Best Breathing technique

[Zef]

This.

The human body needs a certain amount of oxygen to survive. The only way to reduce the amount of air you need is to reduce the amount of oxygen your body needs. Less movement, more efficient movement, relax and stay calm. Proper weighting means you use less air to maintain your buoyancy. Better trim means less energy to move through the water.

All those methods people use to control their breathing are just gimmicks. The more time you waste counting your breath in & out, the more time you waste that you could be using to actually enjoy your dive.

Yes and no.

Yes the human body needs a certain amount of oxygen to survive.

No, regarding reducing the amount of oxygen your body needs as a way to reduce the amount of air.

The reality is that there is plenty of oxygen in our exhalate. If the amount of O2 was an issue we would not exhale as often and as much as we do. The signal to breath does not come from O2, it comes from CO2. It is the buildup of CO2 in our blood that causes the body/brain to exhale. CO2 is acidic and our body is very sensitive to PH changes/balance in the blood and our tissues. As CO2 levels in the blood rise, the PH level rises as well. This effectively causes an alarm in the brain/nervous system to be set off which triggers the body to exhale. IF CO2 builds, due to breath holding, the nervous system signal becomes stronger. Our breathing function is normally a parasympathetic function basically meaning that we do not need conscious control of it....but we have the ability to have sympathetic control of it and resist the urge to exhale/inhale or voluntarily contract muscles to assist the process.

The above is a bit of an oversimplification so as not go full anatomy/physiology nerd.

The reality though, to improve one's air consumption, one needs to breath less often....to breath less often one needs to reduce their metabolic demand. Increasing metabolic rate increases the amount of CO2 produced by the body causing the body the need to get rid of the CO2.

How to do this (not an inclusive list)
1. Improve fitness level - the better one's cardiovascular fitness is the more efficient the body becomes metabolically. This means that O2 is used more efficiently and less waste product (CO2) for a given metabolic rate.

2. Work on relaxing in the water - stress typically has an effect on increasing metabolism which means higher production of CO2. By allowing yourself to mentally and physically relax in the water your metabolic rate can decrease which equates to less demand for O2 and less production of CO2.

3. Become more efficient - excess and/or inefficient movement increases the metabolic rate which can cause the production of CO2...becoming more efficient in the water by minimizing movement and moving more smoothly and efficiently can reduce metabolic demand and thus reduce CO2 production.

So the bottom line is not about affecting the amount of air we are breathing in but instead affecting how often we need to breath out.

-Z

 

[loosenit2]

an odd question for you, do you have a venturi valve or ease of breathing adjustment on your 2nd stage? When I forget to move my venturi valve from pre-dive to dive or do not have the ease of breathing set to easier I have a SAC in the 25/27psi/min range, otherwise my sac is in the 16-17 psi/min range.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Just breath when you need to breath. If you try to “do” something you’re going to use more gas. The real trick is to work on needing to breath less. Be neutral, efficient, in trim, and still.

I weigh over 130kg or 285 plus pounds.... I'm 58 and old and some say fat, I say I have natural neoprene so don't get cold on dives when my dive buddies do lol

There are breathing techniques but the OP really only has a limited number of dives. 68. He just needs to do more diving without leading dive groups and dive with more experienced divers. A bigger tank is not the solution as they are heavier and some people struggle more with them as they have more drag.

As for people who claim larger people always use more air this is simply not true. Too many divers chase after the marine life and swim here and there all over the place. I dive like a corpse, rarely moving and using my lungs to descend and ascend. Learn to let the water carry you instead of you carrying your gear in the water. After I finished this 20 max depth dive the people on the dive who do not know me were shocked at my air usage, or lack of it.

 

[Blackcrusader]

iam 188cm with 99kg
you mean about hp100....(use another tank?)

I am 185cm and 133kg as of today. Just turned 59. I do around 150 - 200 dives a year. You will improve more with regular diving. It's your overall diving technique and not just breathing that will make the difference. No need to go to a larger tank as they will not help your improve on becoming a better diver.

 

[Caveeagle]

Bad news is you'll never be as efficient as a 60kg diver simply due to your size, I'm about your size and it infuriates me when my 5'5" 60kg students use almost the same amount of air i do but you just have to live with it. But good news give it time you'll get better.

Simply not true! Sure size and fitness generally helps, but there is so much more to this, and I know several larger divers with almost super-human SAC / RMV. Rates.

I am 6’2 and 275# and was recently on a dive where there were a couple young military dudes in our group. Neither of them were inexperienced divers, but I could see their propulsion techniques were a bit lacking, and they seemed to be in a constant conflict with current and surge. Also they were darting around “chasing” fish with a GoPro.

The divemaster turned our dive as these guys hit their turn pressure. When he saw how much gas me and my daughter had, he invited us to wait on the anchor line. He came back and joined us for another ~20 minutes of diving.

 

[Kareemovitch]

an odd question for you, do you have a venturi valve or ease of breathing adjustment on your 2nd stage? When I forget to move my venturi valve from pre-dive to dive or do not have the ease of breathing set to easier I have a SAC in the 25/27psi/min range, otherwise my sac is in the 16-17 psi/min range.

i ahve mares abyss 52x navy..it doesn't has valve...its auto balanced

 

[ofg-1]

Best breathing technique? Come on guys, its just like sex. In, Out, Repeat as needed.

 

[hroark2112]

Yes and no.

Yes the human body needs a certain amount of oxygen to survive.

No, regarding reducing the amount of oxygen your body needs as a way to reduce the amount of air.

The reality is that there is plenty of oxygen in our exhalate. If the amount of O2 was an issue we would not exhale as often and as much as we do. The signal to breath does not come from O2, it comes from CO2. It is the buildup of CO2 in our blood that causes the body/brain to exhale. CO2 is acidic and our body is very sensitive to PH changes/balance in the blood and our tissues. As CO2 levels in the blood rise, the PH level rises as well. This effectively causes an alarm in the brain/nervous system to be set off which triggers the body to exhale. IF CO2 builds, due to breath holding, the nervous system signal becomes stronger. Our breathing function is normally a parasympathetic function basically meaning that we do not need conscious control of it....but we have the ability to have sympathetic control of it and resist the urge to exhale/inhale or voluntarily contract muscles to assist the process.

The above is a bit of an oversimplification so as not go full anatomy/physiology nerd.

The reality though, to improve one's air consumption, one needs to breath less often....to breath less often one needs to reduce their metabolic demand. Increasing metabolic rate increases the amount of CO2 produced by the body causing the body the need to get rid of the CO2.

How to do this (not an inclusive list)
1. Improve fitness level - the better one's cardiovascular fitness is the more efficient the body becomes metabolically. This means that O2 is used more efficiently and less waste product (CO2) for a given metabolic rate.

2. Work on relaxing in the water - stress typically has an effect on increasing metabolism which means higher production of CO2. By allowing yourself to mentally and physically relax in the water your metabolic rate can decrease which equates to less demand for O2 and less production of CO2.

3. Become more efficient - excess and/or inefficient movement increases the metabolic rate which can cause the production of CO2...becoming more efficient in the water by minimizing movement and moving more smoothly and efficiently can reduce metabolic demand and thus reduce CO2 production.

So the bottom line is not about affecting the amount of air we are breathing in but instead affecting how often we need to breath out.

-Z

You said exactly the same thing as I did, just in a more scientific way.

 

[Zef]

OP really only has a limited number of dives. 68

A better indicator would be how much accumulated dive time the OP has. 68 x 1 hour dives is very different than 68 x 20 minute dives. Also even better would be knowing what is the breadth of experience one has gained in those 68 dives. Certs and numbers only begin to tell a story but often does not really convey anything meaningful.

-Z

 

[scubadada]

I've got no idea how I do anything underwater, it's just there it is, and then it's over
so I read your instructions up there and thought, what's this?? How do I check this

So I listened to a couple of my videos and then another dudesses and it's spot on

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Well I'm efficiently amused

I pay no attention to how I breathe underwater. When asked, I had to pay attention to my pattern, so I could respond. It was then, that I noticed it was the opposite to how we breathe on land. I've been breathing like this while diving for many, many years, it's second nature.