over weight divers please help

[23angler]

My wife is a little over weight and is having trouble doing some of the swimming skills in the padi open water class. I am mainly the one that is diving and she wants to do it with me. Tonight we where doing the final pool dives and the instructor will not let her go into the ocean dives until she becomes a little more adjile in the water. She is very buoyant and needs 22 lbs in the BCD to dive in the pool. One of the skills is she has to go the bottom on the deep end of the pool and touch the bottom (with out and scuba gear on). When she starts the descent with out weight she gets about half way down and then pop back up like a cork. As well as she is having a little of a hard time staying steady in the pool and she looks a little wobbly in the water with the gear on.

Do you guys think that she should train with a weight belt on to get her a little more buoyant till she becomes a little more steady in the water and can do some of the skills like going to the bottom of the pool. And then lesson the weight a little at a time till she can do it with out weight. Or is that not going to happen since she is so much positive buoyant.

Please help :jump013:
Brian

 

[Hoya97]

Okay, have her try this technique in the pool, wearing only a bathing suit.

Have her lie face down in the water, bend at the middle and perform a good breast stroke pull with her arms. As her torso starts to decend, have her rotate her feet up into the air (she should go from an 'L' position at the beginning to a straight up and down position when she kicks her feet up into the air). Have her continue using the breast stroke until her feet get under water and then have her use either the sissor or frog kick to reach the bottom.

The physics of this maneuver are simple. When she kicks her legs up into the air, their combined weight will drive her torso deeper into the water (ever try holding a 10 lb weight over your head when you can't touch the bottom? Same effect). As she decends, using good solid breast stroke pulls, the increased depth will counter her otherwise positive buoyancy. This should enable her to touch the bottom and complete that exercise successfully.

Looking wobbly in the water is more difficult to diagnose without seeing her. I would suggest that she may want to distribute more weight on her back, vice her sides, but thats a SWAG... Perhaps that and simple experience (becoming more comfortable in the water all the way around would be the best answer. Really need to see her to help in that department.

Try the 'Tuck Dive' though. It should work

Best of luck!

 

[Valree]

Hi, Brian,
I am also overweight and very bouyant. I use the tuck-and-dive maneuver that Hoya97 describes and that will get me approximately half-way to the bottom. I need to kick and pull hard using the stroke Hoya describes above.This can't be an easy swimming stroke, she will have to really work at pushing that water away and kicking hard to get to the bottom. I think that she will find that tuck-and dive will make a big difference. Then she has a free and easy ride to the surface as her natural bouyancy takes over. I also agree with Hoya that her weight disbursement may be off. My husband tucked a few pounds down my cleavage the other day when I was not weighted enough and didn't want to add it to my already-filled back vest pockets. So, spread it around and she should level out. Best of luck to her!

 

[23angler]

ok i talk to the instructor and he said my swimming abliilities is not good. i can swim fine but when i have fins and mask and snorkel on it restircts me or scuba gear. when i try to swim know where and what i need to do but my body will not go and do it. i can do all the skills fine but i can;t move in the water very good. so what advice do you all have for me.

thanks for the help... :06:
brians wife...

 

[scubajenn]

If you're having problems with being able to move in just a mask, snorkel and fins, i suggest practicing in the pool until you get more comfortable, ask the instructor to show you alternative techniques to being able to dive in the water such as different types of fin kicks, different ways to bend at the waist, and dive down, etc. The main thing is to build your confidence and become more comfortable yourself while in the water, this will allow you to try different techniques and find out what works for you.

 

[Hoya97]

Concur with SCUBAJENN;

Take the stepping stone approach. Become comfortable and efficient using just the mask, fins and snorkel. Once you are proficient, then throw on the SCUBA gear and employ the skills you just learned.

Have a question for ya though. Are you comfortable just swimming with the snorkeling gear and it isn’t until you don the scuba stuff that you lose proficiency? If that’s the case, then probably a major contributing factor is a mis-distribution of your weights. Once that issue is conquered, then the rest should be a snap.

Again, I would have to see you to be able to provide more accurate suggestions, but that’s what comes to my feeble mind.

Best of luck

 

[pipedope]

There are at least a couple of different points to look at.

Is she (and you maybe) having any trouble with the swimming and water skills tasks without scuba gear on?
If so a good swimming coach or teacher will help you more than a diving instructor.

If the problems come in when wearing scuba gear then the diving instructor needs to teach you what you need to know and have you do the drills needed to build the skills.

Yes, this is oversimplifying the situation but it is something to look at.

 

[scubaotter]

All the posted suggestions thus far are perfect for your situation and I should know. I too, started with more than 20 pounds of lead in the pool.

Are you nervous as you are going through the exercises in class? If so, you might be holding a lot of extra air in your lungs and not being able to concentrate on the task at hand. It might be a lot better for you to pratice in the pool with you husband until you feel more comfortable.

I promise once you pass the course things will become much easier. Diving can be good exercise depending on the type of diving you are doing.

A good way to increase your kicking ability is to get in a pool with a kickboard and do laps. You will be amazed how fast you increase the strength in your legs.

Keep up the good work and don't give up!!!

 

[zuzanne]

Hang in there & don't give up. I also was overweight when I learned to dive and had problems with over weighting to get to the bottom and had a very wimpy fin kick. I used 20 lbs of lead and would just float to the surface unless I held on to something to keep me down. Even after certification, I would start to float up and hubby would grab my fin to pull me back down. Not a very safe thing and very frustrating for me to the point that I almost gave up diving. I met a very helpful dive shop owner who explained to me that my equipment was part of my problem and that was an easy fix. The other part of the problem was me and that would take longer to fix. I am a shallow breather, I had to practise deep breathing to be able to get all of the air out of my lungs. Then it was weight training to gain muscle strength. This gives me a stronger fin kick, (I still have problems with that, but I am working on it). I also went on a diet to lose some weight which helped.

The one thing he had me try and it was the most helpful suggestion of all. He had me rent all my gear, had me get different size weights so I could reconfigure as needed. Then he had me go to the pool, put on all the gear minus any weights, walk out into the shallow end of the pool and keep walking to the deep end until I started to float then hubby started added weights until there was just enough weight to keep me on the bottom. He then had me just lay on the bottom of the pool in the deep end using my breathing exercise until I felt very comfortable with myself & where I was. He said that when a person is not used to the water, there is a mental fear of being underwater (and you don't even realize that you have it), to break that fear takes practise. Thus the lying on the bottom until I (not the instructor) felt comfortable would help me overcome that fear and become a better diver.

To this day, I think if it had not been for that wonderful shop owner I would have given up on diving. I also wish my Instructor would have been more concerned with my learning and comfort level in the water than just getting another cert under his belt. But that's another story.

Good Luck and don't give up it's a truly wonderful sport.

Zuzanne