Swimming Laps to improve SAC rate

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I love the suggestion of swimming with fins, mask and snorkel with arms at side.

You'll have to go very slow: there's a reason swimmers use center-mounted snorkel. Do fin kicks with a board counting kicks per breath: the more the better (but don't force it). The idea is to be able maintain slow relaxed breathing rhythm through physical activity, you can do it with jump rope or jumping jacks, too.
 
Breath hold and skip breathing are bad for many reasons....

Skip-breathing is not necessarily helpful because your metabolism needs what it needs, even if you're skipping breaths.
Okay, this post will piss some people off.

There is a problem here in that we are using an absolute term and concept (skip breathing bad!!!) for a situation that really has no absolute definition. If a diver inhales and exhales as rapidly as possible during a dive, that diver will use up air in no time. That is not good. If a diver extends breaths to the point of getting a CO2 hit, that is not good either. Somewhere in between is a good, s l o w, comfortable breathing rate.

So, can anyone come up with the specific breathing rate at which we cross the line into skip breathing? I know some very famous divers whose breathing rate on dives is pretty darn slow.
 
Okay, this post will piss some people off.

There is a problem here in that we are using an absolute term and concept (skip breathing bad!!!) for a situation that really has no absolute definition. If a diver inhales and exhales as rapidly as possible during a dive, that diver will use up air in no time. That is not good. If a diver extends breaths to the point of getting a CO2 hit, that is not good either. Somewhere in between is a good, s l o w, comfortable breathing rate.

So, can anyone come up with the specific breathing rate at which we cross the line into skip breathing? I know some very famous divers whose breathing rate on dives is pretty darn slow.
Thanks for your post. I have a very relaxed , slow rate. My RMV average ovér the last 1500 dives is 0.36 cf/min.
 
Okay, this post will piss some people off.

There is a problem here in that we are using an absolute term and concept (skip breathing bad!!!) for a situation that really has no absolute definition. If a diver inhales and exhales as rapidly as possible during a dive, that diver will use up air in no time. That is not good. If a diver extends breaths to the point of getting a CO2 hit, that is not good either. Somewhere in between is a good, s l o w, comfortable breathing rate.

So, can anyone come up with the specific breathing rate at which we cross the line into skip breathing? I know some very famous divers whose breathing rate on dives is pretty darn slow.

There is no absolute number. Totally depends on how much CO2 you are producing (activity level) and how much O2 you need. The bad thing about skip breathing is it can alter your normal blood O2 and CO2 levels causing other bad things to happen.

When I am warm, relaxed, neutrally buoyant, with no current I am comfortable breathing at a rate of 4 per minute (5 sec deep inhale and 10 sec full exhale). Each breath is about 0.1 cu ft (my lungs are big) so my SAC is between 0.4-0.5 cu ft/min.
 
Another vote for doing laps in snorkel gear. The dead air properties of the snorkel will drive you to take long, deep, efficient breaths. I did this for a winter in my early years. I think I settled into 7 breaths per length. That same behavior will carry over to scuba and you should see a notable improvement. I think the diving community as a whole may benefit in a similar fashion from a year of wearing COVID-19 face coverings.
 
Swimming is great for your cardio and I highly recommend it, being in shape will not hurt your SAC rate. But keys to good SAC is comfort, being relaxed, streamlined gear, proper weighting, good kick control, ect.

Where good cardio really comes in, in relation to SAC, is when you have to really exhert yourself underwater and/or are really stressed underwater, when whatever caused that situation is over, the better your cardio the faster you can get your breathing and heartrate back down to normal and therefore normalize your SAC rate. Really good cardio, in two or three breaths you can be back to normal, bad cardio, who knows.
 
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