From: njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Subject: Re: How to stop sucking air?
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 04:38:23 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.212842.2652@helical.com> rallan@gun.com writes:
>Sue Raisty writes
>   I'm a newly cerified open water diver and I have this problem:
>   I breathe too much.  Way more than everyone else I dive with.
>   So is there anyway to stop sucking so much air?  I do try to 
>   concentrate on taking slow even breaths, but I don't know if it is
>   helping.  Does you just naturally get better at it with more 
>   experience?  I'm in ok physical shape, but would more exercise help?

I'll give a short (ha!) list of what I think will help:

1.  Dive some more.

2.  Calm down.  Lots of folks breathe a lot because they are excited.

3.  Control your buoyancy.  Are you swimming all of the time?  Like at
    a 45 degree angle?  When you stop swimming and relax, do you sink?
    If so, you are probably too negative, at least at that point of
    your dive.  Don't rush to take off weight: You'll create a more
    dangerous situation that you start with.  Finish your dive, see
    how you are at your safety stop.  Check your BC.  If you still
    have air in it, at 10', take some lead off your belt, a couple of
    lbs at a time.  (I assume you are breathing hard.  If not, try
    breathing hard.  If you can't dump enough air out of your BC to
    control your safety stop, you are underweighted.  You want to be
    able to control yourself in your safety stop even when winded.)

    Alternatively, are you swimming in a feet up posture?  Some folks
    I've seen do that, because they are too light and they have to
    swim down all of the time.  Just as bad as swimming up.

    Now, this will do your air consumption good for two reasons.
    Firstly, you will be floating instead of swimming.  Less work=more
    relaxation=less air use.  Second, you probably are using some air
    for buoyancy.  Kneel down on the bottom.  Give your BC a little
    shot of air.  Give it another shot, until you start to get light
    and are just resting on your fintips.  When you inhale, you will
    go up, and when you exhale, you should go down.  

    You may find that you are using a large amount of air to control
    your buoyancy.. when you learn to use your BC correctly (or, for
    some people who dive without wetsuits in the tropics, when you get
    your weighting as exact as possible and avoid your BC except for
    surface flotation, and perhaps compensating for tank shift) you'll
    need to take shallower breaths to control your buoyancy and you'll
    be happier.

4.  Don't swim with your hands.  With fins on, swimming with your
    hands is typically wasted effort.

5.  Use the longest, stiffest fins you can kick comfortably.

6.  You made a comment, "would more exercise help"?  Diving, in most
    cases, is not exercise.  You want to control your energy output.
    For tropical diving, a rule-of-thumb is that if you are putting
    out much more energy than someone at a slow walk, you are working
    too hard, going too fast, and so forth.  Slow down.  You'll need
    your strength to carry tanks.  (I've taken 3-4 people on their
    first one hour dives by simply telling them to follow me---and
    then not moving fast.)

7.  Breathing patterns:  You want to breathe *slowly*, and deeply, (so
    as to flush your lungs from time to time).  You might try quick
    inhales followed by long slow exhales.  You might try relaxing and
    not worrying about your breathing, but few folks can do it.

8.  Relaxing.  Try going on a 30' dive, and picking out a likely spot
    in the first five minutes of your dive.  Settle to the bottom,
    relax, and look around.  Do your whole dive without moving more
    than 10', and stay on the bottom for the whole dive.  Now, near
    the end of the dive, think about how relaxed you are.  Try to
    capture this relaxation on your next dive, and move a little more.
    No faster than a slow walk, though...

>Personal opinions:

 [.....]

>4. Wear less weight. Wear still less weight. Wear even less weight.
>Be neutrally buoyant at the end of the dive at 15 feet with two
>pounds of weight. Then you're right.

My personal feeling is that it is bad advice to recommend any
particular amount of weight, or to recommend to all new divers that
they shed a bunch of weight.  This can create dangerous situations.
Besides, 2 lbs might be overweighted for some of the folks on this
group. 

-- 
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@watson.ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318, NAUI #14065
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