Any Tips on Conserving Air?

[Dive Hawk]

Over my last few dives, I've noticed I tend to go through air faster than everyone around me. A few examples: On the wreck dive, the instructor and my buddy both had at least 450+ more psi than I. At Shark's Cove, the instructor used a 63 cu tank while I used an 80 cu tank, and she had slightly more psi than I did at the end of the dive, and on the 2nd dive (Dive 4 below) she had a worn O-ring which caused a slight air leak.

As for my physical condition, I'm 6'1, 195 lbs, and I play semi-professional soccer. I play anywhere from 3-8 games per week, so I'm in much better shape than the average person.

Here are my last 4 dive profiles (hoping this helps): [All dives were made using 80 cu tanks].

Sea Tiger (Oahu) "Wreck" Boat Dive 1 - Duration: 26.15 min. // Max Depth: 106 ft // Avg Depth: 71 ft // Air Start: 2974 psi // Air End: 586 psi // Air Consumption: 2388 psi // Temp: 76 F

Pipeline (Oahu) "Reef" Boat Dive 2 - Duration: 40.30 min // Max Depth: 57 ft // Avg Depth: 37.83 ft // Air Start: 2898 psi // Air End: 576 psi // Air Consumption: 2322 psi // Temp: 76 F // Notes: Medium Current

Shark's Cove "Reef / 'Cave-ish' " Shore Dive 3 - Duration: 40.30 min (Not a typo) // Max Depth: 45 ft // Avg Depth: 25 ft // Air Start: 2842 psi // Air End: 922 psi // Air Consumption: 1920 psi // Temp: 75 F

Shark's Cove "Reef / 'Cave-ish' " Shore Dive 4 - Duration: 55.30 min // Max Depth: 32 ft // Avg Depth: 19 ft // Air Start: 2892 psi // Air End: 497 psi // Air Consumption: 2446 psi // Temp: 75 F

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I'm not worried about other's air consumption, nor am I worried about cutting their dives short. I am simply using them as examples.

 

[Elvistheking]

Yer go diving and don't worry about it, worrying that your cutting anyone dives short will just make you more tense as will consciously "trying" to reduce it.

The more you dive the closer it will get to your natural SAC, if your that worried get a bigger cylinder and remember anyone can thumb a dive for any reasons without any come back.

 

[Charlie99]

Don't work on conserving air.

Work on getting more comfortable in the water, and in reducing the amount of effort you put into diving.

This will naturally bring down your air consumption rate.

The biggest, most immediate change in air consumption I have seen is from learning how to stay neutrally buoyant at ALL points of the dive.

This means that you can stop finning at any time and you will just stay where you are. A big reason new divers use up a lot of air is that they don't have enough air in their BCD, and therefore have to go around head up/feet down finning away to maintain depth.

Learn to slow down. Learn to adjust your BCD so that you can stop finning at any point and you won't go plummeting downward. This also helps make you feel like you are in control of your dive rather than it controlling you. This reduces anxiety levels.

Then your air consumption will "magically" get lower.

====================

If you are comfortable in the water, and you DO have good buoyancy control, then my recommendation is to not worry about it. Your air consumption is what it is, and efforts to artificially lower it are a bad idea.

 

[fisheater]

The standard (because it works) advice is:

- deep, slow breaths
- slow down
- stop using your hands
- dive a lot.

My addition, emulate those sea turtles. They just "chill" and don't do anything fast. Consequently, they stay down a very long time on very little air.

 

[Dive Hawk]

Yer go diving and don't worry about it, worrying that your cutting anyone dives short will just make you more tense as will consciously "trying" to reduce it.

The more you dive the closer it will get to your natural SAC, if your that worried get a bigger cylinder and remember anyone can thumb a dive for any reasons without any come back.

I'm not worried about that at all; I would just like to be able to stay down longer. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Bratface]

It gets better the more you dive. I know this sounds crazy, but you can practice breathing anywhere. I suggest slow deep breaths while sitting at stop lights on your way to work. Breathe in slowly and completely and exhale the same way. Take it slow, it will become more natural. Never worry about others using more air than you do. It's not a contest. Fisheater offers good advice in the previous post.

 

[Elvistheking]

I'm not worried about that at all; I would just like to be able to stay down longer. Nothing more, nothing less.

Dive more then, I find my SAC goes down dramatical if I spend a week or so diving every day on holiday etc. then it generally stays down afterwards during the rest of the year diving every other week end or so.

 

[SoccerJeni]

I don't really have any advice seeing as I'm pretty new myself. I just was curious what soccer team you play for?

Hope you don't mind the interruption.

 

[FuzzyNutz]

The best I can offer is Time. I'm still a gas hog compared to the 'pros', but on average or sometimes better than other fellow vacation divers. Your buoyancy, trim, and weighting will also play a good role in your air consumption. If you have to keep adding or taking away air from your bc, obviously this is draining your tank. You're also using more energy to move though the water, you want to keep things streamlined to decrease your resistance, thus using less energy to move, equaling optimal use of the oxygen you take in, resulting in less air your use. Since you're a new diver (at least according to your bio), all of this will become better with time as you get your kit situated and become more comfortable in the water. I notice that (for example) if I'm on a weeklong trip, my consumption rate is far less by the end of the week compared to my first few dives of the trip. Recently I read a post that said something along the lines of 'when I stopped being concered/focusing about my air consumption, my consumption got better'... and there's probably a lot of truth to it. I'm definately gonna try to forget about it on my next dives and see what happens. I know in the past, I've tried 'skip-breathing' and trying to pause a bit after the exhale, but this is a bad practice, and I think it defeats itself because there's always some moments when you kind of have to 'catch up' to a 'normal rate' for a moment, which is probably unnecesarily burning through your precious gas.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

+1 to everything Charlie99 wrote (as usual).

Spend 99% of the dive neutrally buoyant. (Translation: Hover as much as possible.)
Move slower. For most people, this entails finning less (provided that you aren't fighting a current).
Focus on being relaxed/comfortable.
Dive more.

Your RMV for each of the four dives you described was approx. 0.70 cuft/min. That's to be expected for a novice diver of your size. With more dive experience (50+ dives), I'd be willing to bet that your RMV will drop to below 0.50 cuft/min. Best thing to do for now is to accommodate your current gas supply needs in pre-dive planning and gas management during the dive. Don't worry about it. Focus on the stuff listed above. Have fun out there.

By the way, you're a big guy with big lungs. All other things being equal, a small person with tiny lungs is going to move much less gas in/out of her lungs during a given dive. That's just how things work.