purbeast
Contributor
I'm (hopefully) going to be taking my OW certification in the near future. I am just trying to have my medical waiver cleared before I sign up for it and am hoping that tomorrow I get that taken care of.
A quick background for myself though...
I am an active guy who exercises regularly and have an athletic build similar to like a line backer on a football team. I'm 5'11 and fluctuate between 200 and 210 lbs depending on if I'm bulking or not. I don't do much cardio but my lifting sessions are pretty intense.
I am an avid snorkeler and would say I'm fairly experienced, although I wish I could hold my breath longer. I swim down all the time, hate using life jackets, and feel super comfortable in the water. I've done SCUBA 2 times, once was a one tank dive, the other one was a DSD program which included a pool session and then two one tank dives.
And now I want to get SCUBA certified.
I have to say that the part I'm most concerned about is actually the 10 minute treading part of the test. The swimming I am going to opt to do with a snorkel and fins because that will be super easy, however staying afloat for 10 straight minutes is what I am wondering about. I have never been able to float on my back and I attribute it to muscle being more dense than fat, and I just have more muscle than fat on my body and as mentioned am a pretty big dude. I just know when I've tried to read water before for a while I feel like I get tired fairly quickly. I will say though, it's been a very long time since I've actually ever had to tread water before.
While this may be common sense to some, I never knew until I started researching that holding air in your lungs while you try to float helps as well, so maybe if I tried to do short breaths while keeping more air in my lungs that will help.
However, for those who have struggled to float, I'm wondering if people have any tips on how to pass this part of the test. I don't want to be psyched out before I even perform the test so that is for sure. It would be great if you were allowed to tread with fins on too since that's the condition you will be in while doing SCUBA, but it doesn't sound like that is the case.
A quick background for myself though...
I am an active guy who exercises regularly and have an athletic build similar to like a line backer on a football team. I'm 5'11 and fluctuate between 200 and 210 lbs depending on if I'm bulking or not. I don't do much cardio but my lifting sessions are pretty intense.
I am an avid snorkeler and would say I'm fairly experienced, although I wish I could hold my breath longer. I swim down all the time, hate using life jackets, and feel super comfortable in the water. I've done SCUBA 2 times, once was a one tank dive, the other one was a DSD program which included a pool session and then two one tank dives.
And now I want to get SCUBA certified.
I have to say that the part I'm most concerned about is actually the 10 minute treading part of the test. The swimming I am going to opt to do with a snorkel and fins because that will be super easy, however staying afloat for 10 straight minutes is what I am wondering about. I have never been able to float on my back and I attribute it to muscle being more dense than fat, and I just have more muscle than fat on my body and as mentioned am a pretty big dude. I just know when I've tried to read water before for a while I feel like I get tired fairly quickly. I will say though, it's been a very long time since I've actually ever had to tread water before.
While this may be common sense to some, I never knew until I started researching that holding air in your lungs while you try to float helps as well, so maybe if I tried to do short breaths while keeping more air in my lungs that will help.
However, for those who have struggled to float, I'm wondering if people have any tips on how to pass this part of the test. I don't want to be psyched out before I even perform the test so that is for sure. It would be great if you were allowed to tread with fins on too since that's the condition you will be in while doing SCUBA, but it doesn't sound like that is the case.