Breathing

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Hi, new guy here. I have only 32 dives under my belt. *stands up*..... I am an air hog ... Because of this, I don't go on alot of dives being that I'm embarrased when I am partnered with someone and our dive is shorter than the rest of the groups because I gulped my air. Does any one have tips or helpful practice ideas ? I've been told I just need to dive more... (read previous sentence on why I don't). Should I just sit in the bottom of my pool and practice ?
Thanks in advance :)

Don't EVER be embarrassed about ending a dive before someone else for ANY reason. I can guarantee every other person on the dive sucked the air out of their tanks when they first started and anyone who give you grief for ending the dive needs to think back to when they were just beginning.

I was diving with a bunch of new people aa few years ago down on Isla Mujeres and one of the older guys just couldn't stop bragging about how he still had 1500 psi in his tank when we were all down to 500 and how he got certified in '68 blah blah blah blah. Well, the next day he came to Playa with a friend of mine and me to dive with the bull sharks. As soon as the sharks showed up, this guy let go of the line, went belly-up like a dead gold fish, and started to ascend uncontrollably. We got a hold of him, checked his spg and, lo and behold, he was at 700 psi after maybe 15 minutes at depth. We got him up safely and he proceeded to blame his bcd, weights, etc. Bullsh*t. He was terrified of sharks but his pride just wouldn't let him admit it.

So don't ever feel bad about ending a dive. It is your perogative and you will get better control of your breathing as you practice and learn how to stay still. Your new mantra should be, "move less". I say it over and over in my head.

Good luck and non-iligitum carborundum
 
The ONLY technique that will reduce your consumption is to be still, and efficient when you can’t be still.

Properly weighted, neutrally buoyant, horizontal trim, efficient swimming.

Breath when you need to breath.

This is the way.

This is the way.
 
The ONLY technique that will reduce your consumption is to be still, and efficient when you can’t be still.
That's simply not true (unless your breathing is already maximally efficient). I've watched divers' consumption improve dramatically from one dive to the next when they tried the long and slow exhale method. I don't get why so many people insist that divers breathe in an inefficient manner until they subconsciously figure it out. Does everyone who advocates just waiting until consumption improves feel the same way about buoyancy control? That also gets better for most people after dozens of dives, but it's something that can be improved very quickly if you are willing to work at it.

You already have to modify your normal breathing pattern of inhale, exhale, pause when diving, why not alter it in a way that minimizes consumption, CO2 buildup and stress by taking long and deep breaths?
 
"LOOK EVERYONE! IT'S A NEW DIVER! LET'S ALL EMBARASS THE NEW DIVER BY COMMENTING ON THEIR AIR CONSUMPTION!" - said no diver ever.

I know EVERYone says it, and it IS hard to believe, but you WILL improve on air consumption. I used to be a fellow air hog, and I'll offer the following advice based on my experience (your's may differ):

- dive more often. It maybe easier said than done, but the more you dive, the better your air consumption will be. I promise you this.

- if you are diving with a camera/GoPro, leave the camera/GoPro on the shore and focus on your beautiful surroundings under the water. Despite what you may think, human beings are not good multitasking operating systems, and introducing camera buttons and video screens creates just enough extra anxiety to increase your air consumption,

- go somewhere where there are divemasters who you can ask for tips. I did a liveaboard in Burma, and asked the DM to watch me over a couple days and offer advice. Helped my diving immensely.

- take the Peak Performance Buoyancy course. Then take it again elsewhere, tell the instructor you are taking it again voluntarily, and MASTER the course. If you can hover and control depth with ONLY your breath, you have got it.

- Stop. F***ing. Moving. If you are moving your legs/arms in an effort to stay motionless/maintain depth, you are 1) not motionless and 2) using your muscles unnecessarily (burning air). See the point above.

- if you can handle it, get a 100cf tank (or larger). You'd be amazed how less stressed you will be when you look at your gauges and find you still have 2/3 of your air after what 'seems' like a long time below. Stress (for me) was a major contributor to air consumption. I STILL dive with a 100 on my back whenever possible, even though the DMs look at my gauges post-dive and ask why I want the big tank.

- Exercise, particularly cardio and anaerobic exercise. The more you exercise, the better your breathing. However, intense strength training has the reverse effect and creates very air-hungry large muscle.

- Magnesium 'gummies'. OK, it's bizzare. They are supposed to help with relaxing and sleeping. Maybe it's the relaxing part, but I have logged a correlation between taking 2 gummies 30 minutes pre-dive and very low air consumption. Just make sure they are magnesium gummies and not 'special' gummies. No one like a high diver. Well, maybe on Utila... :wink:
 
Take a bunch of classes. One can get a number of extra dives in that way. When I started I did not have any dive friends so I took a number of courses. I avoided double counting. Goal was to get as much diving in. So I did not count AOW against any certs. When I took the certs I did the max number of dives for each.

What happens when are diving and you stop. Are your arms or legs moving at all? If so you are wasting air. Work on buoyancy as stated. Go slow and see something.
 
As some have already suggested, through threads and links, relaxation; familiarity with your own gear; being comfortable, temperature-wise, makes a huge difference, after a while. Give yourself some time; you've just begun.

I have always been a relative miser with my air over the years; but, by an odd set of circumstances, I had to use rental gear some time ago (thanks, United); and my consumption was easily twenty-five percent more than usual. The damn regulator breathed differently and wet; was piss-poorly tuned; and the jacket-style BC, while properly sized, struck me as claustrophobic . . .
 
That's simply not true (unless your breathing is already maximally efficient). I've watched divers' consumption improve dramatically from one dive to the next when they tried the long and slow exhale method. I don't get why so many people insist that divers breathe in an inefficient manner until they subconsciously figure it out. Does everyone who advocates just waiting until consumption improves feel the same way about buoyancy control? That also gets better for most people after dozens of dives, but it's something that can be improved very quickly if you are willing to work at it.

You already have to modify your normal breathing pattern of inhale, exhale, pause when diving, why not alter it in a way that minimizes consumption, CO2 buildup and stress by taking long and deep breaths?

you don’t have to modify anything. You might choose to, but you certainly don’t have to.

your air consumption is driven by co2 production. That’s it and that’s all. Lower your metabolic demands, lower your consumption rate.

do you think the sac rate you experience sitting on the sofa is more than your “long exhale” forced breathing technique? Of course not. It’s the lowest when you’re on the sofa because you’re relaxed and your body’s demand is super low.

the same applies when diving.
 
You argument only works if you assume that someone's breathing efficiency (work performed per unit of air consumed) both never varies and is incapable of improvement.

This may be approximately true for a very experienced and very calm diver. But it is not valid for the inexperienced or easily agitated diver. They tend to have a much higher consumption rate while diving than if they were doing the same amount of work in less stressful circumstances.
 
you don’t have to modify anything. You might choose to, but you certainly don’t have to.

your air consumption is driven by co2 production. That’s it and that’s all. Lower your metabolic demands, lower your consumption rate.

do you think the sac rate you experience sitting on the sofa is more than your “long exhale” forced breathing technique? Of course not. It’s the lowest when you’re on the sofa because you’re relaxed and your body’s demand is super low.

the same applies when diving.
It is absolutely true that breathing is commanded by CO2. Exactly for this reason a proper breathing technique can improve the situation significantly. If you leave the CO2 to command your breathing, you easily go in Dyspnea: this is an anomalous breathing mode, where a lot of CO2 is accumulated in your body, stimulating breathing. But the "natural way" of reacting to such a stimulus is to speed up the breathing rate, not to increase the volume of each respiration. The result is a very fast, very shallow breathing, which is highly inefficient in removing the CO2. So a vicious circle is established, the more CO2 you have, the faster is the breathing.
The correct way of breathing for not retenting CO2 is the way which is taught for CC rebreathers, particularly those operating with a single hose (as the old ARO pure-oxygen rebreathers which were widely employed, here in Italy, in the seventies and eighties).
With such rebreathers you are obliged to breath very slowly, always depleting your lungs almost entirely, very, very slowly, and filling them up almost completely, again very slowly. An inspiratory pause of 5-10s further improves the efficiency of CO2 elimination, as when the lungs are fully extended the exchange surface is maximum, so CO2 is expelled better form the blood.
Learning this way of breathing takes months. In fact, in the seventies, a scuba diving course was 6-9 months long, during which the ARO was employed routinely, mostly in the swimming pool, whilst OC air was employed only in the last lessons and in the sea.
All this was entirely incompatible with the PADI method, based on a very quick and superficial OW training, followed by a large number of other "speciality" courses.
Teaching breathing control, in this approach, is not only too slow and too difficult, it is also quite dangerous: in particular the inspiratory pause, or the simple fact of reaching full inhalation, increases significantly the chance that a student emerges quickly without exhaling, causing severe lung damage and gas embolism.
Better to tell him to just "breath normally", and leave that he gets a bad headache due to CO2 retention for not being able to eliminate it efficiently with proper breathing control, than risking much worst physical damage due to a quick uncontrolled ascent without expiration...
 

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