Use of hands when diving.

[g1138]

Several examples why:
1) If you're holding onto something, you can't use your hands. So you have to rely on your fins.

2) Let say you use you hands to correct your trim. You start rolling and sinking. To correct your roll you use your hands, well guess what? You're still sinking. IF you use your feet to correct your rolling trim and use your hands for your BC input you're fine, the whole problem is solved.
Reason you may be rolling are: you saw a sea turtle, you're looking up before deploying an SMB, you buddy bumps you, etc.

3) Another example. You're holding a camera or a spear gun. Arm movement is just going to scare your target away. In addition using one of your hands makes your accuracy diminish. If you can just use your fins to turn yourself, your arms are free to stabilize and make the shot.

4) Final example. Buddy is using his hands to correct his trim or position in the water. Buddy hits you in the face. How angry are you? BTW you can't answer that unless it's actually happened to you.
The answer is usually "pretty pissed off". It looks sloppy and it's a buddy hazard.

If you can save your hands to operate equipment and save your fins for operating your trim and turning abilities, doesn't that seem much more effective and safer?
To be honest with you though, I only use my hands to prevent myself from hitting the bottom if I miscalculate my descent rate. I do a wax-on/wax-off motion though. Keeps the sand from stirring. Other than that, my hands are in front of me to counter balance my trim issues. (I'm feet heavy)

 

[AfterDark]

No hands is big time BS. Fish have fins other than tail fins. Using your hands to perform quick turns or stablizing yourself is natural. I have fun using my hands in the water and wearing my mask on my head when not diving, it upsets the fanatics.

 

[g1138]

No hands is big time BS. Fish have fins other than tail fins. Using your hands to perform quick turns or stablizing yourself is natural. I have fun using my hands in the water and wearing my mask on my head when not diving, it upsets the fanatics.

Might want to think about your analogy. I have yet to see anyone make a quick turn using graceful slow hand movements like the pectoral fins on a goldfish.
It's more akin to Mike Tyson getting that winning punch in PUNCHOUT
Absolutely no hands is BS.

BUT if you start to rely on your hands too much, when you really need quick maneuverability, you'll revert to quick large hand movements. That's what gets most "fanatics". Getting hit in the face by a full strength swing is no fun. It hurts, it dislodges your mask and reg, and it makes the "finner" look like a the most unelegant goof in the water.

You're fully capable of making quick turns on a dime using the proper capable fins such as paddles and jet fin types.
For real small corrections of a degree or two in calm water, yes hands can save you energy, especially if you have long fins. but other than that if you want to correct your position or change it drastically in a new direction, fins are by far safer to those around you, to the wild life around you, and by far more effective to you.

Until you can develop fins on your hands, you're not going to be able to make big changes in your position with slow fish-like finning movements with your hands.

 

[DennisS]

No hands is big time BS. Fish have fins other than tail fins. Using your hands to perform quick turns or stablizing yourself is natural. I have fun using my hands in the water and wearing my mask on my head when not diving, it upsets the fanatics.

Hands are good for small changes when people are close in, did you ever see when six people are crowded in to see a toadfish being pointed out by the divemaster. If you move your fins you can easily dislodge someones mask. On the other hand you don't want to look like you are conducting an orchestra for the entire dive.

 

[Sas]

I just rarely need to use my hands, so used to diving with a camera. I do use pull and glide in caves sometimes though when in a tight spot if it is likely to stir up less silt.

 

[Centrals]

Pull and glide inside a wreck.

 

[divin'dog]

Hey guys something that puzzles me a bit is the fixation on never using your hands for "finning'.
Other than for pure ego reasons why wouldn't an experienced diver (someone who could and does have good fin control) use their hands for discrete direction changes or where the hands are free but the fins might cause silting ?

Some good divers do use their hands... just not as much as someone inexperienced and definitely not in the same way an inexperienced diver uses his hands. Good divers use only their fins and not their hands because they can, not because it looks cool. If you've mastered your buoyancy, you don't need to use your hands unless there are special instances as mentioned above. If you see a good diver using his hands, it will most likely be very subtle.

Also there does seem to be a strong encouragement to dive with your arms crossed rather than hanging back alogside your waist. Perhaps Im just dense but to me that seems contrary to the whole point of trying to be as hydrodynamic (gosh is that a word?) as possible.

Well yes... just depends on how streamlined you want to take it. I dive with my hands clasped behind my back just under my tank which is a habit I formed while snorkeling. Now I don't feel comfortable unless my hands are back there. Everyone has their own style but what matters is not what you look like but how comfortable and in control you are at depth. Most divers who have their arms folded are not going very fast and the added resistance is pretty negligible.

There was a DM in the Caribbean who guided my dives and he folded his arms all the time. He'd use the same tank for both dives because he didn't need a second tank! So much for needing to reduce resistance...

 

[TSandM]

If you don't have a back kick or a helicopter turn, you really don't have much choice but to use hands to accomplish those movements -- but fins are more efficient.

The big push to keep people from using their hands in diving is really because hand use is usually an indication of instability, and the instability ought to be solved another way. Our students flap their hands when they are not neutral, either pushing themselves down or pushing themselves up; the correction is with the BC or dry suit, not the hands.

As Richard said, hands are very ineffective in the water. They just don't have enough surface area to do much, and you end up moving them over and over again, which is a lot of muscle activity for very little propulsion, and this eats your gas.

Using hands deliberately and effectively, to pull and glide in current or flow, or to move sideways (there IS no other way to move sideways) is fine. It's just that the vast majority of swimming with the hands isn't that kind of use -- it's compensation for poor buoyancy or a lack of techniques for other precise positioning in the water.

BTW, if our students aren't using their hands, I don't care one bit where they decide to put them. It IS true that, if you want to maximize streamlining, you'll hide them somewhere in the slipstream of your body, but I'm old and my shoulders aren't cooperative, and I hang my arm and bend my elbow a lot of the time. In a cave, the right hand goes back and tucks into my pocket when I'm not using it for anything, because I want to get as much as I can for my 1000 psi . . .

 

[DevonDiver]

I think that most novice divers have an instinctive tendancy to try and 'swim' underwater. Who can blame them? They spend years swimming with both their hands and feet, but have to re-learn technique when they transition to diving in fins.

Added to that are the natural tendancies for novice divers to feel 'unstable' in the water. Use of the hands often represents an attempt to 'balance' in the water column. Obviously, there is no actual 'need' to balance underwater... and as experience develops (plus better trim of their equipment), the diver graduates out of this tendancy. It comes with relaxation.

There are a number of reasons why over-use of the hands for propulsion and control can be negative for a diver. The primary one is that it is an inefficient physiological method, that ultimately requires more O2 metabolization in the body and, hence, more air consumption. It also decreases streamlining and increases water turbulance, slowing the diver.

In addition, the use of hands can lead to silting/bottom disturbance. When diving inside wrecks or caves, this can present an actual danger to the diver. In other situations, it will simply lead to a deterioration of the quality of the dive, as visibility is lowered. For underwater photographers, it can lead to filling photos with backscatter/particles and also scare away the target of their photo.

There are also many activites underwater that require the use of the hands for other purposes. Cave/Wreck divers will be using torches and lines. The hands won't be available for sculling. Photographers and videographers will also have their hands full.

It is absolutely fair to view the limitation of the use of hands for propulsion/control as a 'best practice' mentality in scuba diving. A responsible instructor will communicate the reasons for this to their students and help them, through drills and practice, to develop appropriate scuba techniques that do not utilise the hands. Divers who do over-use their hands on dives may be judged appropriately by their peers and dive pros - it is seen as a mark of inexperience.

The simple fact is: you don't need to use your hands for control or propusion underwater. There are drawbacks to doing so...and techniques that exist which allow better function using the fins alone.

Eliminating a reliance on your hands for sculling requires some dedication to perfecting proper techniques. I find it hard to understand why some posters in this thread would discourage such a mentality!?!

 

[rjack321]

I've used hands occasionally when I got bad leg cramps. If you point your fingers and move your hands straight in front of you and then stroke backwards there isn't much drag. I imagine this is how disabled divers are trained?

Sorta, if you've ever seen/used the hand paddles swimmers use to perfect their strokes you're on the right track. But really even the gloved hand is maybe 5% of the surface area of a fin - so its incredibly inefficient. Put a camera or light in that hand and its even less efficient.

Divers waving their arms around are frequently doing so because their natural trim is poor/head heavy and then are using their hands for "lift". Of course divers with poor trim often kick alot too. If you are continually moving - poor weighting and body positioning is obscured.