Females vs males - rate of air consumption ?

[DI_Guy]

I have talked to many divers about their air consumption and I am getting the feeling that, in general, the rate of air consumption is slightly less for female divers than for male divers.

Has anyone else noticed this ?

The thoughts I had are....

Males are normally physically larger than females, does this account for the difference ? ( I don't know )

In general, do females have better cardiovascular fitness than males ?

I wonder if a study has ever been done . Any comments ?

 

[DORSETBOY]

Would deff say that as a general rule women seem to have better air consumption than men. An instructor I worked with used to come out of the water on a 12l cylinder after a multilevel dive to max 30m with more than 100bar every time she did the dive having been down for 40-50 mins.. this lass just hardly seemed to breathe.

Mine is nowhere near as good but still isn't too bad in spite of all the ciggies I smoke!

 

[Kim]

Try this link:
http://scuba-doc.com/mendivers.html

There's a few reasons here.

 

[mania]

One of the reasons is that man when breathing are using diaphragm while most woman don't. So underwater man are taking deaper breaths than we do.
But air consumption is a matter of training and some of my male friends have much better air consumption than I do and still I'm not bad.
Mania

 

[DI_Guy]

Try this link:
http://scuba-doc.com/mendivers.html

There's a few reasons here.

Thanks for the link.... interesting reading

I knew different lung capacity was a probable factor but as we learn to control and regulate our breathing, I figured the "lung capacity" could be ruled out.

Thanks for the info... KimLeece

 

[galactica2001]

Would deff say that as a general rule women seem to have better air consumption than men. An instructor I worked with used to come out of the water on a 12l cylinder after a multilevel dive to max 30m with more than 100bar every time she did the dive having been down for 40-50 mins.. this lass just hardly seemed to breathe.

Mine is nowhere near as good but still isn't too bad in spite of all the ciggies I smoke!

That's funny, because I always come out of the water with a little over 100bars on a 12l cylinder (about 40-50mins and around 18m max depth). And I'm a rookie in diving. My instructor told me that my air consumption is the same as with very experienced divers (and I was terribly proud...), but aside apnea diving (I've been into it for about 15yrs at least) I have only 14 logged dives (passed my owd in May) - so I'm totaly new to it. I don't get it (I'm medium built, so body constitution can't be influencing it)...

 

[Juls64]

My husband and I use air about the same, and we prefer to dive together quite a bit of the time, for that reason.

He was a long time smoker, but quit at the beginning of the year. We joke with him and say his air consumption is so good because he is used to using less because of the smoking.

Julie

 

[Kim]

My husband and I use air about the same, and we prefer to dive together quite a bit of the time, for that reason.

He was a long time smoker, but quit at the beginning of the year. We joke with him and say his air consumption is so good because he is used to using less because of the smoking.

Julie

Very possibly true. However, from what I have recently learnt, while his lungs could easily be effectively smaller because of smoking (like a womans are naturally) because of his bodyweight he could be retaining CO2 for a lot longer than you - if he ever gets headaches diving it would be a sign. I look at it like this: the difference between your body weight and mine should determine the size of the tanks we use - that makes it a beginning comparison. Added to that - the difference between the speed of my metabolism (men are generally hotter to the touch than women) and yours should also be factored in. Fast metabolism= more O2 usage. When all of the physiological differences are taken into account - the rest is down to experience and practice.

 

[Boogie711]

Of COURSE women have better air consumption. My (female) Nitrox instructor explained that it's because they have tiny lungs and no hearts.

 

[El Orans]

when we bought our gear last year it was advised that I would use a 12L cylinder and my wife a 10L cylinder due to air-consumption.

Nowadays we have switched cylinders because my air-consumption is a lot less then hers. So, we have about the same time available.

Experience is probably the issue here (I dive twice as much).
I expect that next year or so, we'll switch cylinders again.