Female Divers and Trim

[Saltair]

As I watch my wife work on her OW certification I have started to wonder about proper weighting and female divers. Now I am very new at this sport and am still working trough proper weight and trim, and maybe it is my thinking about that that leads to the question. With apologies to and women who may be offended there are general body mass differences between woman and men. Does this lead to women weighting themselves differently? I have seen male divers that trim themselves out with a little weight added here and there, but most seem to have the belt, or harness, or BC and the weight is in the same general area of the body, maybe moved up or down to get the right trim. Do women more often than men have to add some weight to different areas of their rig to get proper trim?

 

[ClayJar]

Diving wet, I move 4-6 pounds up to a spare band just below the shoulder of my tank. The rest of my weight (which is 3-10 pounds, depending on suit and salinity) is on a weight belt. My usual buddy dives weight-integrated and moves about 3-4 pounds to a spare band just below the shoulder.

I do not know her overall weighting, but I believe we're quite similar in the proportional distribution of lead weights, but the details such as belt vs. integrated make it a rough comparison at best.

The difference between my diving wet and my diving dry is *vastly* more significant than the difference between her and me. Unfortunately, out of six divers (my buddy-family plus myself), only two of us have bothered to care about trim (and to dive enough to work it out), so my data is very sparse.

 

[Mrs.Prages]

I am a little larger in the chest area and when I have on a lot of neoprene, I have been known to carry a weight pocket closer to my sternum and the rest on my weight belt.

I have now gotten a backplate, so we will see if that alleviates some of the issues.

 

[DennisW]

Donna was always feet down at about 20 degrees until she won her Zeagle Zena BC last summer at the SB Invades the Keys trip. Now, she has really nice trim. The difference in the BC did the trick.

 

[Womble]

Moving weight around to adjust your trim is important for everyone, regardless of gender. It is something that I was not taught even after many years of diving, probably because when I started the only choice was to wear a weight belt around your waist. I guess it makes sense that if a lady (or it could be some of the guys I see down at the ocean!) has a bit more buoyancy up top then that might require her shift a bit of weight up towards her head to compensate, but that is a specific situation for a particular person. I myself (as a fella) wear a 'trim weight' high on my tank, mostly to compensate for my heavy legs!

It's all about balance....

 

[Cheekymonkey]

As I watch my wife work on her OW certification I have started to wonder about proper weighting and female divers. Now I am very new at this sport and am still working trough proper weight and trim, and maybe it is my thinking about that that leads to the question. With apologies to and women who may be offended there are general body mass differences between woman and men. Does this lead to women weighting themselves differently? I have seen male divers that trim themselves out with a little weight added here and there, but most seem to have the belt, or harness, or BC and the weight is in the same general area of the body, maybe moved up or down to get the right trim. Do women more often than men have to add some weight to different areas of their rig to get proper trim?

From instructing and being an assistant instructor during the time I was a divemaster I have noticed that alot of women, especially of average weight and up, have more positively buyouant lower portions of the body then men, specifically some women have a hard time planting their feet on the bottom at all (to do fin pivot type skills) when they are neutrally buoyant. This does make some sense to me though, since from my understanding of the phsyiology difference between men and women, womens bodies store more fat in the lower torso to prepare themselves for pregnancies.

 

[ianr33]

Hijack On:

specifically some women have a hard time planting their feet on the bottom at all (to do fin pivot type skills) when they are neutrally buoyant.

And this is a bad thing because................?

Hijack Off

 

[spectrum]

My wife is not tall but wears a size L BC. That means the BC covers her hips right where her weight belt wanted to go. The result was everything being bunched up. On top of that she has the floaty feet female syndrome. She solved the whole problem by taking the DUI Weight & Trim II harness that I use in the colder months for diving dry.

That let her run the weight lower on her body below the bc, allowing it to fit great. And placed the weight down below her hips a bit to where she trims out nice. She really likes the security of donning the harnesss and almost forgets to take it off after her dive.

Pete

 

[Cheekymonkey]

Hijack On:



And this is a bad thing because................?

Hijack Off

Didnt say they should bes wimming around dragging their feet on the bottom, and kicking the coral, that is a bad thing... But the OP was discussing the buoyancy characteristic differences between men and women, I pointed one out.

 

[ianr33]

Didnt say they should bes wimming around dragging their feet on the bottom, and kicking the coral, that is a bad thing... But the OP was discussing the buoyancy characteristic differences between men and women, I pointed one out.

I'm just messin' with ya

Personally I have found that the easiest fix for floaty feet is a pair of Jet Fins.