ADeadlierSnake
Contributor
I have about 125 dives now, and for the last 60 or so, my trim has been pretty good. However I seem to have hit a standstill. I cant seem to make it feel "perfect" underwater. I believe my weight distribution is solid, so I am fairly certain that it is the body positioning that I cant seem to figure out. I see videos of people in proper trim, but everyone seems to do it slightly differently. So I found a drawing of a diver in trim, and I edited it twice to resemble 3 different poses that I commonly see in videos describing what good trim is supposed to look like.
Here it is.
So which one of these is "proper trim"? One of them? All of them? I see A most frequently. However when I find myself in that position in the water, I cant do a good back kick. I also find that position to be highly unstable for me. Having my feet that far above my head makes me feel like I am upside down. No I do not get vertigo, but it just feels completely wrong in the water. And to do the aforementioned back kick, I have to drop my legs into position C. I cant seem to get enough power from position A.
Furthermore, I am having trouble dumping air from my drysuit. When my feet are above my head like that, almost all the air goes into my feet. When I go up even a few feet, it starts to pull something fierce, so I am forced to break trim completely and go vertical in the water in an attempt to vent my suit. While I do this, all the air rushes up to my shoulder area and makes me ascend a few feet. Eventually I get the air out and sink back down. However once I get back in trim, since the air is now more evenly distributed (a tiny bit in the chest/hands and a lot in the feet as opposed to all in the shoulders), I am now negative. Then I have to add some air to my wing to pick myself back up. I expend waaaaaaay too much effort in doing this little dance constantly every few feet. FYI I am only adding enough air in my suit to create loft. This is part of the reason I am having trouble getting air out of my suit (even with the valve all the way open). The air in my suit isnt creating enough pressure to escape the valve, even when all the air is in the shoulders. For this reason I am hesitant to take any weight off my rig, even though I think I can afford to be a couple pounds lighter.
It wasnt long ago that I would use my suit only for buoyancy control. Many people have told me not to do this. Yet I never had any issue with that. My buoyancy was a thousand times better doing it that way because I didnt have to do this f***ing dance every few feet. I had all the air in my suit, so it never had any trouble escaping the valve, meaning I could just turn to my side slightly and let a little trickle out.
In summary:
1. Which of those pictures, if any, represent proper trim?
2. Does anyone have any body positioning tips I can use...?
3. ...or a solution to my dumping issue?
Any help is appreciated
Dylan
Here it is.
So which one of these is "proper trim"? One of them? All of them? I see A most frequently. However when I find myself in that position in the water, I cant do a good back kick. I also find that position to be highly unstable for me. Having my feet that far above my head makes me feel like I am upside down. No I do not get vertigo, but it just feels completely wrong in the water. And to do the aforementioned back kick, I have to drop my legs into position C. I cant seem to get enough power from position A.
Furthermore, I am having trouble dumping air from my drysuit. When my feet are above my head like that, almost all the air goes into my feet. When I go up even a few feet, it starts to pull something fierce, so I am forced to break trim completely and go vertical in the water in an attempt to vent my suit. While I do this, all the air rushes up to my shoulder area and makes me ascend a few feet. Eventually I get the air out and sink back down. However once I get back in trim, since the air is now more evenly distributed (a tiny bit in the chest/hands and a lot in the feet as opposed to all in the shoulders), I am now negative. Then I have to add some air to my wing to pick myself back up. I expend waaaaaaay too much effort in doing this little dance constantly every few feet. FYI I am only adding enough air in my suit to create loft. This is part of the reason I am having trouble getting air out of my suit (even with the valve all the way open). The air in my suit isnt creating enough pressure to escape the valve, even when all the air is in the shoulders. For this reason I am hesitant to take any weight off my rig, even though I think I can afford to be a couple pounds lighter.
It wasnt long ago that I would use my suit only for buoyancy control. Many people have told me not to do this. Yet I never had any issue with that. My buoyancy was a thousand times better doing it that way because I didnt have to do this f***ing dance every few feet. I had all the air in my suit, so it never had any trouble escaping the valve, meaning I could just turn to my side slightly and let a little trickle out.
In summary:
1. Which of those pictures, if any, represent proper trim?
2. Does anyone have any body positioning tips I can use...?
3. ...or a solution to my dumping issue?
Any help is appreciated
Dylan