possible reason for weight belt?

[Max Speed]

You joke, but a friend of mine was planning on using old wheel weights in soft bags. Figured he would have unlimited access to free weight. It gets expensive!

Hmmm. Not a bad idea. A little time with a rake at the shooting range backstop works too.

If you already have all the diplomas you need and are willing to risk the fumes you can find weight molds for sale and melt all that stuff down into weight belt lumps.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

How can an ass be fat and little at the same time?


:mooner:

What a stupid stupid queestion. I have a fat ass, but it is still LITTLE in comparison to my gut. Do I need to draw a picture for ya?

 

[k ellis]

I would agree to attempt to distribute it between harness (Or weightbelt) and BCD when possible. As to the weight comment mentioned a few responses back over weighting causes a nightmare for a diver. As you dive the amount of air in your BCD compresses making your decent go faster and faster. when you begin you ascent you constantly have to monitor the expanding air to assure your not rising too fast.

 

[Ith]

How much lift does your standard, full body 5 mil wetsuit have? I'm about 5'7" and 145 lbs to give you an idea of how big it is.

 

[pmenear]

I have always weighted myself without cylinder/backplate as neutral.
I have always weighted my cylinder/backplate as neutral(adding buoyancy if needed).
I have used this method for 43years of diving and have never understand why it has never been taught.
I can remove my rig at any depth to negotiate a choke and not have to worry about sinking or floating away from my rig. I can swap rigs underwater for extended diving or decompression with ease.
I have often squeezed through wrecks and caves, depth being irrelevant.
It is an area of diving skill that the industry has largely ignored.

 

[svracing]

I was running that through my mind today. My thinking is that I set the BCD as neutral with 0 air in the bladder @ 15'. Then I adjust myself to be neutral at 15'. I am thinking with the help of a competent buddy holding extra weights, and watching over me. I should be able to attach the BCD to myself with a small rope. I can breathe off the reg, and make the adjustments with access to air. Probably try to set myself neutral with close to 0 air in my lungs?

Even if I decide to add a touch of ballast later down the road, it would be good practice, and give me a good starting point for tracking weight requirements. What do you think?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I was running that through my mind today. My thinking is that I set the BCD as neutral with 0 air in the bladder @ 15'. Then I adjust myself to be neutral at 15'. I am thinking with the help of a competent buddy holding extra weights, and watching over me. I should be able to attach the BCD to myself with a small rope. I can breathe off the reg, and make the adjustments with access to air. Probably try to set myself neutral with close to 0 air in my lungs?

Even if I decide to add a touch of ballast later down the road, it would be good practice, and give me a good starting point for tracking weight requirements. What do you think?

It doesn't have to be that complicated.
Just remove a few pounds and do a dive and see where you're at. You might need to take a little more weight off and do another dive. Keep doing that until you get it dialed in. You also have to remember that you need to do your 15 foot weight check with the empty BC at the end of a full length dive. The reason is because your suit will compress and cool off and the only way to get an accurate measure of how much your suit will be affected is to actually do the full time and depth. Just going in with an almost empty tank and doing a weight check right away isn't going to give you a completely accurate result.
However, it would be a good place to start if you truelly have no idea what your weight needs to be, then dial it in further from there.
You will actually be surprized how much weight you can shed that you don't really need.
One thing that might happen that they won't teach you in class, and that is to do a head first decent because of your new weighting. Typically now days they want students to decend feet first, and they will weight accordingly. As soon as the student lets all the air out of their BC's they sink feet first.
If you weight yourself for 15' perfect no air in BC stop at end of dive, then this sinking feet first at the beginning business might not be happening anymore.
When you start your dive be prepared to roll forward and kick down until enough pressure has squeezed the suit down to break neutral, usually about 10 feet.

Since you are in the Bay Area you'll probably be doing dives at the Breakwater. That is a great spot to figure all this stuff out.

Eric

 

[dumpsterDiver]

How much lift does your standard, full body 5 mil wetsuit have? I'm about 5'7" and 145 lbs to give you an idea of how big it is.

I would guess between 9 and 12 lbs. Find out yourself, put the suit in a pool,work the air out of it and add lead on top until it sinks....

 

[Pane]

It's one of those enigmas of nature, quite a few fat guys have no ass. Me for example, my weight got higher than I wanted. I went to a rubber weight belt, worked great. I got tired of the weight, lost 60 lbs. The first place on my body to loose the weight was my ass. Started dieting, BOOM, no ass. Couldn't keep my pants up, even worse than before I started loosing weight. I'm now 180 lbs, feel great, thinner than I've ever been and the rubber weight belt is still the best.

Not so much of an enigma; most modern workers do nothing but sit on their butt all day, which doesn't just cause bodyweight to rise due to lack of movement, but also atrophies the glute muscles. After they start losing body fat (respect for that, btw) they might still not work their butt muscles enough to make a difference. Solution; sprints, squads, deadlifts, and a bunch of more directed exercises. It will firm your ass, make it candy-apple shaped (and flavored!) and do miracles for posture and consequently backpain.

anyway after that detour here's something to get back on topic:

I haven't taken off my BCD yet underwater, not counting PADI course exercises. But I sure wouldn't dive in a setup that would make me shoot up like a cork if I ever had to. Almost all my weight - in my normal dives I need just around 16 pounds total - goes on the belt.

 

[RonMurray]

It seems to me that the value of the BCD remove/replace skill has as much or more to do with helping students develop confidence in problem solving while underwater. Move slowly, think it through, be methodical, etc. For getting untangled, etc. a basic open water diver will be trained to dive with a buddy to help work out those kinds of issues.