Triathlon Athlete=Air Hog

[Joneill]

I'm a 54 year old 6'2" swimmer (ex waterpolo player) and everything about breathing for scuba is different. I's very used to constantly kicking, sculling and getting every bit of air in as fast as possible., because the more Oxygen I can get in my system the faster i can swim. My air consumption literally sucked. A swimming background helps with lots of things in Scuba but not your initial air consumption.

Now that I have about 75 dives it is significantly better. Always breathing ssssssllllllooooooowwwwlllllllyyyyyy is still a struggle. Every now and then I catch myself sucking it in like I'm in swim race. I'm much better at being still and not making unnecessary movements. I've gone from being terrible on air to usually using less than other divers of similar experience and size. You'll improve quickly too.

I don't think I'll ever get as good as one DM I had in Cozumel. She was amazing at not moving and just going with the flow and always ended the dive with very little air used. Being 100lbs or so probably helped.

That's one reason that I love my Perdix AI. I can glance at it every now and then and see my SAC. If I note it running a little high, I can assess my technique and adjust to get it back in line - I find it really helpful to have this real time feedback.

Also, my early dives had RMV's as high as 1.2 cu ft/min and I didn't see too much improvement until after I had about 15 dives. From then on, I've seen steady improvement on each dive trip. I'm at 65 dives now and, on my last trip, I was finally breaking though to under 0.5 cu ft/min. I'm hoping to improve further to 0.4 or under with some more conditioning and weight loss (also signing up for yoga breathing technique classes). BTW, I'm 54, 5'10" and 205 lb.

 

[taffynet]

dunno if anyone can help me with this, i know how to breathe pilates/ yoga style, have been diving 10 years and am relaxed and economical in the water. i breathe slowly and don't need much air from a breathing point of view. i have a low heart rate and don't smoke. i am correctly weighted and have good buoyancy, hardly need to touch the bcd. and i'm careful not to get cold cos then i gulp air. BUT, i go up and down a lot in the water as i breathe. i'm pretty slim and tall, and just breathing normally makes a big change to my buoyancy. so then i have to increase my rate of breathing or i bob up and down a couple metres on each breath in and out. it means i use a lot more air. if i sit on a rock/ hold a shot line i use almost no air. if i'm collecting data so i'm finning a lot i don't use much air because i'm moving enough to over ride the bobbing up and down so can breath slowly. i have no problem hovering if i breathe shallowly, it's not a buoyancy or trim problem. the other thing that works, but isn't correct either, is to breathe out then straight in quickly, hold the full breath for a bit (at same depth obviously) then repeat. (i do not hold my breath when ascending.) i do also hold briefly my breath when taking photos, but obviously am not moving. any tips from people with a similar body type?

 

[LanceRiley]

Hi, I was a diver BEFORE I became a triathlete.

I tried every science I could think of to improve my air. Including losing the weights.

this is what Is what happened. I went on a high protein diet. turned my fat % down. Increase muscle %. lost a lot of weight. mostly fat weight. after going back to diving.... I was very negatively bouyant. infact I no longer carry weights. I dive aluminum back plate. but since I haven't dived for like 3 years. the initial dive was very awkward. still good air consumption. but after the 2nd and 3rd dive my alum80 was lasting 60mins and up...

now what changed? I was more relaxed. I ditch my weights. so I no longer have to fin harder.

I think it's a matter of being relaxed. when you breathe you mentioned that you go up and down. Yes it does. and theres a proper timing for the breathing in such a way you don't rise up to high or low.

get more dives..I think im somewhere between 90-100 dives...

 

[northernone]

Big lunged fit guy here. My SAC was high at first, despite tons of dry land breath awareness and control. Diving is different, give it a few hundred intentional dives monitoring which breathing and body states work best for reduced air usage, if that's your preference. Otherwise, get a bigger tank or two. Better yet a rebreather ; )

And yes, little people will aways out breath us... but so do some even bigger guys, it isn't all biology.

Slowing movement, increasing efficiency, decreasing drag, lowered heart rate all take dedicated practice. Vary rarely mastered in dozens or hundreds of dives. If you really want to reduce your air use get with an experienced diver your size and analyze his movements and breathing patterns underwater.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . .
I don't think I'll ever get as good as one DM I had in Cozumel. She was amazing at not moving and just going with the flow and always ended the dive with very little air used. Being 100lbs or so probably helped.

None of us weekend warriors should compare ourselves with 100 lb. divemasters who dive every single day.

Our consumption rates will be what they will be. Once we have passed the newbie stage and reached a plateau, the only solutions are to carry more gas or be satisfied with the depth/time limitation of the gas you're carrying.

 

[oldschoolto]

I always have a giggle at threads like this. Yes, Slow down.. Yes, Relax.. But for God's sake... Breathe.... Your body needs air and if you starve yourself you'll make it worse.. Think of air as food.. Would you expect a 90 lb girl and a 200 lb guy to eat the same amount to feed their frame.. Then why in the hell would we expect it with AIR..

Jim..

 

[Charred]

The suggestion above about getting a computer with AI that can calculate for SAC rate live during a dive is very good. I just did a dive vacation (21 dives) with a Perdix AI and cut my SAC by 25% and then another 25%.

The issue is there are a lot of different ways to breath and you need to find one that fulfills your body's need for air and is low air consumption. I tried several different techniques. Some left me breathless. Some actually increased SAC. The one that worked for me was long slow exhales to relax and lower heart rate and only then I add slower inhales. That is where I get the first 25% drop. Once I learned that works for me, I practiced a bit more diaphragm control and also keeping my lips close together and tongue near my lips (I've seen this described as sipping air through a straw) I dropped the second 25%. I did this all over the course of 21 dives. By the end of trip I was matching DM air consumption and doing 60 min dives without hitting my reserve. 210 lb, 6 foot male.

So I think you can improve, but you need feedback. With the Perdix, you can do something for 2-3 minutes and immediately find out if its working. If you don't have such feedback, I guess you would need to try a technique for a good chuck of the dive and monitor air pressure. IMO the live feedback provided by the AI is the key.

 

[stepfen]

Similar situation here except that I am not fit. I am swimming though quite a bit and used to swim much more in the past.

The big change (so far) for my SAC came during a diving trip (15 dives) to the tropics last year. Before that I had about 25 occasional dives with an average SAC of about 25lt/min. I kept calculating SAC, tried to control my breath, I even tried to sing underwater (to lower my breath rate) as I was told. Nothing worked.

During that trip the dives were so nice (that was in Bunaken/Indonesia after all) that I said to myself: **** SAC, consumption, breathing controls etc and just enjoy the dives. There were 5 consecutive days with 3 dives a day. Repetition helped a lot. Dive after dive the SAC improved quite a bit (together with my boyancy, being relaxed, less movement etc etc) and now with a total of about 50 dives my SAC is usually around 18-20lt/min or less. Still high but much better.

Another problem I have (and I guess you too), is that not only we have big lungs, we are also used (thanks to swimming) to overfill them often. Through swimming it has become a habit (at least to me) with every breath to totally fill my lungs and exhale slowly till the next breath. But I was used to always keep a large amount of air in my lungs (just in case). In diving this ruins my buoyancy (the up down movement you describe) as well as SAC. It also creates problems when you want to do something (like drills to swap regulators, replace mask or release an SMB). I start neutral, then take a deep breath to do the drill and off I go towards the surface! With time though I learn that in diving there is no need for deep breaths (air is hopefully always readily available whenever needed in my mouth) so this improves a lot. Medium breaths work much better for me in diving. Deep breaths is a big NO – unless I want to rocket to the surface which I normally don’t.

Conclusion: keep diving and things will probably improve a lot. I’d also refrain from buying equipment (tanks etc) based on your current SAC. Dive as much as you can and once you SAC settles you decide what you need to buy.

Best regards

 

[tarponchik]

Yes, I've seen the newbies doing lots of unnecessary movements underwater, and of course I was one of them sometime ago. So staying calm will definitely help. But the question of reaching the plateau is interesting.

When we breathe in and out, we use only about a quarter of O2 that enters our lungs. This is why, unless you are climbing mount Everest, more O2 in the air won't help and using Nitrox does not improve air consumption. The bottleneck, it seems, is in the red blood cells count; the more you have per cubic inch, the more efficient is your oxygen intake per single breath. This is why the so-called "blood doping" works for athlets. I've already mentioned in one of the airhog threads here that I am borderline polycythemic (too many red blood cells) and this may explain my low air consumption. I do not know if this is the result of training and exercise, or simply a variation of the norm, or this is some kind of pathology, but this is the way it is. Here are my logs for the last 10 group boat dives I did:

(dive #/Depth Max/Depth Ave/Bottom time/Psi out)
631/81/57/48/1,300
632/54/39/61/1,000
633/51/36/67/1,000
634*/78/54/51/1,200
635/55/38/69/1,000
636/47/35/66/1,000
637/76/51/59/750
638*/76/52/57/1,000
640/75/53/55/1,000
641/69/45/55/1,200

The tanks were standard Al rentals pumped to 3,000 Psi except (*) over-pumped to 3,200 Psi. I included only boat group dives since they followed more or less typical recreational profiles. So I guess, this may be my plateau. I am 64, 5'8", 175 pd, ran most of my life till I quit about 5 years ago.

 

[motorref]

I have/had the same issue (6'1" & 265#); when I first started diving my SAC was better than my 2 teenage daughters, but as I've aged, had multiple surgeries and broken bones it seems like my SAC has skyrocketed. So I went onto Craigslist and found a couple of used AL 100's; doesn't solve the problem of getting my SAC under control, but it does give me more time to improve.
And, like everyone has said, more diving = better SAC!
KevinL

Hi, I am 55 years old, 6', 220 lb and I have been tri- training since I was in my twenties. I run, swim, and bike regularly. Not nearly as much as I did when I was younger, of course. I also run my own Karate Dojo and I am a assistant coach at a boxing gym. I also actively practice meditation and practice controlling my breathing, pulse, and blood pressure done via the meditation. So the adage that, "my air consumption will get greatly better with more experience" I just don't think it applies to me. The point is I have a really big set of lungs. Recently, actually every dive I have done I have always needed to be first up/on the boat due to getting low on air. I even ran out while doing a safety stop last weekend. (no biggie We did a buddy share for about the last minute) After some advise, the next 2 dives I got a {steel 100 tank NO2 32%) and for the next 2 dives I was able to get almost 45 minutes time and still finish with 500lb. I have found the deal now. I have been looking at the Faber 149cu steel tanks. I am a big and strong guy so the extra weight should not be a big deal (hopefully) I did notice with the 100cu tank the DM positioned it a little high and I was hitting the back of my head on it. Next time I will position more carefully. But, the price for the tank new is $399 (gonna have to save a while to be able to afford 2) Think I can find used for less. Any and All advice is appreciated.