Honoured to be here ... Plus why am I not an air piggly?

[ScoobaCat]

Hi all

I am an AOW noob with 26 dives in the Caribbean under my belt. Got certified - intro to scuba, OW, AOW, at Sandals MoBay on my honeymoon with my dude 2 years ago. Since then, been back to Jamaica, been diving in Cuba (Holguin area) and most recently Cozumel. Cozumel was an eye-opener for sure. We will be back ...

Question - my buddy hates swimming, took to diving like he was born to be a fish, but sucks air like crazy. I love swimming, but am a super cautious and sometimes nervous diver who has had to work through panic (holy **** the surface is waaayyy up there), but my SAC is on average across all dives 0.33. Most dives being 50-70' for around 45 mins. I find this weird. I would've thought I would be the one LOA but never have been. Any ideas?

Cath

 

[tkevcu]

I haven't been diving long, but it seems to me that women always use less air underwater.

---------- Post added January 31st, 2013 at 07:58 PM ----------

Oh... and welcome.

 

[*dave*]

Any ideas?

Cath

A bunch....

Generally speaking:
New guys like to zip around, flip rocks and give their new super powers a workout. Women tend to be more cautious and slower in the water. Every movement burns gas.
Guys are moving a larger surface area through the water and that takes more energy, which burns more gas.
Swimmers are more relaxed in the water and you burn less gas when in a relaxed state.
Non swimmers are less relaxed than swimmers and burn more gas as a result. They are also less efficient at moving through the water than an experienced swimmer and that burns more gas.
Guys are bigger and require more fuel (O2) to operate the machine.


Minimizing movement and increasing the efficiency of movements that are made will likely have the greatest impact on air consumption.

 

[TSandM]

Each of us has strong points and weak points in diving. My weaks points were legion, but my strong point was good gas consumption from the get go.

The one thing I would worry about, though, with a SAC rate as low as you describe, as early in your career as you are, is whether you have picked up the habit of skip-breathing. Skip breathing is where you have long pauses between your inhale and exhale phases of your breathing cycle. By pausing for long periods, you diminish the total volume you breathe in a minute, but at the expense of accumulating carbon dioxide. Some of us are very tolerant of this (and that has been documented by formal study) when we are underwater.

The next time you dive, spend a few moments studying your breathing pattern. You should not be pausing for more than a couple of heartbeats between the end of your inhale and the beginning of your exhale. If you find yourself pausing longer than that, spend some time consciously trying to correct it. Allowing CO2 buildup is not only a recipe for a post-dive headache, it also puts you on the edge of anxiety if anything else goes wrong on the dive.

 

[spectrum]

Cath,

I was lucky enouh to fall into the same boat though not quite down to .33. When seasoned divers were a sked they said "Pete is just relaxed when he dives", and I am.

Even though you may feel stress from an occasional reality check you are obviosly breathing at a judiciuos rate and not doing a lot of thrashing and racing to waste energy.

Most ladies especially those small in stature will have an advantage as you simply sustaining a smaller creature.

 

[Scuba_Noob]

Gas consumption matters, but not that much. It's nice finding buddies that have around the same air consumption, but other buddies could always get bigger tanks. Like has been mentioned before, new divers generally use more air due to lack of buoyancy control and moving too much needlessly. Maybe your air consumption will decrease even more.

 

[ScoobaCat]

A bunch....

Generally speaking:
New guys like to zip around, flip rocks and give their new super powers a workout. Women tend to be more cautious and slower in the water. Every movement burns gas.
Guys are moving a larger surface area through the water and that takes more energy, which burns more gas.
Swimmers are more relaxed in the water and you burn less gas when in a relaxed state.
Non swimmers are less relaxed than swimmers and burn more gas as a result. They are also less efficient at moving through the water than an experienced swimmer and that burns more gas.
Guys are bigger and require more fuel (O2) to operate the machine.


Minimizing movement and increasing the efficiency of movements that are made will likely have the greatest impact on air consumption.

Dave - thanks! Much of what you wrote makes sense:
1. I am more cautious and slower
2. I love any activity near, on, under the water and am generally very relaxed (except an occasional passing twinge of OK - 85 feet let's be very attentive down here)
3. Love the Zen-like state of neutral buoyancy and go with a flick or two of a fin

Fyi - I am the one that has more mass to fuel - 6' average weight to his 5' 7" average weight

---------- Post added February 1st, 2013 at 03:24 PM ----------

Each of us has strong points and weak points in diving. My weaks points were legion, but my strong point was good gas consumption from the get go.

The one thing I would worry about, though, with a SAC rate as low as you describe, as early in your career as you are, is whether you have picked up the habit of skip-breathing. Skip breathing is where you have long pauses between your inhale and exhale phases of your breathing cycle. By pausing for long periods, you diminish the total volume you breathe in a minute, but at the expense of accumulating carbon dioxide. Some of us are very tolerant of this (and that has been documented by formal study) when we are underwater.

The next time you dive, spend a few moments studying your breathing pattern. You should not be pausing for more than a couple of heartbeats between the end of your inhale and the beginning of your exhale. If you find yourself pausing longer than that, spend some time consciously trying to correct it. Allowing CO2 buildup is not only a recipe for a post-dive headache, it also puts you on the edge of anxiety if anything else goes wrong on the dive.

TSandM - hmmmm - never heard of this but will DEFINiTELY read more on this and also focus in on this next time to determine if I'm doing this. That would not be a good sitch. Thanks much!