Dropping Weight

[jw2013]

I'm currently diving with a 7mm full and a 7mm shorty, steel tank and carrying 12kg in fresh water. I keep hearing people say as I gain experience, I'll lose some weight and dive with less. How?


Am I misunderstanding this weight thing? If I cannot sink without 12kg of weight, surely I *need* this weight? If I drop some and dive with less, I'll be fighting to get down and my buoyancy toward the end of the dive (in shallow water) will be harder to manage? People saying this are in Dry-suits, so surely they'll need less weight anyway... when compared to 14mm of neoprene?


Apologies if this is a stupid question - but I'm trying to understand how best to lose the weight and dive with less.

 

[Akimbo]

“Most” new divers are over-weighted, mostly because instructors don’t take the time to help students determine optimum weight. So what is optimum weight? My definition is to be neutrally buoyant with, a lung filled to about mid-inhalation level, a nearly empty tank (~300 PSI/20 Bar), and at your shallowest stop (10'/3M).

 

[decompression]

The reason people say you can lose weight as you gain expirience is 99% of divers were not trained on a balanced rig and the instructor simply added a bunch of lead to overcome buoyancy skills that weren't taught. There is no magic in a balanced rig. Simple math, and once it is understood the odds are great that you will decrease the weight you currently have. Simply;
Add weight of neg equip-
Tank, regs, backplate, weights etc (gas)
Add pos items-
14 mm of neoprene
Ensure that you have just enough neg vs pos (your BCD will account for the use of your gas). That let's you be neutral throughout that dive. When that calculation is done, the odds are that you are currently overweighted.


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[fnfalman]

I'm currently diving with a 7mm full and a 7mm shorty, steel tank and carrying 12kg in fresh water. I keep hearing people say as I gain experience, I'll lose some weight and dive with less. How?


Am I misunderstanding this weight thing? If I cannot sink without 12kg of weight, surely I *need* this weight? If I drop some and dive with less, I'll be fighting to get down and my buoyancy toward the end of the dive (in shallow water) will be harder to manage? People saying this are in Dry-suits, so surely they'll need less weight anyway... when compared to 14mm of neoprene?


Apologies if this is a stupid question - but I'm trying to understand how best to lose the weight and dive with less.

New divers tend to be overweighted by their instructor to ensure that they'd sink despite their struggles or automatic water treading, or not knowing how to fully vent a BC.

When divers start to get better, they don't struggle and tread water. They know how to make sure that air gets vented from their BCs. That's how they'd drop the weights.

Better equipment configuration as well.

 

[dbulmer]

JW,

When you start diving, most divers and most definitely myself, are never that relaxed in the water. This manifests itself in many ways but the start of the dive is often where you see it most.

On a descent many divers fail to raise the BC inflator to the highest point and simultaneously are also subsconsciously moving their feet in an action which resembles an upward finning motion. You're not sinking so then you change your breathing action and that makes it worse - then you have ears to clear while you are doing this.

You'll start losing weight when you get to the point where your breathing is nice and relaxed (both undewater and on the surface - take your time and relax), ear clearing is no longer something you think about and you descend at a fast rate.

Correct weighting is important of course but until you relax a wee bit and put a bit of practice in just diving it's not something you should worry about.

Go diving mate and enjoy the experience

 

[TSandM]

One of the big reasons people pack on weight when they are new is that they can't descend without it. This is due to a number of things: One, they are nervous, and holding a lot of air in their lungs. Two, they are unstable and kicking, and kicking with your feet below you pushes you upward. Three, they can't exhale and hold it, because they haven't developed a relaxed breathing pattern. As those things resolve, the diver needs less weight for the initial descent.

The second problem is that many newer divers don't swim in a horizontal position. If you are swimming with your feet below you, you are constantly moving up in the water column. The only way you can avoid rising is to be negative. At the end of the dive, when, if you are properly weighted, you are approaching neutral, you can't afford that upward push, so divers think they need a lot of weight to avoid unplanned ascents -- and they do, but it's because they are deliberately ascending without being aware of it.

As these technique issues get solved, weight is no longer necessary.

 

[Akimbo]

One of the big reasons people pack on weight when they are new is that they can't descend without it. This is due to a number of things: One, they are nervous, and holding a lot of air in their lungs….

This one makes sense at the end of the dive, but not at the start when there is 5-6 Lbs (weight, not PSI) of air in their tank. From what little I have observed, divers aren’t taught to swim down anymore. They use their BC as an elevator and just pushing the buttons. Being neutral doesn’t work for them. I always jack-knife at the surface in Scuba and swim head-down, even in a dry suit.

Several instructors I have spoken with admit to over weighting students for their convenience. They just don’t have the time and it shows in the students.

 

[FM1520]

At the end of my advanced class (REC 2) with UTD, I dropped 4 pounds off my rig. Getting your trim just right makes a big difference.

 

[Akimbo]

At the end of my advanced class (REC 2) with UTD, I dropped 4 pounds off my rig. Getting your trim just right makes a big difference.

Just curious. How do they define optimal buoyancy in your class? Did you actually dump air and check for neutral buoyancy at your shallowest stop?

 

[TMHeimer]

Dropping weight can be curious. Doing weight checks with students in wetsuits at early/late times of the year here means a very QUICK weight check for each student--perhaps none if the student can decsend OK in water you can stand in. Maybe that's what happened to me. Then I took the Peak Perf. Buoyancy course. The instructor was amazed I needed so much weight in fresh water with just the top to my farmer john (didn't need the bottom-water temp. 68F). Anyway, we of course also worked on trim a bit. So, for a while after that I was usuing 41 lbs. with the full farmer john and AL80 tank. I did then move 4 additional pounds off the belt into the shoulder pockets--this helped straighten me out regarding my very negative legs. After that at some point I tried 39 lbs. and that was OK. So, in 9 years I've dropped 2 pounds. Not much. I have heard of people dropping way more--perhaps they were way overweighted to begin with. Better breathing and better diving in general never really made sense to me. A weight check is a weight check. I probably dropped the 2 pounds because of the trim change. I don't think my general breathing/swimming has changed since the start. Maybe if I did something better I could drop 10 pounds? Still don't know how better skills would affect a weight check.