Tips on Lowering Air Consumption

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The best way to improve your air consumption rate is to dive a lot. There are some things that you can consciously do to improve your air consumption rate but the biggest improvement will happen without conscious effort as you and your body learn how to move underwater efficiently though experience.

I still remember the first dive where my air supply didn’t determine the end of the dive, I was so happy I did the happy feet dance with fins on! Don’t worry about it yet, it will come with time. I would suggest that you focus on perfecting buoyancy control and trim and the next thing you know, you’ll be doing fine.
 
I have issues with air consumption, so I was very eager to read this. It all makes sense except this segment:

"Take about a third of a full breath in, stop breathing (but DO NOT hold your breath), count to 5, take in another third, stop breathing for a 5 count, take in the last third, stop breathing."

How does one stop breathing for a 5 count without holding their breath? Does this refer to keeping the airway open just without inhaling?
 
have you ever noticed that people around you breath really slowly while relaxed? My SAC the first tank on a trip is always horrible because I'm excited about getting wet again. I've helped myself on trips by goin out to the pool with a snorkel and mask and just floating around the pool. Snorkeling is great for me because I can almost fall asleep bobbing along. kinda sounds weird I know but I've been awoken by security when people thought i was dead and floating in the pool.
 
bfisher:
The others have given some tips. I'll just say this. It's quite possible that your instructors claim is not bogus. Consider this though. He has a few more dives than you--probably a lot more, correct? He started out one day where you are now. Ask him how well he did at that time. Don't be intimidated or try to live up to someone else's expectations. Dive your dive and enjoy yourself. The more you worry about it the more stress you put on yourslef to excel--not good. And remember, we're all individuals and all different.

To put it perspective, I have a dive in my logbook that was 24', 1:55 bottom time, and came up with just over 100PSI of air (alum 80 and 300psi). So what!!!!!! My buddy was down to about 100PSI. I still came up with him. And that doesn't make him a lesser diver than me. It just means he uses more air.


I forgot a zero above. 1:55 bottom time and I came up with just over 1000psi. Sorry bout that.
 
Awright...

I see many people talking about slow DEEP breaths. I'm a fairly good sized guy, and I find when I try the long, slow, deep breath-thing. I am all over the place as far as depth/buoyancy goes. :shakehead

How does one take long, slow, deep breaths w/o ascending when you inhale & descending when you exhale??



DH
 
Practice, its as simple as that. I've got a big tidal volume, and had issues with that when I was a cabbage diver, now im bit more smelly and rotten vis a vis the cabbage part I dont have this problem anymore.

Freds :coffee:
 
merxlin:
I have issues with air consumption, so I was very eager to read this. It all makes sense except this segment:

"Take about a third of a full breath in, stop breathing (but DO NOT hold your breath), count to 5, take in another third, stop breathing for a 5 count, take in the last third, stop breathing."

How does one stop breathing for a 5 count without holding their breath? Does this refer to keeping the airway open just without inhaling?

That's exactly what he means....probably right now while you're reading this, after exhaling there's a "pause" of a few seconds before you begin your next inhalation....but you're certainly not "holding your breath" by doing so. I think some people get so spooked by the "don't hold your breath" rule that they're huffing & puffing to keep the air moving in or out at all times. I've heard of a number of ways of altering your breathing to lower air consumption, but they all basically come down to breathing slowly & deeply. I wouldn't doubt getting 2 hours out of an 80 on a shallow dive. I'm over 200lbs, but I sometimes don't even bother to change tanks between dives...in some cases all my divers are MORE than twice as fast on air, so they'll finish out their 2 tanks before I empty my first.

One thing that also might help is to watch/video a diver know to have very good air consumption, and then get someone to video you as well. The good AC divers, for the most part, seem to be doing next to nothing on the dive.....horizontal, they're kicking is only for going forward (or backward)....never to keep from sinking....arms probably don't move at all....and you can get an idea on the "timing" of their breathing by watching their bubbles....most often, a fairly long time with no bubbles (while they're doing a slow inhalation) then the bubbles trickling out as they slowly exhale. In comparison, a newer/poor AC diver will have much faster breathing, with big blasts of bubbles coming out all at once, and they're often kicking just to maintain depth (esp. if they're overweighted, a very common problem.)

Like others have said, dive more & AC will probably improve....really pay attention to HOW you're diving & breathing will make the improvement come more quickly.
 
Rick Inman:
Gary D. always suggests using the xaler method, and it works!

Rick:

Can you expand on this a little bit. I searched for xaler and found the following thread:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=117869

Which had some more good advice on the topic of reduced air consumption. But the reference to the XALER method was to "read it from right to left". Is that it? Or is there more to this method?
 
WW2:
Rick:

Can you expand on this a little bit. I searched for xaler and found the following thread:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=117869

Which had some more good advice on the topic of reduced air consumption. But the reference to the XALER method was to "read it from right to left". Is that it? Or is there more to this method?
:lol:

Read XALER from right to left. :wink:

Thanks for asking, though. I nearly did a search myself.
 
:D Doh. Yeh, I also got suckered into raising my hand to ask what a "fax pass" was in highschool english class too. (i.e., a faux pas). I'm an easy mark. :D
 

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