Negative buoyancy, learning to swim?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Find a Total Immersion swim coach and take a few lessons. It will change your life.

Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly in 10 Days and You Can Too | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
Again it's all about being comfortable using a more efficient Freestyle/Crawl Technique for the novice swimmer --endurance & distance will come in time:
Forget about workouts and focus on “practice.” You are training your nervous system to perform counter-intuitive movements well, not training your aerobic system. If you feel strained, you’re not using the proper technique. Stop and review rather than persist through the pain and develop bad habits.

Keep yourself horizontal by keeping your head in line with your spine — you should be looking straight down. . .
think of swimming freestyle as swimming on alternating sides, not on your stomach. From the TI Wikipedia page:

“Actively streamline” the body throughout the stroke cycle through a focus on rhythmically alternating “streamlined right side” and “streamlined left side” positions and consciously keeping the bodyline longer and sleeker than is typical for human swimmers.


For those who have rock climbed or done bouldering, it’s just like moving your hip closer to a wall to get more extension. To test this: stand chest to a wall and reach as high as you can with your right arm. Then turn your right hip so it’s touching the wall and reach again with your right arm: you’ll gain 3-6″. Lengthen your vessel and you travel further on each stroke. It adds up fast.

Stretch your extended arm and turn your body (not just your head) to breathe.
Some triathletes will even turn almost to their backs and face skyward to avoid short gasps and oxygen debt (tip from Dave Scott, 6-time Ironman world champion).


Penetrate the water with your fingers angled down and fully extend your arm well beneath your head. Extend it lower and further than you think you should.
This downward water pressure on the arms will bring your legs up and decrease drag. It will almost feel like you’re swimming downhill. . .

To propel yourself forward with the least effort, focus on shoulder roll and keeping your body horizontal (least resistance), not pulling with your arms or kicking with your legs. This is counter-intuitive but important, as kicking harder is the most universal [but least helpful] suggestion for fixing swimming issues.

Focus on increasing stroke length (SL) instead of stroke rate (SR). Attempt to glide further on each downstroke and decrease the number of strokes per lap.

--Abridged from: Total Immersion: How I Learned to Swim Effortlessly In 10 Days And So Can You.


 
So, as you might surmise, I am not in total agreement with Seymour Fisch. You CAN pass the basic Open Water course and get the OW certification even if you are only a mediocre swimmer who can flail his way across the pool. But I believe learning to swim in the traditional manner CAN help one become that much more confident and safe as a diver. You may not NEED to learn to swim properly now, but in hindsight I wish I had done it before my original OW course and not waited until I was facing more advanced training. I don't think you will regret it if you get some lessons.

I agree! I'm not in total agreement with myself, either. :d I'd love to be a better swimmer, and this thread has inspired me to look up a local, Total-Immersion-Inspired swim coach, and I'm going to try to make time in my schedule for lessons some time in the next few months. And all the technical tips people are sharing (re: relaxation, balance, streamlining, etc.) are absolute gold. Thanks!

I just didn't want the OP or other beginners to feel as if they have to become super swimmers before they can start scuba.


John, I doubt there would be any liklihood of a scuba diver having to swim for hours without mask, fins and snorkel. .or tank....
The issue I am raising, is that almost every weak swimmer I have ever met, that tried to learn scuba diving, found themselves in an alien environment that kept them too nervous and uncomfortable, for them to learn scuba well.
...
Most non-swimmers are very close to panic when placed in the water with a scuba tank on...Poor swimmers are similar, their weakness at swimming still has them in near panic--they are NOT in control of their environment. The water does not make sense to them, their arms and legs do not do what they want from them....and they will be focused heavily on this feeling of near helplessness.
...

I feel a bit silly questioning Dan, given my lack of experience, but is it really that bad?!? Are there really so few people who love diving, despite being weak swimmers? (Indeed, as I mentioned, partly I love scuba because it compensates for my weak swimming. If I could freedive as well as I see a bunch of you in your videos, I might never have bothered with the time and expense of scuba.) Once this thread got going, all these elite swimmers jumped in, and it was 40 posts before MinimalMayhem was the only person besides me and the OP who admitted to being a weak swimmer.

Put me in a situation where I need to swim for a couple hours without any aids of any kind, and I'll likely drown. But give me a wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins, (and maybe some whalesharks to watch, and a boat to pick me up when I'm done), and I'm perfectly happy in deep water, miles from the nearest land. Give me a full tank, a working regulator, and a BCD, and I don't think I'm panicking or in bad trim:
DSC9243.JPG


Granted, this makes me a gear-dependent diver, so I am less comfortable and less safe than someone who knows he can swim miles to shore, in rough water, against a current, towing his injured buddy, etc. It's great to have the advantage of being a strong swimmer. But is not being a strong swimmer really a show-stopper for most people who want to learn to dive?

Anyone else following the thread who isn't a strong swimmer?
 
. . .
I just didn't want the OP or other beginners to feel as if they have to become super swimmers before they can start scuba. . . .

I didn't read anyone's comments as implying that.
 
But is not being a strong swimmer really a show-stopper for most people who want to learn to dive?

We had 2 students in my OW class who couldn't pass the float test. As in one could float for as long as she held her breath, then she'd grab the wall and breathe. The other would let go of the wall, start beating and flailing a few seconds later and then grab the wall again. That was on the 2nd pool day, the first one was an intro dive and they were swimming around underwater as happily as everybody else. So no, you can dive just fine while unable to swim at all.

I once towed a friend's kid out of the ocean: she swam out further than she was comfortable with and was beginning to panic. (I was on the way out and passed close enough to see the look in her eyes.) I let her get on my back figuring she's small enough: 10 maybe, I forget. The way she grabbed my neck was really uncomfortable: I was right in that she was too small to choke me, but she turned out to be much stronger than I expected and got surprisingly close.

The point of the story is, if you can't swim I don't want you for a buddy. Because if the fecal matter hits the air displacement device, there is a very real chance you'll kill me. Because you can't swim.
 
We had 2 students in my OW class who couldn't pass the float test. As in one could float for as long as she held her breath, then she'd grab the wall and breathe. The other would let go of the wall, start beating and flailing a few seconds later and then grab the wall again. That was on the 2nd pool day, the first one was an intro dive and they were swimming around underwater as happily as everybody else. So no, you can dive just fine while unable to swim at all.

I once towed a friend's kid out of the ocean: she swam out further than she was comfortable with and was beginning to panic. (I was on the way out and passed close enough to see the look in her eyes.) I let her get on my back figuring she's small enough: 10 maybe, I forget. The way she grabbed my neck was really uncomfortable: I was right in that she was too small to choke me, but she turned out to be much stronger than I expected and got surprisingly close.

The point of the story is, if you can't swim I don't want you for a buddy. Because if the fecal matter hits the air displacement device, there is a very real chance you'll kill me. Because you can't swim.

Re the float-- It is curious why the student wasn't able to kick/skull enough to be able to grab another breath and continue without grabbing the side. But I have seen this situation as well.

Nice job on the rescue, but of course this is a swimming situation, not a scuba one. Still, I tend to agree in not wanting a non swimmer for a buddy (if you have a choice--for my first 75 dives or so my regular buddy basically couldn't swim. He was the only available buddy in my area at the time). When doing my one or two FL boat dives yearly I don't even think to ask an instabuddy if they can swim.

Seymour Fisch points out the vast difference between swimming and using fins. How successful would one be towing an unconscious (or conscious) diver (or swimmer without any scuba equipment even) for hundreds of yards if one wasn't wearing fins? I know in certain situations lifeguards go finless, but I would guess it is for very short distances.
As far as being a strong swimmer, I don't know if I would be considered one. I scored a "3" out of 5 on the DM swim test, so I guess that means I'm good enough. I'm not gunna join my brothers on their 2 mile ocean competitive swims, so relative to them I am nowhere near a strong swimmer.
 
Last edited:
I have never been a good swimmer. When I got my SSI open water we did not have to swim at all, just bob around in the water for a few minutes without drowning.

I took swim lessons several times but never got better. The only thing I learned was to kick very very hard to keep my feet from sinking.

Then I heard about Total Immersion swimming and took five private lessons. Now I feel like I can swim instead of just splashing around. Part of Total Immersion is about correct body position so your feet don't sink. They call it "fishlike swimming" instead of "people like swimming".
 
The Total Immersion (TI) Swim Technique looks like a nice cross between the crawl, side-stroke, and drown-proofing. The glide of the side stroke provides a rest period between strokes. Although TI resembles the crawl, it substitutes the most energy-inefficient aspect that favors speed for more efficient traits that favor endurance. Endurance is exactly what is important to a diver’s confidence. Basically you worry very little about drowning and therefore are less likely to panic when things go sideways… like losing a fin, a failed BC, your boat sinking, getting swept away by currents, or someone forgetting you at sea.

One of the things that I always point out to people learning to swim, especially sinkers, is the head is the most dense part of the body. Therefore it requires the most work to keep above water. You only need enough of your head above water to catch a breath now and then. That means mouth and nose only above water, not the eyes, forehead, and most of the skull. The more of your body that remains underwater, the less energy you have to waste generating upward force. As with TI, being entirely underwater (by a few inches) except when actually snatching a breath wastes the least amount of energy.

Flutter kicking without fins is also very inefficient. A long single kick with a glide is more efficient whether it is a true frog (horizontal) or long power flutter (vertical). Feet breaking the surface is really wasteful with or without fins. “Most” people do better with a single long flutter than a frog kick because of muscle development from walking and running. A frog kick requires different and less used muscles.

---------- Post added October 31st, 2015 at 02:14 PM ----------

… You may not NEED to learn to swim properly now, but in hindsight I wish I had done it before my original OW course and not waited until I was facing more advanced training...

Agreeing and emphasizing your point: You don’t NEED to learn air sharing, how to do a CESA, buddy skills, how to plan a dive, or be able to swim in order to Scuba dive… until something goes wrong. A good part of what is taught in dive classes at all levels is how to handle things going wrong.

When it comes right down to it, clearing your mask and breathing (exhaling) on ascent is all you really NEED to know for most recreational diving in warm water. The bulk of everything else is what you should know when things go badly and how to reduce the likelihood of things going badly.

The great majority of the cumulative knowledge presented in diving classes at all levels resulted from accidents that scared the hell out of, injured, or killed someone. Thanks to all the pioneers the preceded me, living or not.
 
Last edited:
This thread has prompted me to take formal swimming lessons. :D Even though I'm a pretty good swimmer now, I want to be a better one!
 
. . .

Agreeing and emphasizing your point: You don’t NEED to learn air sharing, how to do a CESA, buddy skills, how to plan a dive, or be able to swim in order to Scuba dive… until something goes wrong. A good part of what is taught in dive classes at all levels is how to handle things going wrong.

When it comes right down to it, clearing your mask and breathing (exhaling) on ascent is all you really NEED to know for most recreational diving in warm water. The bulk of everything else is what you should know when things go badly and how to reduce the likelihood of things going badly.

Well, then you don't QUITE agree with what I was trying to say. I would not rank being a good swimmer quite as high as "air sharing, how to do a CESA, buddy skills, how to plan a dive" on the scale of the likelihood of skills preventing or mitigating things going badly. I mean, one is fairly likely to see things go badly if good buddy skills are not applied. It won't take long in one's diving career to see that one cause a problem. Air sharing might be lower on the list, and a CESA even lower. I dunno about ranking these other skills, but I do believe I would not rank being a good swimmer quite as highly as these others. As I said, a person can tow a tired/injured diver to shore without being a good swimmer--having learned to do a perfect Crawl or Breaststroke isn't going to help you--and situations in which one really needs to SWIM in order to mitigate a problem are very unlikely for most of us to ever encounter. But I believe learning to swim properly might help a diver improve in more subtle ways, and so I am an advocate of it.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom