Improving my air consumption

[under water]

..
Do you really need a 2 lights, a slate, a whistle, an air horn, a safety sausage, a reel, etc. etc. on every dive? Keep it simple, only take what you need..

No, no, yes, no, yes, no unless your diving in a quarry of course.

What also works for me to reduce my air consumption (still not ideal) is to dive more dives in a day and in a week. I find I use up a lot of air on those first dives of a trip and as the dives and days progress, the SAC (Surface Air Consumption) rate gets better & better. You can also dive slightly shallower than the rest of the group if you want to use less air. Along with your buddy of course.
Regards

 

[shoupart]

Some things that helped me:

Make sure you're always warm enough. Before I had enough neoprene to stave off hypothermia, I was breathing much too fast.

The more I swam/biked/dove, the more my leg muscles got used to the activity. I had some cramping when I first began diving, but that quickly went away and I was able to swim with much less effort.

One other thing that helped was finding a really effective kicking style. I liked a frog-style kick with a little snap in the ankles. I built up endurance so it was no problem doing that for a long time, and it was a really effective kick with those fins.

Streamlining/trimming gear is always helpful, too. The less stuff dangling, the better, and I liked to clasp my hands behind my back, around the boot of my tank, as I dove.

I also never ever inflate my BC at all during a dive, unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm not sure how much air I save doing this. I have my weights set just right so that when I dump all the air out of the BC, I slowly sink down, and throughout the dive I only use my breath to fine-tune my buoyancy and hover at any depth.

 

[Scott M]

Like others have said trim, weighting, just plain old time and experience is important. If your not fighting all the time your SAC will drop.

Best advise I have ever been given is from an old Zen diver buddy of mine. I was blowing through air like it was the right thing to do diving side by side with him and he would use a third of what I used. He told me as you breath in slowly count 1 to 5, pause (Do not hold your breath, this is a very short pause) then slowly out 5 to 1. Repeat. I found it took my mind off trying to be perfect and I was a lot more relaxed so my SAC was a lot lower. It wasn't 5 dive later and we were about equal on air usage and I was a lot more relaxed and enjoyed the dives ten times as much.

 

[shotthebreeze]

Different fins can effect your air consumption. From what I've heard, splits, especially the Bio Fins can improve your air consumption.

 

[Deefstes]

Jeepers guys, thanks for all the wonderful advice. I didn't quite expect to get two pages worth of responses when I came in this morning but this has been of great help. I'll be sure to try out these tips.

 

[surfsidedav]

In addition to all of the above, one of the things I noticed about myself was keeping myself occupied. When I was diving and had nothing better to do than worry about how much air I was using, I used alot more. But when I kept myself occupied or focused on something else other than my gas consumption, I used alot less. Bottom line, getting more comfortable in the water.

 

[on_two_wheels]

While everyone is answering this question, I have a related one....what is a better indicator: SAC rate or psi/min?

 

[fisherdvm]

While everyone is answering this question, I have a related one....what is a better indicator: SAC rate or psi/min?

psi per minute with a 100 cu ft tank is twice the air consumption of the same psi per minute of a 50 cu ft. If a diver doing double 100 tanks, that same psi would be 4 times as the little woman diving with a 50 cu ft.

That's why for comparison purpose, you need to use cubic foot per minute translated to 1 ATM, or Surface Air Consumption.

 

[Papa_Bear]

Different fins can effect your air consumption. From what I've heard, splits, especially the Bio Fins can improve your air consumption.

I have heard split fins add air to your tank! Thats why Freedivers have seen the light and now diving to well over 1500ft using split-fins! I heard of a diver in Laguna beach who was using split-fins and kicked twice only to find he had run into the Avalon Pier! Cavers are now going to split-fins and single 80's and getting four hour dives! Thank god for the inventor of the greatest modern invetion of all time! NASA is trying to use the same technology to power the space shuttle!

 

[TSandM]

Psi per minute is fine for comparison over time, if you always use the same tanks. What calculating SAC rate does for you is allow you to make easy comparisons of gas consumption, no matter what size of tank you may have used for that particular dive.