Controlling and reducing air consumption

[MMM]

Easey-peasy. Especially if you have steel tanks, steel backplates etc. Current has pretty much nothing to do with it. But shouldn't be hard to do even with an Aluminum 80 if you are properly weighted. It's a lot harder with the latter if you have drained your tank to almost nothing though.

“maintaining a safety stop without a line to hold onto“ - How difficult is it for you to hover at 15 feet? That was the point I was trying to make with the picture and description. We drifted along overweighted with steel tanks, steel backplates, pony bottles, lots of lobsters and gear for over 20 minutes in rough seas with no effort. So I am confused as to how a “line to hold onto” is relevant to exerting yourself on a drift dive.

 

[Soloist]

Easey-peasy. Especially if you have steel tanks, steel backplates etc. Current has pretty much nothing to do with it. But shouldn't be hard to do even with an Aluminum 80 if you are properly weighted. It's a lot harder with the latter if you have drained your tank to almost nothing though.

Oops, very, very true. It is actually easier to hover if you are overweighted. The point I was attempting to make is that maintaining a safety stop should not require much effort if you are properly weighted. One of the main themes of this thread. Unfortunately we mostly dive aluminum tanks these days. My preference and objective is to conduct safety stops with no air in my wing, thus no air adjustments required.

 

[Littlerayray]

I'll take my steel double low pressure 108s over aluminum tanks anyway

 

[caruso]

Did you read the section I quoted? The first paragraph. The article isn’t pro-smoking at all. Or even about enhancing athletic performance through a legal substance, smoking. Instead the author was illustrating how a reviewer could selectively chose specific research data to support a faulty hypothesis by drawing incorrect correlations and conclusions.

Ah, I missed that part. Makes a bit of a difference.

“maintaining a safety stop without a line to hold onto“ - How difficult is it for you to hover at 15 feet? .. So I am confused as to how a “line to hold onto” is relevant to exerting yourself on a drift dive.

I find I need to move around a bit more to maintain proper trim and buoyancy when there's no line and I see lots of other divers doing the same. Not all of us are able to hang motionless for 3 full minutes without making adjustments to stay in position. Especially if we're a bit light due to having empty tanks and diving with as little weight as possible, and under conditions where passing waves can significantly affect your depth and buoyancy.

 

[Steelyeyes]

Ah, I missed that part. Makes a bit of a difference.



I find I need to move around a bit more to maintain proper trim and buoyancy when there's no line and I see lots of other divers doing the same. Not all of us are able to hang motionless for 3 full minutes without making adjustments to stay in position. Especially if we're a bit light due to having empty tanks and diving with as little weight as possible, and under conditions where passing waves can significantly affect your depth and buoyancy.

There is definitely a sweet spot where you're properly weighted. I've found that buoyancy control then is pretty simple and small changes in depth don't create problems that changing where in your tidal volume you're breathing can't fix. I look at it this way, if you're overweighted then you generally have a bubble in your BCD, that is a variable impact on buoyancy and changes with depth. Lead doesn't do that. The smaller you can keep that bubble, especially when shallow, the fewer problems with depth control you'll have.
When I'm drift diving I make most depth changes less than 20 feet by changing my breathing. If that get uncomfortable then I move air in or out of the BCD but in very small amounts. My goal is to be diving with zero air in the BCD at the end of the dive with <700 pisg in my tank. Every time I go on a diving trip it seems some piece of gear or another is new so it takes a couple of dives to tune my weighting.

Being underweighted is a problem and it's best to be avoided. In the past I have made safety stops upside down kicking and holding onto my buddy a time or two and I avoid being underweighted like the plague now.

Using terrain doesn't mean hold onto it. Watch fish in a river. They find an eddy where the current is far less, or sometimes a seam where it's basically nullified. I look for those spots on the down current side of a rise to hold and wait for a group if I'm diving with one. Less energy is spent fighting the current and so you use less gas.

 

[dmaziuk]

Did you actually read this paper. It is pretty interesting but not for the reasons you posted. I did a quick read of the points and thought this is ridiculous... went back to it to find out more about the author and to see if there was something I missed. So I started at the beginning...

As we computer geeks say Use The Source Luke. It's amazing how often it does not do/say/mean what one thought it did.

Try yoga.

Or martial arts, taiji if you're not into butt-kicking. They all teach deep slow breathing into lower abdomen.

In yoga tehre's a diaphragm stretch exercise that freedivers do... google goole...
On the flip side jumprope and jumping jacks train to maintain slow deep breathing during intense physical activity. You can do that in the pool, too, doing fast kicks with the kickboard instead of jumps. Work on your kick and breathing at the same time, that's what I do.

 

[АлександрД]

Marg Moran McQuinn, I`m with you about yoga in diving. May be not all yoga, but as I mentioned before - I used breathing trainings, that my uncle (he followed yoga for many years) explain to me. Just one, very simple exercise:
(here I described it in details, but with another language. here is autotranslate)
--------------
(1) first, as slowly as possible inhale. at the upper point of inspiration and on exhalation - no delays - i.e. immediately exhale relaxed, as usual.
and so several times (3-5).
you can here pause in two or three breaths in order to have a little rest.

(2) then make the slowest exhalation, all the rest - relaxed, as usual. so do 3-5 times in a row.
you can here pause in two or three breaths in order to have a little rest.

(3) then combine - the slowest inhalation and after it the slowest exhalation. do 3-5 times.
pause 2-3 breaths for rest.

(4) then a slow breath, and than hold breath. then the usual exhalation ....
repeat 3-5 times, rest 2-3 normal relaxed inspiration

(5) Then do a slow inhalation, a delay, an exhalation. and so 3-5 times.
We do not do any breathing exercises at the exhalation!

from the features:
do not tighten strongly. those. through ourselves we do not step over, we do first with effort by ourselves, but we do not set it as an end in itself.
during a slow inhalation, a delay, an exhalation - we slowly think of one, two, three ... about once per second or two - one count. it's just to control your development. day by day you will notice that everything goes on longer and longer.
repetitions do 3-5. between different exercises you can rest a little, two or three ordinary breaths.
such complete sets per day - two or five.

yes, and forgot to initially pay attention - we do exhalation to the maximum, as far as possible.

Well, the total - you have a month account can from 5-8 to reach 15-20 or more

this exercise very well develops volume of lungs, getting used to the raised maintenance of СО2, well and it is simple as many respiratory exercises - it is useful to health.

--------------
This also allow you to acheive more deep and slow breathe, that allow to have less RMV (Respiratory Minute Volume)


Caruso, I compare you with GUE followers, because I have some friends, who are GUE trained, and most of them has something (looks like) personal to others, who smoking
As I know, GUE forbid their students to smoke.
I never told, that smoking is good, opposit, I`m absolutelly agree, that smoking is very bad thing.
But attach smoking everywhere as universal evil - it is also not good idea.

 

[uncfnp]

it's often necessary to make rapid depth adjustments when moving rapidly over a reef in order to avoid hitting something especially if you prefer to stick close to the reef, as I do.

You proably already know this but if you are drifting with the current low to the bottom and see an outcropping or object ahead you can just sort of tilt your trim up, adjust your fins a bit, and the current that is flowing over the reef/coral head etc, will lift you up and over as well.

 

[TMHeimer]

I came too late--too many posts to read but will throw out this--
--When you consciously breathe only from your mouth on land, you (or at least I) tend to breathe quite slowly. I THINK that's about the same way I breathe diving. Never really gave it much thought.
--The faster you swim the more gas you use & vice versa. But that has little to do with anything else-- like sculling, weighting, physical fitness. That just is.
--On a related aspect that was mentioned-- I don't see how you can drop weight as you gain experience. You do a proper weight check before dive #1 and unless factors change (body weight a lot, different wetsuit, equipment, etc.), you need the same amount of lead after dive # 1,000. OTOH, proper use of BC inflation/deflation will save on air. Assuming you're properly weighted on day 1, honing this skill to a reasonably good level shouldn't take more than a VERY few dives.

 

[dmaziuk]

--On a related aspect that was mentioned-- I don't see how you can drop weight as you gain experience.

@The Chairman wrote an article about it once as I recall: if you're not properly trimmed -- you're usually head-up -- then your kick propels you up. Then you add weight to compensate, and then when you stop kicking you start sinking. You have to keep kicking and burning air.

By the same token your air consumption shouldn't change with "experience" if you started perfectly trimmed, relaxed, and all that.