Weight only on back

[salank]

Hello,

I have tried searching the board without finding a concrete answer to my concerns. On one of my recent dives with my new travel plastic backplate/wing setup in very salt water, no wet/drysuit, AL80 I put the 8 pounds of weight I needed in my backplates pockets trying to avoid a weight belt. This made me feeling very "back heavy" flipping over with my tank towards the bottom whenever I relaxed. To me it seems natural to compensate this by moving some weight to the front of my body which is what I did. Knowing that there are plenty of seasoned divers diving with heavy tanks and backplates as their only weight, with no weight in front makes me wonder if this is a problem in my technique.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[gcarter]

Hello,

I have tried searching the board without finding a concrete answer to my concerns. On one of my recent dives with my new travel plastic backplate/wing setup in very salt water, no wet/drysuit, AL80 I put the 8 pounds of weight I needed in my backplates pockets trying to avoid a weight belt. This made me feeling very "back heavy" flipping over with my tank towards the bottom whenever I relaxed. To me it seems natural to compensate this by moving some weight to the front of my body which is what I did. Knowing that there are plenty of seasoned divers diving with heavy tanks and backplates as their only weight, with no weight in front makes me wonder if this is a problem in my technique.

Thanks for any feedback.

I would suggest that if the rig contained all the needed weight on its own eg SS backplate, any centre of gravity / trim issues would of necessity have to be dealt with by compensating technique.

If on the other hand you can fix the CoG / trim issue by moving the weight around, that is the smart thing to do. Why develop a compensating technique for a configuration problem when you can just fix the configuration?

FWIW.

 

[TSandM]

With your tank on your back, and weights on the cambands, you are in effect a sort of bicycle -- you're the bike, and the tank and weights are the rider, tall and centered above you, and inherently unstable. If the tank gets a little bit off center on your back, it is going to want to head for the bottom, leaving you (the neutral or positive object) on the top.

Putting weights in front of you is like creating the keel on the sailboat. If the tank tries to go over to the side, it has to raise the weights at your waist, which are providing a counterforce. You're more stable.

With practice, just as one learns to balance oneself above a bicycle, one also learns to balance the negative tank on one's back. It really is a matter of body control and balance.

 

[BluewaterSail]

With your tank on your back, and weights on the cambands, you are in effect a sort of bicycle -- you're the bike, and the tank and weights are the rider, tall and centered above you, and inherently unstable. If the tank gets a little bit off center on your back, it is going to want to head for the bottom, leaving you (the neutral or positive object) on the top.

Putting weights in front of you is like creating the keel on the sailboat. If the tank tries to go over to the side, it has to raise the weights at your waist, which are providing a counterforce. You're more stable.

With practice, just as one learns to balance oneself above a bicycle, one also learns to balance the negative tank on one's back. It really is a matter of body control and balance.

As stated in the above quote, it all just starts falling into place. A year ago, I would turn turtle if I tried to hover motionless, with a similar weight distribution to what you mentioned. :depressed: Now I don't turn turtle, but it doesn't feel like I am doing anything substantially different. I can hover without tipping over! Like I stopped falling off bicycles after a while. Time in the water cures alot, even for a super-klutz like me! Just dive!

 

[Griffo]

+1 to the above. Just keep diving. 40 or so dives ago, trying to keep proper trim, legs up, horizontal, head back all felt wrong. Just so wrong I posted here asking for tips because it couldn't be this hard right???? I could do it, but it was just uncomfortable, and I felt like I was fighting it the whole time.

Now, if I try to dive in any other position, that feels wrong. I've learnt my balance in water, and can now dive properly the way I want to. The moral being that it really is like Lynne says, it's like riding a bike. Once you have that feeling of proper balance, it's the falling over that feels un-natural, not the balancing.

 

[Hoyden]

If I am diving with my kydex travel plate and weight pockets, I make sure that the weight is distributed correctly between the two cam bands and slid all the way towards the plate (as close to my back as possible). For me the correct distribution between the two bands is to have two thirds on the top cam band and one third on the bottom cam band and I try to use four weight pockets with two on each band. Some of this depends on the exposure protection I am wearing and the tanks I am using. Past playing with the weight locations, time in the water with your particular set-up will make a big difference.

Jackie

 

[salank]

Thanks for all your feedback, I feel a lot less confused now!

 

[arthurmnev]

Hello,

I have tried searching the board without finding a concrete answer to my concerns. On one of my recent dives with my new travel plastic backplate/wing setup in very salt water, no wet/drysuit, AL80 I put the 8 pounds of weight I needed in my backplates pockets trying to avoid a weight belt. This made me feeling very "back heavy" flipping over with my tank towards the bottom whenever I relaxed. To me it seems natural to compensate this by moving some weight to the front of my body which is what I did. Knowing that there are plenty of seasoned divers diving with heavy tanks and backplates as their only weight, with no weight in front makes me wonder if this is a problem in my technique.

Thanks for any feedback.

There are a couple of things here:

seasoned divers diving with heavy tanks and backplates as their only weight

Unless in an overhead environment you should have quick release weight that you could drop to get positive in an emergency.

with no weight in front makes me wonder if this is a problem in my technique.

Or it might be a problem with their technique... Weights up front will make it easier to maintain trim while under and a bit harder to use BP/W setup on the surface (you will probably have to lean back a bit more)..

People that tend not to have quick release are those diving in overhead environment (where would you release to ) or diving deco (you would not want to pop up if in deco mode) -- more often that would be the same group of people (cave /wreck divers diving in deco). If you are diving deco, you also have a few other side mounted tanks with other gasses... those things do weight a bit, and, due to length, provide some lever with weights....

if you are diving Open Water, I would:
1) have quick release weights (front / sides)
2) would stop fighting gravity... it always wins.

 

[Griffo]

When I first switched to a BP/W, I had the same problem. I'd try to hover, and end up doing turtle or sommersaults. Didn't matter where i'd put the weights -in the trim pockets, weight belt or whatever. But then I was taught how to trim myself out properly, and I can't recall an instance since where i've felt unbalanced. I generally dive without a weight belt, so it's certainly a technique thing that solved it for me.

 

[Damselfish]

With little wetsuit, AL80, and a backinflate BC (a plastic plate of sorts) I need to distribute my weight evenly between rear trim and front pockets to be comfortable. You need to do what you need to do, I can't see fighting physics. If too much weight in back doesn't work with a given equipment setup, redistributing it makes sense to me.