Negatively bouyant swimmers

[TTOUPS]

I have always been negative. In my (skinny) youth, rather severely so and now in middle age with a "somewhat more rotund" body type, moderately so. This may be genetic, as my 15 year-old son is also severely negative.
During my commercial diving days, it was irrelevant and in scuba or skin diving there were many ways to compensate; a shorty wetsuit or just a full lenth wetsuit jacket was more than enough to compensate.
Folks who are not negative might not appreciate the difficulties involved. If you stop your efforts at some sort of propulsive movement, you sink! This means that though you may be able to swim, you can never rest without some sort of bouyancy aid. Over the years, I've spoken to other "negatives" and some seem to avoid water sports of any sort. I've sometimes wondered if many negatively bouyant folks might be disinclined to try scuba for this reason.
I'd be interested in hearing from instructors as to how they handle the problem of negatively bouyant students and how it may impact specific swimming requirements.

Best regards
Doc

 

[Rooster1]

I am negative enough that if I stop swimming or kicking, and just be still, I will float with only the top of my head out of the water, with nose and mouth under. this makes swimming more difficult because like you said you cant rest. and yes you can compensate with a wet suit. The bennefit is that you need less weight to dive with. I have dove with as little as 7 and a half pounds (no exposures suit). If I am diving with a farmer john 7mm it takes me about 15 pounds of lead.

 

[100days-a-year]

Not really a curse ,it means your body is dense.That indicates a higher proportion of muscle mass.I've been a sinker all my life.I've been active surfing,swimming,waterskiing,kayaking,freediving & scuba since I was young.When you're young I think fun outweighs fear or discomfort.It did make a lot of the treading water portions of classes fun.If I stopped for a second I sank while several "more bouyant" folks could flutter thier hands a little to stay up.

 

[Walter]

In my younger days, I dived with a wet suit and no weight. The hardest part of my training was the swim test. I could not float and had to complete the entire 15 minutes treading water.

What I do is teach them how to float. Some folks are so negatively buoyant they can not float at all, but most can float to one degree or another. I once thought I was sinking, I now know I was going to float at a lower level than my peers. When I first learned to float, my legs were almost straight down with a slight curve back under my body. My head would be all the way back with my eyes under water. The only part of my body above the surface was my nose and mouth. The knowledge that you can float much lower in the water than your peers and still be floating is important.

 

[budgy]

I have seen thin people with good muscule tone struggle a bit more when they learnt to swim and realise they are naturally less buoyant. I am more of the love handles type and needed 8lb of lead without a suit to get down. Later when I learnt to relax and empty my lungs I found I would sink without the weight. It may sound obvious and silly but regarding an inability to float and negative buoyancy, I wonder if you inflate your lungs to their full capacity.

 

[art.chick]

Are we discussing Matza balls, or what?

I'd love to not need to wear weights to sink (I guess it could be scary if you can't ascend without great effort.) I was once teaching 2 sisters in my snorkelling/skin diving course, & one was clearly the "star" (the skinny one), & the other lived in her shadow (the pudgy one.) When it came time for the floating lesson, they reversed roles! The fallen star was so mad, she used her sister as a floatation device!

Eventually, the thin girl learned to spread herself out on the surface to maximize her surface area. Still not the best floater, but us chubbies deserve to have one advantage in life!

 

[pt40fathoms]

I have seen this problem before, and it seems to have no logic to it at all. For example. One of my dive buddys is a little "round" around the edges (too many pizzas), and he sinks like a stone. He too has never been a good swimmer, however he is a very good diver. Another dive buddy, who is "cut", and spends far too much time in the gym (in front of the big mirrors no doubt), floats to the point that when he is on his back he almost looks half out of the water. He needs 8 pounds of lead just to dive in swim shorts!

So the theory of body fat versus boyancy, although logical, would seem to be flawed by reason of observation. The answer must lie somewhere in overall body density. How that can be studied, lies best with those of you that have a Phd in biology and or physics or something.

For little old me, I just shrug my sholders and say Hmmm Intersting, pass me another beer please.

 

[Zept]

I'm about neutrally buoyant in fresh water. Holding a normal breath, I float with just the crown of my head above the water. If I breathe out, I can sit on the bottom. I don't find it a big deal swimming freestyle, but backstroke is horrible -- my feet sink and I push along with my body at about a 30-degree angle. Gak.

I never really realised how bad I am at floating until I started diving and tried doing a buoyancy check in the pool, just in a swimsuit. I'd always figured I was incompetent rather than just dense!

Zept

 

[Kayla]

Honestly, I would love to be even neutral. I am a floater. With my 7mm wetsuit, I dive with 42 lbs. However in my first dive class, we had two guys that couldn't even keep their heads above the water. They had an awful time. But, they did finally learn how stay above, and they havent had any problems sense. It just takes a little more time. I don't know if that helped, or just confused everyone completley, sorry.


Kayla

 

[jrtonkin]

I'm a definite sinker. I used to be really dense, now I'm just moderately so. At one point I was incapable of floating in _salt_ water!

I'd hardly say it kept me away from scuba though, in fact I'd consider it a contributing factor to my eventually getting certified. "As long as I'm spending this much time down here, I may as well deal with the breathing issue"

Only rarely have I found it a cause of irritation: when I went for my swimming-instructor's certification, I couldn't demosntrate the various types of floats; when I did my OW, rather than a glorious sense of freedom, I mostly noticed how my manuverability and ability to glide went to pot with all that gear strapped to me; and when diving now, I still find it very hard to get a horizontal position... I need to keep a constant, very light, kick going, or I end up toes-down... Damn cyclist-legs.

On the other hand, it meant that when I did my certification, I went into it with lots of UW experience, which meant only having to worry about learning the gear aspect of things, but being submerged was a very comfortable environment.

As for the phsyiology of sinking/floating:
bone sinks,
muscle tissue sinks slightly (in general)
high-rep, low power muscles tend to sink more than low-rep high-power ones.
fat floats
your lungs really float.

So a person who's got low body fat, and big muscles can still easily be a floater if they've got a big chest/lungs.

Jamie -- Who loves only needing 24lbs of lead with a brand new 2-piece 7mm wetsuit... and closer to 16 with the old/compressed rental ones he used on his OW weekend.