Air Conservation - I suck air, what can I do?

[Underwater Ogre]

Its way to easy to answer this question!!!
I am also a big breather. I am a surfer, water dog don't have any anxiety in the water, if I was anymore relaxed I would be asleep. Get bigger tank ... some of us just aren't gonna get any better. I use a 120LP and all my buddies dive a 80...we come up with the same volume...relax and have fun. Just remember the more you don't focus on your breathing the longer you go...
U/O

 

[Arizona]

You have to find what works for you, but I disagree. Don't go the bigger tank just yet. Concentrating on your breathing works as it calms you down. Get a good tempo and breath as if you are sipping air through a straw, gentle and slow. Do not take large gulps and inhale/exhale rapidly. This will use up air and cause major buoyancy issues. I think the nap analogy is pretty good mentioned earlier. Combine this with other suggestions (RE: streamlining, weighting, fin techniques) and you should be fine considering you are in good cardiovascular shape and within normal body weight.

 

[jgleason]

Wow. Thanks to all of you for your quick responses. SAC Rate? I need to Google that and see what that is. Relax. Relax. Relax. Yes, message heard loud and clear. Overweight? I think slightly. Next time, I will try a pound or two less (I used 16 lbs on the past two days of diving and I am 200lbs 6'4" wearing a 3mm full suit gloves & booties). I did find myself adding a bit of air to my BC during the dives the past two days to compensate slightly, but I was not adding and expelling air throughout the dive. On the other hand, I did find that I was adjusting my boyancy with the air volumn in my lungs.

Clasping my hands and reducing my flutter kicking will be a good things for me to work on along with trying to reach the "almost at a nap" state.

I can't wait to get back in the water again.

Thanks to all who too the time to post. I really do appreaciate each of your comments.

 

[Arizona]

Post back if our suggestions help.

I almost forgot, congratulation to Mr.TSandM for becoming a PADI OWSI.

 

[BuoyantC]

The aforementioned suggestions of efficiency, experience and relaxation aside, there are a few breathing tips that do help. The one that helped me most was concentrating more on exhalation. Obviously we don't need all the air that we move in and out during a dive, we just think we do. If you exhale slowly, it just helps slow down your breathing rate.

The next step is on the inhale to avoid just sucking in a huge breath. and instead start the inhalation with a slow sip. This helps avoid the feeling of air starvation and thereby the gulping of air. Practice this on a nice slow dive and it will eventually become more automatic.

Oh, and relax, be streamlined, swim efficiently etc.,etc.!

 

[Peter Guy]

BTW, there is nothing wrong with "sucking air" some times and also you need to define "sucking air" as compared with whom? Me, compared to TSandM, I suck air but compared to others? -- probably not.

It can be a very vicious circle -- go down, notice the PSI has gone from 3000 to 2500 and you've just gotten to the bottom (but it was at 3000 while in bright sunlight) -- now you are thinking, I'm sucking air and get nervous -- now your are at 2000 and you are thinking -- I'm going to ruin the dive for everyone -- now you really get nervous -- and so it spirals.

BTW, did anyone mention you need to relax?

But it is very hard to relax until you are comfortable in the water -- AND IN YOUR GEAR -- which includes also being in good trim, properly weighted and neutral -- which are all things that are too often just glossed over in the OW class -- and perhaps even in some advanced classes too.

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about your issues some more.

 

[lmorin]

Speaking from my own experience, I think athletes who engage in robust aerobic sports tend to breathe very deeply to maximize oxygen getting into the lungs. Most of the time, efficiency is not the prime goal when it comes to air intake. It took me a good 20-30 dives to get over that and adapt my breathing to what worked efficiently during the low aerobic conditions of diving. I spent a bunch of dives figuring out how slowly I could breath, and how shallowly I could breathe, while remaining comfortable underwater. Then, I backed off a bit and practiced breathing at a somewhat faster rate, allowing depth of breathing to vary with buoyancy needs. Now, it's habit. My air consumption has improved dramatically and compares quite well with that of my wife who managed her breathing properly from the outset. She is a singer and not into aerobic sports.

 

[siikik]

You have to find what works for you, but I disagree. Don't go the bigger tank just yet. Concentrating on your breathing works as it calms you down. Get a good tempo and breath as if you are sipping air through a straw, gentle and slow. Do not take large gulps and inhale/exhale rapidly. This will use up air and cause major buoyancy issues. I think the nap analogy is pretty good mentioned earlier. Combine this with other suggestions (RE: streamlining, weighting, fin techniques) and you should be fine considering you are in good cardiovascular shape and within normal body weight.

I disagree on not getting a bigger cylinder... well, how about "using" a bigger cylinder... for a simple reason... to get more bottom time out of a single dive. If the issue is relaxation, it makes sense that the longer you are in a foreign environment, the more accustomed to it you will become. I would also suggest more shallow dives simply to increase your bottom time. And don't squander that extra time. Spend as much time as you can relaxing and doing nothing but paying attention to your breathing.

One of my most relaxing activities involves watching my bubbles accumulate on the underside of an overhang. (in a position not so far away from lying on my back) I was amazed how fast the time went when I was taking a video of the bubbles... it wasn't until I watched the video that I realized exactly how much time I spent simply filming... forget all the time I spent before or after that! If there was a time that I could be relaxed enough to sleep underwater, this would be it.


Ken

 

[Teamcasa]

Wow. Thanks to all of you for your quick responses. SAC Rate? I need to Google that and see what that is.

Here is a start
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/275737-sac-rate-test.html

Relax. Relax. Relax. Yes, message heard loud and clear. Overweight? I think slightly. Next time, I will try a pound or two less (I used 16 lbs on the past two days of diving and I am 200lbs 6'4" wearing a 3mm full suit gloves & booties). I did find myself adding a bit of air to my BC during the dives the past two days to compensate slightly, but I was not adding and expelling air throughout the dive. On the other hand, I did find that I was adjusting my boyancy with the air volumn in my lungs.

Clasping my hands and reducing my flutter kicking will be a good things for me to work on along with trying to reach the "almost at a nap" state.

I can't wait to get back in the water again.

Thanks to all who too the time to post. I really do appreaciate each of your comments.

One more tip, slowly count to 4 while inhaling and then count to 5 when exhaling. This will give you a base line to shoot for. Have fun, dive safe.

 

[ivobj]

jgleason, once again... relax, enjoy your dive.

Never hold your breath. Remember, the more you fin, move your arms, etc, etc, the more air you use, if you adjust your buoyancy properly you don't make much effort, don't need to correct ups and downs by finning or bouncing your arms.

Also, drag is an issue, try to avoid leaving pieces of your equipment causing drag, like hoses, using a BC that let the cylinder move too much (you can't completly avoid with BC, you would need backplat / wing setup for that, but you can reduce). The more horizontal you stay in the water, the better, good weight distribution and good buoyancy are the main contributors to achieve that.

In short, practice to master buoyancy, stay as relaxed as possible, configure your equipment to avoid loose parts, don't move your arms, that should help.

By the way, SAC = Surface Air Consumption, is your breathing rate converted to the surface equivalent (1 ATA of pressure), in metric system measured in liters per minute, to get your consumption at any depth, multiply pressure in ATA by SAC. To calculate SAC, calculate how much liters of air you used and divide by average pressure and duration of dive. To make it easier to understand, lets say you dive with a 15 liters cylinder, filled at 200 bar, by 50 minutes and average depth of 15 meters, if you return to the boat with 50 bar your SAC is:

pressure reduced = 200 - 50 = 150
liters used for a 15 liters inner volume = 15 x 150 = 2250
average depth of 15 meters = 2.5 average ATA, so at 1 ATA your comsumption would be 900 liters.
for a 50 minutes dive, 900/50 = 18 liters/min of SAC.

To give you an idea, 10 l/min is a very good SAC, above 20 in my opinion is high (or the dive demanded too much effort, or you were stressed).