Sinking legs

[dumpsterDiver]

I have similar issues and I do not worry too much about it. Telling people to swim around wiith their lower back in a constant state of contraction.. sounds like F'n fun - lotsa fun...LOL.

When I swim, I plane out pretty well, when I stop, my legs drop. Obviously it would be more efficient to have the body in a horizontal position, but it is hard on the neck to be looking up.. so.. I am happy with a head up bias. It also gives you much better visibility to look around for sharks etc.

I used to commercial golf ball dive and we wore boots, no fins, ankle weights and we were tipped forward and running and stumbling along the bottom, like a top heavy deep sea diver. A very simple and effective way to get the head down is to place an ankle weight or two on the tank valve. To experiment, just take a 3 lb lead weight from your belt and tie it tightly to the valve.. make sure it can not slide around and wack your head. If this amount works then you can spend some money and make or buy a few ankle weights to make it work. Ankle weights are more symmetrical and better suited to ride on the tank valve compared to a hunk of hard lead.

This video I shot of myself a few years ago, is probably pretty indicative of my normal trim...not horizontal and with a head up bias...Skip to 1:05 if anyone cares.. Maybe your trim is similar to this? Maybe the tech divers and perfectionists will find it entirely unacceptable? Who knows? I'm more worried about doing things underwater than what my trim looks like.

[video=youtube;3Fhqr4yePLw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fhqr4yePLw&index=6&list=PLjC5PqdqiSg4MQt9 lCrPZse7eAgDHwqOW[/video]

 

[ajduplessis]

Learn to frog kick. Your heels should be close to your buttocks and work on your core, no need to arch your back.

 

[archer1960]

I have similar issues and I do not worry too much about it. Telling people to swim around wiith their lower back in a constant state of contraction.. sounds like F'n fun - lotsa fun...LOL.

When I swim, I plane out pretty well, when I stop, my legs drop. Obviously it would be more efficient to have the body in a horizontal position, but it is hard on the neck to be looking up.. so.. I am happy with a head up bias. It also gives you much better visibility to look around for sharks etc.

I used to commercial golf ball dive and we wore boots, no fins, ankle weights and we were tipped forward and running and stumbling along the bottom, like a top heavy deep sea diver. A very simple and effective way to get the head down is to place an ankle weight or two on the tank valve. To experiment, just take a 3 lb lead weight from your belt and tie it tightly to the valve.. make sure it can not slide around and wack your head. If this amount works then you can spend some money and make or buy a few ankle weights to make it work. Ankle weights are more symmetrical and better suited to ride on the tank valve compared to a hunk of hard lead.

This video I shot of myself a few years ago, is probably pretty indicative of my normal trim...not horizontal and with a head up bias...Skip to 1:05 if anyone cares.. Maybe your trim is similar to this? Maybe the tech divers and perfectionists will find it entirely unacceptable? Who knows? I'm more worried about doing things underwater than what my trim looks like.

...

Yeah, that's pretty much what happens to me. While I'm moving, I'm in fairly decent trim, but as soon as I stop moving, my feet start sinking. That has some advantages, but I would at least like to reduce how fast my feet sink. My ideal would be to get like my OW instructor, who could stay motionless in any attitude he wanted: horizontal, "standing" on his head, or laying on his side.

---------- Post added August 18th, 2015 at 07:48 AM ----------

Learn to frog kick. Your heels should be close to your buttocks and work on your core, no need to arch your back.

I'm working on the frog kick. I have already noticed that it puts the thrust axis above my center of gravity, and thus tends to keep me head down.

 

[TSandM]

HERE is a lovely article about trim. It starts with posture -- if you are allowing your hip joints to flex, you will always rotate to a head up position. If you are flat from the shoulders to the knees, then you can begin to work on static weighting. Most configurations can be trimmed out, in the sense that, once you have determined your total required ballast, you can figure out where to put it to be able to hover in a horizontal position without sculling, but it takes a little time to play with things to get there. Sometimes you have a configuration that can't be trimmed out, because the total ballast required isn't sufficient to overcome the imbalance of the equipment or because the amount of weight you need to move is greater than can comfortably be put where it is needed (that's me in double 72s). And in very thick neoprene, you may experience sufficient compression that what balances you at 10 feet is no longer perfect at 100, and that may simply be unavoidable.

 

[diver 85]

What kind of fins you using???......Go to ones 'that float'.

I had the opposite trouble when I 1st changed years ago from neg to pos buoyant fins-----even bought a pair of (light) ankle weights to 'get me thru' the learning curve....

 

[archer1960]

What kind of fins you using???......Go to ones 'that float'.

I had the opposite trouble when I 1st changed years ago from neg to pos buoyant fins-----even bought a pair of (light) ankle weights to 'get me thru' the learning curve....

Cheap ones! They are definitely negative, though not terribly so.

---------- Post added August 18th, 2015 at 12:40 PM ----------

HERE is a lovely article about trim. It starts with posture -- if you are allowing your hip joints to flex, you will always rotate to a head up position. If you are flat from the shoulders to the knees, then you can begin to work on static weighting. Most configurations can be trimmed out, in the sense that, once you have determined your total required ballast, you can figure out where to put it to be able to hover in a horizontal position without sculling, but it takes a little time to play with things to get there. Sometimes you have a configuration that can't be trimmed out, because the total ballast required isn't sufficient to overcome the imbalance of the equipment or because the amount of weight you need to move is greater than can comfortably be put where it is needed (that's me in double 72s). And in very thick neoprene, you may experience sufficient compression that what balances you at 10 feet is no longer perfect at 100, and that may simply be unavoidable.

Thanks for the link. I think the difference is small enough that I should be able to balance things out by moving a couple of pounds from my waist to my shoulder straps or tank neck. I'll play with it and take things slowly so I don't totally mess myself up by making too-large of a change at one time.

 

[htatton]

I also am a newby with the same problem. Here is what helped me:

1- Move the tank UP. Mine was way too low.
2- Wear thicker booties. I went from 2mm to 5mm
3- Use lighter fins. Went from Oceanic V16 to Mares Volo Power
4- If needed, I duck head down to get the bubble to the bottom of my BCD. I just have to remember to use the butt-dump valve.
5- Practice in the pool. It took several hours to get my horizontal hover down. Getting more comfortable every trip.

Also I find my trim really changes with wet suit. Diveskin, 3mm shorty, 7mm So I practice with all of them.

Good luck in your quest the master this skill.

As a former pilot i really wish I had a trim tab.

Hyrum

 

[RJP]

Weak core!

I thought I was on a cycling forum for a minute!



---------- Post added August 18th, 2015 at 03:02 PM ----------

biggest thing is leg positioning and core strength. Look at pictures of skydivers, you want to look like that in the water.

Legs up. Hands out front. You've just moved your center of gravity more in line with your center of buoyancy.

 

[BFRedrocks]

Best thing that worked for my "heavy" legs was diving with a drysuit where I can get just a little bit of air in my feet to keep them from sinking (Disclaimer: of course always be super careful when moving air into your feet in a drysuit as you can't simply vent that air and therefore you need to be aware of the techniques for doing so. Disclaimer over). In a wetsuit, however, it's a struggle for me with the sinking feet (despite my core being fine). I've been trying to balance (no pun intended) the "moving the tank up for trim" versus constantly banging my head on the tank valve, and haven't come up with a good solution yet.

Other than that, if you're still struggling with all the great info already given, and as dumb as it sounds, you could always add a couple of small blocks of Styrofoam to your fins to make them less negative.

 

[archer1960]

First, thanks for the comments and suggestions here. I'm now looking for some small weight pouches (or something) that will let me put small weights on the shoulder straps of my BC to help my trim. I have a couple of pouches that are intended for a weight belt, but the loops aren't big enough to go over the shoulder straps on my Aeris Atmos BC; the straps are 2.5" - 3" wide. I thought I had seen some somewhere that used velcro loops, but can't find them now. Does anybody know of any pouches with wider loops, or velcro loops? Or is there another option for attaching small weights to my BC shoulder straps? I don't really want to attach weights to my tank neck, though I realize that is another option.