Breathing techniques for low air consumption

[NoVaScuba]

No one reads this stuff, right?

Oops! Sorry!

Nope, no one at all (384 views).

Know any ways to slow down a teenager that don't involve physical damage?

Saying "Slow down" sure doesn't work.

 

[Hoomi]

Nope, no one at all (384 views).

Know any ways to slow down a teenager that don't involve physical damage?

Saying "Slow down" sure doesn't work.

Tie a sea anchor to her BC?

 

[nepolean77]

slow deep breathing and most importantly for beginners is to keep calm as a little anxiety can use up a lot of air,relax and enjoy.

 

[Thalassamania]

Get your trim and buoyancy right, streamline yourself and your rig, frogkick or use a gentle dolphin kick, relax. If that doesn't let you stay down long enough, dive doubles or get a larger tank. Playing with your breathing is just going to give you a bad headache at best and can lead to oxtox at worst (under certain conditions). I actually work to keep my SAC up above 0.5 ... I feel best between 0.60 and 0.75.

 

[Tigerman]

Since my 16 yr old daughter is getting irritated that her old man is cutting short her dives, it's hard to relax and not worry about it. She also tends to swim faster so I have to keep up. I've considered larger tanks but I won't be able to get them when I travel so that's not much help.

I'm in good shape and work out 5 times a week and have no problem riding my bike 12 miles to work on occasion but I've found that swimming (crawl) tends to wear me out. Also, finning requires a different set of muscles. I found that the public pools will allow lap swimming with mask, snorkel and fins. So I'm going to get a set of training fins (required by the pool) and add some laps a couple of times a week to build up muscles and endurance that are more directly related to diving.

Relaxing in the water is something that will only come with more dives. Working on that.

Well, thats one of those "im a man" things..
A small woman will pretty much always use less air than a big man, or even a same sized man (a big man as in men are generally larger than women). Thats us getting the shaft for.. having the shaft?

 

[BettyRubble]

Nope, no one at all (384 views).

Know any ways to slow down a teenager that don't involve physical damage?

Saying "Slow down" sure doesn't work.

Tell her to 'man up' and breathe fast . . .

 

[mkutyna]

Nope, no one at all (384 views).

Know any ways to slow down a teenager that don't involve physical damage?

Saying "Slow down" sure doesn't work.

How about saying "Slow down or you're not going on the next dive because you're constantly putting yourself and your buddy in danger by leaving them behind and you're also missing all of the small things to look at in the water." Another tactic is to swim nice and slow, find the really cool small aquatic life to look at and then brag about all the stuff that you saw while she was off to the races.

As for air consumption, I've found that if I try to concentrate on my breathing to reduce air consumption, I just get the feeling of air starvation. I try to think about air consumption as little as possible unless I'm in a high stress situation in which case I only try to reduce the stress to get my breathing under control.

 

[TSandM]

an Al 80 holds enough air for dives beyond 40' reaching the NDL

rstofer, this already says that your gas consumption is far better than that of the divers who find themselves motivated to ask the OP's question.

It's hard to believe how fast beginners go through gas . . . I did a dive with a new diver last summer where we never got deeper than 20', and an LP95 lasted about 25 minutes!

 

[lowviz]

I actually work to keep my SAC up above 0.5 ... I feel best between 0.60 and 0.75.

Don't let this gem go by without notice.

 

[NoVaScuba]

As for air consumption, I've found that if I try to concentrate on my breathing to reduce air consumption, I just get the feeling of air starvation.

I noticed that too. I tried some of the techniques here on the first couple of dives and decided not to try them again until I'm more comfortable. Right now, when I think about breathing it's mostly for buoyancy control and hovering.

Gear is pretty about as streamlined streamlined as it can get, no danglies. Even my camera tends to ride close to my chest. My horizontal trim feels OK but I probably need to dive with an experienced diver who can give me some feedback on that and my kick. Dolphin and frog kick are on my list too but they'll take a bit of practice.