How do I improve my air consumption?

[Gary D.]

RELAX

You will most likely be the first one up until your comfort level increases. As you get more comfortable more air will stay in the tank. ;^)

Give it some time and DO NOT USE CONTROLLED BREATHING. You could be asking for trouble.

Do you think if someone else was running out of air they would stay down for you? I don't think so. Relax and it will improve.

Gary D.

 

[pasley]

Hi everyone, I want to start by saying I only have about 12 dives under my belt. However my last trip to ST. Martin, I surfaced with only 240 psi left. The reason is pretty bad. I didn't want to end everyone’s dive. My question is is there a way to control your breathing...

First the lecture. Your decision to surface with 240 PSI in the tank was ill advised. Remember, if something goes wrong, like your dive buddy having a problem (out of air, regulator goes south) there you are without enough air to get the two of you to the surface. I have gone on many dives and surfaced with 1500-2000 PSI while my partner had 300-700 PSI. Not a problem. You end the dive based upon the highest air consumption rate in the group or when any diver calls the dive, whichever comes first.

Now, to get on with advice you asked for:

Steps to better air consumption:
1. Dive often
2. Exercise - run, swim, bicycle or any other aerobic exercise, and don’t forget the rest of your body.
3. Dive often
4. Diet – eat sensible meals and watch you weight – if you are over weight, get down to where you should be, if your weight is good, continue the good work.
5. Stream line your gear. Watch the dangles and other stuff that interferes with efficient movement through the water.
6. RELAX and enjoy the dive. Don’t try to go anywhere fast. Swim slow and take time to see what is where you are, particularly the small stuff. This will go a long way to increasing your bottom time.
7. Dive often.
8. Be warm. If your exposure protection is not doing the job, take corrective action as being warm will help you conserve energy. Conserving energy will help you use less air.
9. Check you weighting. On a dive recently, my dive partner was a yo yo. He was either on the surface or on the bottom or on his way between the two. He blew threw 2800 PSI (AL80) in the same time I used 700 PSI in my AL80. He was over weighted and used a lot of air inflating and deflating his BC.
10. Learn how to work your BC. Make small changes to the air in the BC and WAIT 30 seconds or more for them to take effect. I don’t pretend to understand why it works that way but it does.

Most important is of course experience by diving often. With that will come confidence, better physical fitness, and all the other traits that will help you conserve air.

 

[MildlyDamp]

with a grand total of 30 dives under my belt, I think I can offer you some useful advice. This has what has moved me from being the first one up on a dive well into the center of the pack.

1. RELAX!

2. Practice economy of motion. It's very easy to spot experienced vs. inexperienced divers in the water. The newbies are constantly thrashing around, moving hands and legs in order to position and move themselves. The experienced folks just hang there motionless and then move with very deliberate gentle moves; I rarely see them use their hands much. Plus, the slower you move, the less energy it takes. If you try to jet around chasing every interesting sight, you'll quickly increase your heart rate and air consumption. Move slow and easy.

3. Learn buoyancy control. I don't hit my BC inflator more than a few times on a typical dive. Newbies tend to overcompensate. They add too much and start to rise, then dump - over and over again. Learn to anticipate the lag between adjusting your BC and the resultant change in depth/buoyancy. Then use your inflator only when really necessary.

4. Breath slowly and deeply, like you're sipping the air through a straw. Don't hold your breath. It's not only dangerous, it will just end up making you breath harder to "catch up."

5. Stay streamlined. Keep your arms tucked against you, holding your gauges, when you're moving about.

6. Evaluate your fins. I recently purchased Atomic Split Fins. I think these really reduce the amount of effort required to move at a given speed, thus reducing air consumption.

7. Don't over weight. Weight check yourself at the beginning of a dive. Too much weight means you use more energy to move, and therefore use more air.

 

[paolov]

Hi everyone, I want to start by saying I only have about 12 dives under my belt. However my last trip to ST. Martin, I surfaced with only 240 psi left. The reason is pretty bad. I didn't want to end everyones dive. My question is is there a way to controll your breathing. Seems like I always have to come up first. I'm in great shape, new equipment but nothing seems to work. I even tried to force myself not to breath as much. The + - on the reg dosn't help either. Any ideals thanks Alan

at 12 dives , you are doing fine. It takes time to be very comfortable doing SCUBA. at your present state your brain is adjusting to the relatively new environment and in this process the brain needs FUEL, that is OXYGEN. in time your brain would be used to the environment and would adjust your body to that environment requiring less oxygen to the brain due to the fact that you are already in a relaxed state.

You are doing good, except for your reason that you didn't want to end the dive for everyone else.

Keep on diving

 

[cavemanxxx]

Brain Fuel concept........ interesting. I am not a doctor, but I dont notice any difference in breathing rates when I am fully concentrated at work.... if it was the case i would be working up a real heavy sweat and loose weight ( point taken the brain is a major consumer though of Oxygen)

 

[ScubaTexas]

What are the tricks to better/more efficient air consumption?

 

[Web Monkey]

What are the tricks to better/more efficient air consumption?

Work less, relax, stay in shape & dive more!

Anything you can do to make diving easier and less stressfull will reduce your air consumption. this includes:

- Being properly weighted
- Adjusting your trim so you can maintain your body's orientation in the direction of travel (if you're swimming horizontally, and your body is also horizontal, you have less drag).

These two are related, since it's difficult to be horizontal if you're overweighted.

- Not being stressed out
- Not being out of shape

These two are also related, since being out of shape can cause stress, as well as increase air consumption by itself.

In the end, any action that requires you to expend energy, uses air, since your body needs oxygen to process food and perform work.

External devices that use air also reduce bottom time, since every pint that goes into your BC (and back out again) is air you can't breathe.

Terry

 

[Gary D.]

Work less, relax, stay in shape & dive more!

Anything you can do to make diving easier and less stressfull will reduce your air consumption. this includes:

- Being properly weighted
- Adjusting your trim so you can maintain your body's orientation in the direction of travel (if you're swimming horizontally, and your body is also horizontal, you have less drag).

These two are related, since it's difficult to be horizontal if you're overweighted.

- Not being stressed out
- Not being out of shape

These two are also related, since being out of shape can cause stress, as well as increase air consumption by itself.

In the end, any action that requires you to expend energy, uses air, since your body needs oxygen to process food and perform work.

External devices that use air also reduce bottom time, since every pint that goes into your BC (and back out again) is air you can't breathe.

Terry

Read the above! When your done read it again. The only other thing is "Read the above again.

Gary D.

 

[ABQdiver]

This topic always comes up since it is an obvious need for newer divers. Web Monkey did a great job of defining it.

Above all, relax and dive often, your air consumption will decrease.

 

[Warren_L]

Also make sure that your gear is streamlined. This will help with the reducing drag concept.