Swimming too much?

[JamesK]

But I will address the swimming for buoyancy thing. That's not personal preference; that's just inefficient. If you are swimming up because you are negative (or down because you are positive) you are expending effort for no net displacement in the water column -- and every bit of that effort costs you gas. It's well worth the effort to balance your equipment and learn to hover quietly. That way, every bit of kicking you do is because you want to get somewhere.

I did not see it that way. I saw it as "ohh, a big as rock lies in front of me. I shall kick up slightly to go over it". I did not see it as "crap, i keep sinking, if I kick up then I can stay where I am at! Eureka!"

 

[TMHeimer]

Assuming your weight & trim is good it would seem you have an enviable problem. Being a strong swimmer will help you in a current, if you want to get somewhere fast, or if you have found yourself a bit further from shore than planned. When I swim fast, boy does my air go down. Lot's of good input from posts, but it would seem the answer is simple. Go slower.

 

[Crewfish13]

I did not see it that way. I saw it as "ohh, a big as rock lies in front of me. I shall kick up slightly to go over it". I did not see it as "crap, i keep sinking, if I kick up then I can stay where I am at! Eureka!"

You hit the nail on the head. I realized I was doing this when I was in a pool recently. I was hanging around the bottom of the deep end just trying to hover, removing/replacing mask, watching bubbles go up, etc., and decided I wanted to see if I could swim around the pool staying within a foot or so of the bottom, without touching. As I got to the incline up from the deep end to the shallow end, I pulled my shoulders up a couple inches along with breathing deeper to rise with the pool floor. Likewise, going from shallow to deep, I bent down at the waist in line with the slope of the pool to descend (like a mini duck dive) as I exhaled deeply. At worst, I'm probably 25 degrees off horizontal.

My only issue I've seen so far is that with my legs fully extended, my feet like to float. I probably need to bend my knees to bring them in closer to my center of gravity when hovering (shorten the lever arm, for us engineering types) to keep on-trim.

Another probable reason for this is that, as a newb, I've never dove anywhere with all that much to see: stirred up Midwestern quarries and pools. I can only pretend the dead invertebrates at the bottom of a swimming pool are reef critters for so long...

On the other hand, I think my brain may just be going "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" as I fly along

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Good swimming skills are an asset for a scuba diver, no doubt about it, and a huge asset for anyone assisting in a rescue situation. Whether one is "swimming too much" during a dive depends upon the purpose of the dive. Like others who have posted on this thread, I prefer less movement and more observation, particularly of interesting animal behavior. But there are dives where one needs to get from point A to point B, and doing so efficiently is a good thing. By efficiently I mean with the least consumption of air, and without burning too much bottom time. It's not a matter of swimming "too fast," it is a matter of being efficient in your movements. Efficiency comes from proper weighting , good buoyancy and body control, and good swimming technique. And since the OP is a swimmer, I think it is important that he and his buddy have a good conversation before each dive to be sure each knows the plan and expectations for the dive. It takes only a moment for buddy separation to become a problem. Stay on the same page.
DivemasterDennis

 

[DukeAMO]

You could try the kick-glide technique a few DMs/instructors have mentioned to me: kick once (they mostly use the frog kick), glide for a few seconds until you're not moving much, then kick again. It's very leisurely and conserves air (which means more dive time).

DH swims much faster than I can, so we've agreed that in general he'll swim slightly behind me. You can do the same -- let the slower diver set the pace. A few times when DH was swimming ahead of me he lost me within a few kicks, and that's something you really want to avoid. Besides the fact that it's unsafe, I was pretty peeved!

 

[Quero]

I'm going to reply with my instructor hat on in that I'll recount what I see with my divers:

I don't actually exert very hard or kick very fast, but seem to get a lot of thrust. My usual technique is a slow, sweeping flutter kick with my knees all but locked and everything coming from the hips.

When I've had strong swimmers in my courses (and I've got a triathlete coming back to me for his third course in a couple of days), I've observed that they tend not only to have powerful kicks, but they don't ever stop kicking. Competitive/strong swimmers are disciplined and drilled to kick continuously when using a flutter kick. In scuba I impress on my students not to kick continuously, regardless of the kick style they employ, but instead to kick and glide, even with a flutter kick. If the power stroke is strong, then the glide will be long. One of my early students was a strong swimmer, and she really poured it on when she was doing the underwater compass skill--I had to work like crazy to keep up with her. These days I emphasize going slow on that skill so that I'm not wearing myself out chasing them all over the ocean!

To borrow a line from a great song, "move like a jelly fish, rhythm is nothing, you go with the flow".

"If you would only listen you might just realize what you’re missin,' you’re missin'" [seeing marine life]. (Borrowed from the same song.)

DH swims much faster than I can, so we've agreed that in general he'll swim slightly behind me. You can do the same -- let the slower diver set the pace.

Yes! When I'm leading dives with my new divers, I tell them they have to stay behind me. Generally they complain after a dive that they need to keep swimming in circles because they pass me and they need to get behind me over and over. This really impresses on them the need to stop kicking and take it easy. By the time my Open Water students finish the fourth dive, they're slow enough, and because they're slow, they have had to get a good handle on their buoyancy since they can't rely on forward movement to "fudge" it and stay at on depth.

Having said that there's nothing at all wrong with this technique!

As I got to the incline up from the deep end to the shallow end, I pulled my shoulders up a couple inches along with breathing deeper to rise with the pool floor. Likewise, going from shallow to deep, I bent down at the waist in line with the slope of the pool to descend (like a mini duck dive) as I exhaled deeply. At worst, I'm probably 25 degrees off horizontal.

You don't have to be horizontal and float up or down when you go up or down an incline--you can swim up or swim down, just as you did. I love doing that duck dive thing when I get to the edge of the wall past a reef flat and descend straight down (the scene in Avatar where they're riding the dragons and swoop down the sides of those floating islands is what it reminds me of).

 

[Alucard]

One of the major improvements to my SAC rate (which, being a geek, I keep track of) was to learn to make kicks count and to stop trying to go at the speed of the fastest. I started doing the "three kicks then drift" technique that someone showed me and it drastically extended my bottom time.

I find that SCUBA diving is quite meditative, in the sense that you are taking conscious control of things that you normally do almost reflexively - breathing, swimming being two examples. Going slow and stopping to "smell the sponges" has made diving a much more rewarding experience, seeing things that those that are zooming around only looking for the big stuff tend to miss.

 

[Damselfish]

Nothing wrong with a powerful kick, it can come in handy - just not all the time. If you suspect you're swimming too much, you probably are. Easy solution - be aware of it and break the habit. Don't swim constantly. And nothing says you have to use the same kick all the time, increase your repertoire and learn something slower. If you're relying on swimming to keep your buoyancy under control maybe use some of your newly found hang out time to work on that while seeing some critters.

I have a powerful kick but I simply don't kick a lot of the time, I want to see stuff. My husband tends to kick continuously when he's not taking pictures, he gets way ahead of me and it drives me nuts. (Yes, he's a lousy buddy sometimes.)

 

[Lirpa246]

I struggle with this myself as a long time swimmer. I do find that having a good flutter kick helps me be more streamlined. I try to just keep it slow and steady. It certainly helps on the surface to be a good swimmer.

 

[windapp]

If you get well trimmed, you will be able to glide through the water or stay still without kicking. Then your swimming skills will give you a huge advantage. If everybody else needs 3 kick cycles to go the distance you cover with 1 kick cycle, all you need to do to slow down is only have 1 kick cycle for their 3. There are tons of places where you need to dive into a mild current or surge. You will probably find these dives a lot less challenging than others do.