I'm challenged with: Deep Yoga-Style 'Diaphragm' breathing vs Buoyancy Control.

[scubafanatic]

Background: prepping in the pool for my upcoming July 13 live aboard trip on Okeanos II/Costa Rica/Guanacaste. Haven't been diving (other than pool) in quite a while. Abandoned effort to get larger capacity tanks rented on-site, so will be diving with AL80's. (the boat only has (2) AL100's available for rental and both are already spoken for.) After much analysis I decided having the boat try to obtain another AL100 from a land-based op not worth the trouble.

see my other thread on my analysis if you like:

Dilemma: AL80 vs AL100 ? Costa Rica/Okeanos Aggressor II typical fill pressures you've experienced?

So now it's up to me to get better gas mileage with the AL80.

Reports indicate the boat does do decent fills @ approx 3200 psi.

I prefer bigger tanks, but have used AL80s over the years on a few trips (Roatan-Co Co View / Bonaire (2) / Cozumel / Juliet-Bahamas / Juan Jose-Sea of Cortez / a few tanks on Nautilus Explorer when, near trip's end I switched from HP steel 100's Faber to AL80's because the Faber buoyancy sucked from both me and my female dive buddy).

If memory serves, on a typical ocean reef AL80 type dive, I'd average about 45 minutes.

I'm male @ approx 175 lbs. (I probably lose 20 pts right there in the gas consumption contest.)

I own and have dived pretty much every type/capacity single tank out there. I keep a basic spreadsheet for each trip recording wetsuit type-thickness/BP/tank type and lead weighting I used so I have a historical record of what seemed to work under different conditions.

I consider myself a very advanced recreational diver (with 500+ dives in open ocean good/bad and ugly conditions). However I'm going into this trip a bit rusty as haven't been on a trip in several years now.

Generally been a bit spoiled with access to larger tanks.

Did a 3 hr pool session yesterday to check out gear/refresh myself and also practiced the deep breathing techniques I've read about.

I was quite amazed at how I could easily only need breathe 2 times per minute! I developed a cycle of inhaling for 10 seconds (doing 4-5 inhale air sips) then exhaling fully for 15-20 seconds. I discovered each breath cycle lasted 25-30 seconds, which drastically reduced my air consumption!

That being said, doing those FULL exhalations messed with my buoyancy such that I found myself 'crashing' to the bottom (in slow motion). If I were kneeling on a sandy/rocky reef bottom, my new technique will likely work like a charm, but if I'm in the water column, the buoyancy changes may make my new techniques fail, unless I modify things by speeding up the exhale part of the cycle so there's less time to initiate the crash to the bottom sensation ?

I know that with increasing depth, the % pressure change per foot decreases, so I'm thinking the deeper I am, the less of a 'pendulum effect' I'd experience, it's just more pronounced up shallow, like the 12 ft. deep pool I practiced in yesterday.

I'm not trying to set bottom time records, just comfortably keep up with the other divers and get better 'mileage'.

Any thoughts or observations ?

Thanks in advance!

 

[northernone]

I have a rythmn of slowly kicking up and down timed with my breathing. The slight change in angle as my tidal volume shifts works fine when I'm not doing macro photography or very precise tunnels. Open ocean with a few feet to spare, no problem...

Might that work for you?

As a side note you've probably already discovered (advanced forum and experienced diver), be prepared to adjust your breathing in response to your metabolic needs. Forcing slow breathing (unless you can completely relax and require less oxygen/generate co2) becomes uncomfortable/dangerous quickly in the real world.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @scubafanatic

Personally, I think you are far overthinking this. You are going to have a great time on you trip, just enjoy it. Spending so much time planning your breathing pattern is not likely to help you much. Get your weighting right, relax, and breath. I breathe more than two cycles per minute, do not adversely affect my buoyancy, and have an RMV of 0.36 cf/min

Good diving, Craig

 

[scubafanatic]

I have a rythmn of slowly kicking up and down timed with my breathing. The slight change in angle as my tidal volume shifts works fine when I'm not doing macro photography or very precise tunnels. Open ocean with a few feet to spare, no problem...

Might that work for you?

That's definitely something worth trying, I'll work that in while experimenting on the trip.

 

[scubafanatic]

Hi @scubafanatic

Personally, I think you are far overthinking this. You are going to have a great time on you trip, just enjoy it. Spending so much time planning your breathing pattern is not likely to help you much. Get your weighting right, relax, and breath. I breathe more than two cycles per minute, do not adversely affect my buoyancy, and have an RMV of 0.36 cf/min

Good diving, Craig

I have been known to over think things sometimes, I made a big concession already by walking away from the bigger tank option, so see, there's hope for me already.

 

[tomfcrist]

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you try that breathing rate under essentially any exertion it won’t hold water. Beyond that, you are Going to love the headache you experience after the dive. Retention of CO2 Is the issue here.

 

[scubafanatic]

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you try that breathing rate under essentially any exertion it won’t hold water. Beyond that, you are Going to love the headache you experience after the dive. Retention of CO2 Is the issue here.

Hi Tom,

I tried it for quite a while in the pool under low exertion with no headache or other issues, I agree if under more exertion the # of breaths/minute will certain increase, but if I'm at 4 - 5 breaths per minute under exertion while others are at 10-12 per minute, I still hope to be well ahead of the game.

Still, it shocked me that I could get down to 2 breaths per minute even in the pool, that's way beyond anything I've tried/achieved before. It's like my body didn't need any air as long as I was exhaling, a weird (but good) sensation, as if I was super flushing out the CO2 that actually triggers the need-to-breathe sensation.

....on a secondary note I did my 1st test of my Perdix AI transmitter mounted to a 10" Piranha thin flexi HP hose and it worked like a charm, prevented the wireless signal loss I sometimes experienced on my prior pool test dives by just mounting the AI transmitter directly to the 1st-stage port.

 

[PfcAJ]

Just breathe.

All those special breathing techniques are baloney.

What really matters is relaxing and being efficient in your movement.

 

[scubafanatic]

Additional data point: reviewed a Belize Sun Dancer trip DVD from 2011, I was briefly filmed from a distance while @ 130' diving the Blue Hole, I was breathing every 8 seconds, if I improved on that to say every 12 seconds = 5 breaths per minute, that wouldn't be too shabby.

 

[scubafanatic]

Just breathe.

All those special breathing techniques are baloney.

What really matters is relaxing and being efficient in your movement.

I am planning to remove a few things from my harness to lighten things up a bit, will attend to that July 4th as off work that day. More streamlining is always a good thing.