Reaching your valves?

[rhlee]

Make sure his trim is as close to zero as possible before and during the reach for the valves. Even a slightly head-down attitude will help. Also, as suggested, make sure the head is fully back and he does the UG stretching wiggle on the surface pre-dive . If trim and room behind the head will allow, raising the height of the plate/tanks slightly may be the other option.

Good luck,
-Rob

 

[Ben_ca]

.... Either that, or it just makes me feel better about it - yay for psychosomaticism!

Hurray for magic feathers!

 

[HenrikBP]

All good suggestions above. The one thing that made a big difference for me was adding an element of "external shoulder rotation" to my shoulder stretches.

Lilla mentioned pointing the elbow forward, or "keeping the elbow in", which requires more external rotational flexibility than I think many of us have. It is also something that most "regular" shoulder stretches fail to address.

If you look at the stretches in the pdf above, I modify 2 of those stretches:

- the Latissimus Dorsi/Triceps Stretch: rather than pulling on your elbow with the opposite hand as illustrated, I lean the "stretching" elbow up against a balance ball up against a wall, so that I can use my body weight and position to add the "basic" shoulder stretch. I then put my other hand on top of my "stretching" elbow, put my thumb on the inside of my "stretching" forearm and add a mild pressure, which in turn rotates my "stretching" forearm out and away from my head - just a little. Feeling a bit of a stretch is good. It should of course never hurt.

When I do this stretch I make sure to tilt my head back to imitate the "diving" position. I also "pretend" manipulate my valves to improve my muscle memory for that skill. I get a few odd looks at times, but oh well

- the Hanging Shoulder Stretch: I do this stretch both standing as well as kneeling on the floor, and rather than having my palms flat on the floor (or wall), I rotate my arms/hands so my palms face each other with my hands no more than shoulder width or less apart. This again adds a bit of external rotation to the regular shoulder stretch. I also do the standing version of this stretch one arm at a time.

I modified those stretches about a year ago, and would guestimate that I started to see an improvement fairly quickly, but it took some months before I really felt a big difference. I had surgery on my left shoulder a little over 2 years ago, and now have good - and equal - range of motion on both sides.

Hope this made sense. Would've been much easier and quicker to demonstrate

Henrik

 

[elan]

I did not do any stretches and I'm not a flexible person at all. The key points for me were:

- keeping the elbows in
- doing pre-dive stretching of the suit
- while doing he valve drill, staying in 0 trim and looking straight at the buddy - in this case the head is all the way up

when I do all these the valves appear really close - just above the shoulders.

My bands are all the way up to where the tank starts being round and i have Halcyon valves which are low. But it is the same with the thermos which have something about an inch of a neck.

It's likely your friend does not need to do any stretching exercises at all. You need to be flexible to reach the left valve with the right hand but in most cases it's a matter of technique if you need to do in normally: left to left right to right.

When you are saying you did it in the street cloth was your friend laying on the table with the tanks on the back ? Or he/she was sitting or standing. If the latter that would likely be the difficult case as reaching it in a vertical position is way more difficult.

 

[kathydee]

Really appreciate the helpful advice! Thanks!

When you are saying you did it in the street cloth was your friend laying on the table with the tanks on the back ? Or he/she was sitting or standing. QUOTE]

We did a trial where he was lying stomach down on a picnic table in street clothes while wearing his full rig.

 

[elan]

We did a trial where he was lying stomach down on a picnic table in street clothes while wearing his full rig.

Poor guy Being squeezed by a 100lb rig to the table I would probably not be able to even breath, reaching the valves would be out of question completely

Jokes aside when you keep your head up it requires quite some arching which helps as well. But arching with 100lb of stuff on the back is quite hard

 

[kanonfodr]

Jokes aside when you keep your head up it requires quite some arching which helps as well. But arching with 100lb of stuff on the back is quite hard

I would agree that having all that heavy gear on would be quite a load. Do you or your friend (preferably both) have access to a warm pool where you could practice without the need for heavy undies? I would have him first try to accomplish it as un-DIR as possible (floating on the surface, kneeling on the bottom, whatever) where undergarment constriction and land-weight wouldn't be an issue, as well as breaking the task down to one focus. Then if they can get it kneeling, have them try it while being horizontal in the water. If it's still passable, then I would start looking at undergarment constriction as being a culprit.

Peace,
Greg

 

[HenrikBP]

... when you keep your head up it requires quite some arching which helps as well. But arching with 100lb of stuff on the back is quite hard

I wonder if arching your back wouldn't allow the bottom of the plate and tanks to drop a little, thereby actually moving the valves a bit further from the back of your head ...?

Henrik

 

[nwbrewer]

It was suggested to me when I was struggling with reaching my valves that 3x/week was not enough to fully stretch the muscles. 3x/ DAY and I can reach my valve in a DS and singles (not easily, but it can be done.)

 

[Akimbo]

Some people’s range of motion is different, especially reaching over the shoulder. Good thing I don’t wear dresses because I could never pull the zipper up.

If the joint range of motion is the limiting factor, you can flip the tanks valve-down like some wreck divers in the UK and most commercial divers do on their bailouts. However, with really long tanks like Worthington 120s, it can be even worse. There are valve-down protectors made in the UK if you have to consider that option. You could also have something made at a local weld shop.

Quality Diving Equipment by Custom Divers - Protectors & Lift Bars

Another option is to release your belly band and pull the tanks up until you can reach them… not terribly desirable but gets the job done. If the isolation valve is the only problem, you could use the OMS isolation valve extender, if you can still find one. It would not be that hard to make one if needed.