Any tips for better air consumption/regulation?

[Johanan]

Many insightful contributions, indeed. Just wanted to ask how much impact on the air consumption would have the quality of the equipment, the fins, for instance? I normally use Hollis F1 fins which are great but heavy for traveling. Will a pair of cheap rental fins significantly increase my air consumption?

 

[TSandM]

Fins will only increase your gas consumption if they render you inefficient -- in other words, if you have to work harder to get the same thing done. If the rental fins are reasonable, they shouldn't impact your consumption. If they don't fit, or they don't work for your kicking style, they may.

 

[fnfalman]

A lot of wasted energy in finning is the fit between your feet and your fin pockets. If your feet are moving a lot inside the fin pockets, then you've wasted a lot of energy in your kick already.

Next up is fin's mechanical performance: Do a certain types of fins (I'm not even talking split fins versus solid fins) perform better than others? Do the Hollis F1 truly perform better than the Dive Rite or Scubapro Supernova? I don't have a good answer for that question.

However, from what I know of diving (and that's not much), fin's performance is the least that one would have to worry about as far as energy saving goes unless you decide to swim a lot. Otherwise, they don't mean much.

If you are not overweighted, if you know how to control buoyancy well, if you know how to properly execute fin kicks (split fins require different kicking techniques than solid fins), if you keep yourself streamlined, if you don't fight against the surge or currents, if your gears fit you well instead of making you uncomfortable and out of balance, if your body trim is horizontal instead of vertical or diagonal...solve all these things and you'd have saved plenty of wasted energy and gas consumption.

 

[pnyxtr]

I'm a relatively big person, (in the volume sense, I'm only 5'10", but I'm what they call barrel-chested), and also quite new at diving (40 dives so far).

I have to say that if I want to keep up with the people I tend to get paired with, who have many hundreds or even thousands of dives, a 15l (or 100cfm, I guess) is the way to go. If you are like me, you also use less air the less you have to worry about running out. Fun, that, the bigger the tank you get, the less air you use.

 

[Oldbear]

I use to be an Air Hog also.

I was discussing this with a co-worker who was in the U.S. Navy. To help their divers lower air consumption a trick they used was to have the diver (diver candidate) wear his mask and snorkel in the day room watching TV. This helps acclimate the diver to the new breathing style.

For an entire TV season, I would watch the new Hawaii Five-O with my mask on and breathing thru the snorkel. On my next diving vacation my air consumption was about 30% lower. I cannot explain all of the science or physiology behind this tip...but it worked for me.

 

[Soakedlontra]

It's more than just exercising the lung and the metabolism. It's about achieving a zen state of mind. If you can swim across the bottom of an olympic swimming pool with one breath and not freaking out...it's cool. I used to feel a bit apprehensive whenever I went into the water without scuba gear on. Now, it doesn't matter. SCUBA gear means just that I can stay down longer because I know that I can survive just fine on one breath of air.

I guess you are right. Somehow your brain makes you believe that you cannot make it but if you relax and focus more on the positive rather than the negative it is amazing how things go into place. By the way I am not so fit that I can swim underwater the length of an olympic swimming pool! I believe that the one I go to it's only 25 meters long.

---------- Post added January 18th, 2013 at 03:18 PM ----------

Many insightful contributions, indeed. Just wanted to ask how much impact on the air consumption would have the quality of the equipment, the fins, for instance? I normally use Hollis F1 fins which are great but heavy for traveling. Will a pair of cheap rental fins significantly increase my air consumption?

In my case more than the type of fins what increases my air consumption is the way I use them. The same applies to my hand, as somebody else mentioned earlier.

Somehow, sometimes, even if I don't want to, I find myself kicking constantly (my buddy tells me all about it after the dive is over) and I don't realize it. It's so easy to forget where your feet are going when you are horizontal, after all we evolved to keep our body vertical. Another factor that makes me kick more is the position of the tank on my back. When the tank is unbalanced and pulls me either backward or forward I would try to compensate by kicking constantly.

As for my hands, I used to move them all over the place. I like to think that I don't do it so much anymore. To begin with I had to make an effort to focus on my hands, like I have to do for my feet still, and now it's not so much hard work to keep them still.

 

[Doomnova]

Another thing to consider is general fitness. A person who is more fit in regards to their cardio system will use less air in most cases of exerting effort in swimming during a dive as their body uses the air you breath more efficiently than others who are not as fit. Someone mentioned before in this thread they got better air consumption after swimming a few times a week and thats what I'm starting to do next week even though I have decent air consumption (about sac of 0.5-0.6) depending on the specifics of the dive. ie Buddies wanting to swim a marathon I have a rule when I'm leading a group of friends the slowest person is beside me the behind them and I go at their speed. There no reason to rush a dive because you see less.

So pretty much what I can day has been said thought
1) dive more. makes you more comfortable
2) slow down and don't rush the dive if your buddies are speeding around tell them slow down because odds are they are not seeing everything these is to see.
3) bike/swim a bit every day. I bike to university every day which works out to about 20min of biking full bore every day as well as next week I'm going to start swimming during the days I'm done in the afternoons for about 30 min. Both of these together or just one or the other will get your cardio system upto speed. Which means when you have to work during a dive your body will be less likely to aerobic respiration and that is when your air comsumption shoots through the roof and once it does it can take a few min to switch back to anerobic respiration
4) stay warm during the dive if you start getting cold your body starts making heat via fat bruning and or muscle twitching (even if it doesn't go into hypothermic shakes just very minor ones you wouldn't even notice) which again eat more air.

 

[TSandM]

As for my hands, I used to move them all over the place. I like to think that I don't do it so much anymore.

I didn't notice any errant hand movement at all on Sunday -- of course, holding the camera helps break that habit! And you can get rid of the constant kicking if you play around with where you have your weights until you can balance without the tank pulling you anywhere you don't want to go. I use 4 lbs on my cambands to balance out my 100s.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Fins will only increase your gas consumption if they render you inefficient -- in other words, if you have to work harder to get the same thing done. If the rental fins are reasonable, they shouldn't impact your consumption. If they don't fit, or they don't work for your kicking style, they may.

My experience is similar. If you are gonna float around and drift with the current or not move much, the type of fins won't make a big difference. However, if you are going to be fighting a current, say when diving from an anchored boat or trying to chase after a fast moving turtle or ray for a photograph..cheap, inefficient fins could be terribly detrimental to your air consumption (if you allow yourself to become exerted).

I use large freedive fins for 99% of my scuba diving. Not because they are "fast" but because they are EFFICIENT! They push me at a steady pace with little exertion at a pace that would cause me to get terribly out of breath with Scuba Pro jet fins for example. I use them for the same reason freedivers use them... they are better for swimmng underwater.

If the diver is new, the topics that TSM listed in her first post are where the real benefits will be attained.. Conditioning is obviously good, and useful, but good fins can make a difference if you are doing any real swimming or cruising. Of course, a dive scooter may work wonders for your air consumption too.

 

[pnyxtr]

This thing with fitness is a bit of the old "PADI is full of people who want to punish people who don't explicetly excercise" deal. Personally, most of the people I know who use very little air are very very accomplished divers. And can't run even 1km on land worth a damn.