But probably nothing to do with post fundies.

 

[eelnoraa]

Interesting. In warm water dive it's soo much better for me, almost 30% reduction. I thought because 3mm & single tank comes to less crap compare to what we wear for cold water dir diving. Maybe because no other dir/gue divers are looking ;-)
But probably nothing to do with post fundies.

oh I didn't say it accurately. I have lower SCR in warm water too. But the difference between pre-fundie and shortly post-fundie is bigger. In cold, home water, my SCR didn't chang as much, but both higher than in tropical water.

 

[stargost]

Sorry, i understood you and i was the one not clear. My point was in tropical water, the improvement is such that i couldnt notice nor care about a variation one way or an other, also if i came straight out of tropical vacations before fundies, it took 6 months before getting back to warm, so too long to remember well either (and probably recover by then anyway).
While in cold, a probably +15% was easily noticeable in short period of time and annoying.

oh I didn't say it accurately. I have lower SCR in warm water too. But the difference between pre-fundie and shortly post-fundie is bigger. In cold, home water, my SCR didn't chang as much, but both higher than in tropical water.

 

[Ouvea]

Salut Christophe:

Glad to see you're back from your trip. I trust that both you and Peg had an enjoyable time diving in warmer waters. It's somewhat difficult to gauge your consumption rate because you need to measure the effort given similar dive conditions. My Galileo Luna tracked my consumption rate at .50 & .48cft/minute for my last two dives. While I was primarily enjoying a leisure out and back pattern at the Breakwater, I did take time to practice some of the skills we learned (propulsion, clipping/un-clipping at waist & shoulder D-rings, SMB removal deployment, horizontal ascent, valve drill). Looking back at my previous dives since I began using the Luna dive computer (about 30), I average between .70 to .40cft/minute.

Kathydee may be right in regards to our air consumption while task loaded. Remember how are breathing patterns changed while performing some basic tasks? Also you were diving in warmer waters where currents may have also effected your workload. I'll monitor this aspect as well on my next dives.

Claude

P.S. Peg should be off on her next trip shortly. If you see her, please relay my regards and best wishes for a safe sojourn abroad.

 

[sffrenchman]

Thanks all for the feedback. I agree with what you said. I am not worried about it and I am confident that it will get better; I was just interested in others' experience. Now if I just could do frog kicks as well as Claude! In any case, I was happy with my trim and I am sure that Rob would be proud (see picture of me about to do a s-drill).

Claude, let me know if you want to go dive together.

Cheers,

Christophe

 

[TSandM]

Ooh, a Sherwood-esque photograph! Nice work!