Breathing

[twistypencil]

I'm trying to improve my air consumption. I'm always the air hog and the dive ends because of me. I usually do breathe from my diaphragm and I try to slow things down as much as I can, but I was reading recently some tips and ran across this aritcle on scubadiving.com which says:

• Pause after inhaling. Use your diaphragm to hold air in your lungs a few extra seconds while keeping your throat open. This allows even more time for gas exchange. Your breathing pattern should be: Exhale, inhale, pause. Exhale, inhale, pause.
  Note: Every time we describe this breathing pattern, someone writes us, "Isn't this skip breathing?" It's not. Skip breathing involves holding your breath by closing your epiglottis (like when you grunt) and holding it for much longer. Closing your throat creates a closed air space that is vulnerable to embolism if you ascend. Keeping your throat open avoids that risk. Besides, skip breathing doesn't work. Holding your breath too long means retaining too much carbon dioxide, triggering the urge to breathe sooner than necessary and resulting in rapid shallow breathing. The net result: You use more air by skip breathing, not less.

The most important thing I was taught was that I should *never* hold my breath, but this is basically telling me that I should "pause" for a few seconds (three?) before exhaling, which seems to me to basically be holding my breath. This would certainly slow down my breathing, because I was trying to keep a constant circular flow going, and just try and slow down the exhale and inhale parts by doing it as slowly as I could.

Do other people do this? Is this why I'm always dragging people back to the surface when they still have twice the air left as I do? Do you have other tips?

 

[dmaziuk]

Well, strictly speaking it's don't close off that little valve in your throat. Holding your breath while keeping that open is not something people normally do, and it takes some practice. Which is above and beyond the basic OW curriculum.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Your air/gas consumption is affected by a number of things. How you breath, fitness level, state of mind (relaxed or nervous), trim (how streamlined your gear set up is and your body position in the water), weighting, kick style. Breathing deep and slow will affect your buoyancy in shallow water. Might want to breath more normal breaths in shallow water. If you are not in trim as you swim you will work harder to move forward. When you slow down you will begin to sink - natural reaction is to become more vertical and fin kick - or stay horizontal and add some air/gas to your wing. Then you begin swimming again and your too buoyant so you dump air/gas. Adding to your consumption. Most divers I have seen swim a bit head up - unless they are specifically trained to be horizontal (technical - wreck - cave). Scrutinize how you dive. You might find more ways to improve you consumption.

 

[Landau]

Easiest way to improve air consumption is to wiggle, skull, fidget and just in general move less. Watch divers with great air consumption - they tend to move very little.

Also good buoyancy helps - adding a little air to your BCD takes way less air than kicking and sculling to stay at your desired level in the water.

 

[flyboy08]

Exhale completely and slowly....start there.

 

[twistypencil]

Exhale completely and slowly....start there.

Believe me, I'm doing that. I try to exhale as slowly as possible and do it until i'm sputtering out the last bubble of air and I cannot push out anymore.

 

[flyboy08]

Believe me, I'm doing that. I try to exhale as slowly as possible and do it until i'm sputtering out the last bubble of air and I cannot push out anymore.

I have a 48" chest so I need lots of air to fill these lungs....I try to get larger tanks when able and this makes all the difference in the world....out of mind, I'm very relaxed! I'm lucky to get an hour at 70-30 feet out of an 80!

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Believe me, I'm doing that. I try to exhale as slowly as possible and do it until i'm sputtering out the last bubble of air and I cannot push out anymore.

Don't do that. You need to relax and breath. Not try and exhaust all the air out of your lungs. Look at your trim. Look at your weighting. Look at your kick style. Learn to frog kick. When I frog kick in still water (no current) about 1/3 of my forward motion comes from my kick and 2/3 of my forward motion comes from coasting. That means my legs (the largest muscle in you body) is relaxed for 2/3 of my dive. Muscles need oxygen. The more you are relaxed the less air/gas you will use.

 

[scubadada]

I've been diving for 48 years. I take a relatively slow, deep breath in, pause for a short period, exhale slowly and immediately take another slow breath in. This is quite different from the way you breathe on land with a breath in, an immediate exhale, and a slight pause before inhale. Along with good buoyancy, trim, and decreased exertion, this will result in an acceptable RMV. My average RMV over the last more than 1000 dives is 0.36 cf/min. 95 % of my dives are between O.28 and 0.44 cf/min. Dive, relax, practice relaxed breathing. If you do not already follow your RMV, you may want to try it, it will give you feedback about what you are doing.

Yes, I predominantly frog kick also

 

[RyanT]

At some point, your gas consumption will be what it is for your own metabolic needs. If you need to take a breath, take a breath. Don't get too caught up in trying to pause. The big things that will bring your consumption down are: 1) being relaxed, 2) not being overweighted, and 3) having good buoyancy/trim. Once you achieve those things, your gas consumption will reach a nice rock bottom for you. Of course anytime your kick hard into a current, your gas consumption will rise. If your encounter current, figure out how to get out of it (hide behind wreck, pull yourself instead of kicking, etc.). Anytime you kick hard, your gas consumption will rise rapidly.