Air consumption help

[kammel78]

Hi!

I guess I'm still relatively new to diving (40+ dives, diving less than a year), but I'm serious about working on various skills to become a better diver as I'm very interested in advancing on towards tec diving among other things.

So, I feel like I've made good progress with buoyancy, navigation, basic task loading, finning techniques (frog kick, finally!)...basically all the stuff I can do to practice here in pools and lakes.

But, my air consumption sucks!

I've done tons of reading from all over the internet and it seems all the advice I've found or heard boils down to the following:

1. Don't worry. Keep diving and you'll naturally get better with time.
2. Don't worry. There's nothing you can do about it. Genetics, huh?
3. Pretend you're breathing through a straw.
4. Do this exact breathing sequence...
5. Breathe natural.
6. Do these breathing exercises out of the water and then you'll improve in the water.

Obviously, I refuse to believe 1 and 2. Genetics does play a huge role. I'll never dunk, but that doesn't mean that I can't improve how high I can jump. Improvement, not perfection. And I refuse to believe even if it will improve on it's own that I can't speed it along with the right practice.

For the rest, I've tried various techniques, but it seems like without understanding the why of what I'm doing, I'm just blindly doing stuff. And what works for one person may not work for another. I don't like the "breathe naturally" answers in particular. Take posture for example. Ask someone who has good posture to explain how to have good posture and they may be clueless. They may even say "just stand how it feels right", but to someone who's had poor posture their entire life, standing with good posture at first feels un-natural.

So, is there anyone out there who's intentionally improved their SAC or helped someone? Any MDs out there who could possibly help me understand the underlying issues behind poor air consumption and steps or exercises to improve? I know I'll never have my wife's RMV, but it would make me tremendously happy to go from suck to not-suck.

Thanks!

 

[Bob DBF]

Unfortunately #1 & 2 are the answer. You can do better with skip breathing, but from my experience it can be way worse than your problem.


Bob

 

[KeithG]

Unfortunately #1 & 2 are the answer. You can do better with skip breathing, but from my experience it can be way worse than your problem.


Bob

agreed. my first warm water wuss dive in sunny warm Curacao lasted 22 minutes due to insufficient air in my AL80. many years later i can do a similar profile in Bonaire for 90 minutes and hit the dock with over 1000 psi.

stop sculling, thrashing and kicking so much.

 

[KevinNM]

It gets better with experience. But it can also be improved by getting in shape. It you have a good exercise tolerance you will probably get better with air consumption.

 

[diver0008]

But, my air consumption sucks!

Can you elaborate? Tank sizes, water temperatures, depths, dive times, etc.

How do you know for sure that it sucks?

 

[kammel78]

It gets better with experience. But it can also be improved by getting in shape. It you have a good exercise tolerance you will probably get better with air consumption.

So, if it can (and does) get better, why? There's has to be a physiological reason for this change. And if it does change with more diving, shouldn't we be able to help that change along besides on expensive dive trips?

Certainly not a doctor or disputing...I just like to understand.

 

[kammel78]

Can you elaborate? Tank sizes, water temperatures, depths, dive times, etc.

How do you know for sure that it sucks?

I don't have an AI computer that will calculate for me and my very rough calculations today (which I kinda had to cobble together from a few short dives) figured a RMV around .7cuft/min And SAC around 30.9psi/min.

 

[KeithG]

So, if it can (and does) get better, why? There's has to be a physiological reason for this change. And if it does change with more diving, shouldn't we be able to help that change along besides on expensive dive trips?

Certainly not a doctor or disputing...I just like to understand.

huge reduction in un-necessary physical activity.

many noobs bicycle. without being aware.
most noobs scull like crazy. without being aware.
all noobs swim all over the place. without being aware.

ask someone to video yourself underwater.

 

[diver0008]

RMV around .7cuft/min And SAC around 30.9psi/min

I am not a tech diver. Those figures are not within my knowledge.

Certainly someone will be along here to interpret those numbers....

Assuming that your consumption rate does indeed suck, are you overweright? A smoker? Out of shape? Do you use your arms to swim underwater? Do you deep-breathe at a high frequency?

 

[NAM001]

I am not a tech diver. Those figures are not within my knowledge.

The are both the same more or less one is the value specifically at the surface. sac surface air consumption. If you are using 4 cuft / min at 100 ft 4atm then it is 1 cuft at the surface 1 atm. The surface equivilant isused as the reference as the number means nothing unless you know the depth .