Diving With Ricardo and Careyitos:
Secrets for Improving Air Consumption
Bill Dolen
So, you've done your basic and advanced courses. You no longer need 25 pounds of lead to hold you down and other divers comment on your precision buoyancy control. Maybe you've logged a hundred dives or more, but you're still one of the first people back on the boat because of that pesky 500-psi-left-in-the-tank rule. One solution is to get bigger tanks. The dive shop will gladly order some AL100s, or even fix you up with a DIN regulator and high pressure steel 100 cu ft tanks. You can even get HP120 tanks.
Another solution is to start working on lowering your air consumption. "But," you say, "I've been diving for a long time now, and it's as good as it's going to get."
Ricardo Madrigal of Careyitos Advanced Divers in Cozumel (who has phenomenally low air consumption) would modestly point out that HE has been diving almost every day for 20 years - and that there's still room for HIM to improve. I spent a week with Ricardo and Tony in February, 2000, extensively touring the island's magnificent dive sites. Aware that air consumption is something I wanted (needed) to work on, Tony spent a lot of time discussing underwater breathing patterns useful for reducing air consumption. I thought it might be useful to review these. First, however, some basics.
That being said, let's get down and dirty. The basic goal is to breathe less often without becoming uncomfortable and without violating the first rule of SCUBA - Always Breathe Continuously. Most of the techniques below are intended to prolong your inspiration. Assess your surface breathing, something you normally take for granted. Most guys and many women breathe by expanding and contracting the chest wall. For SCUBA, Tony recommends diaphragmatic breathing. Put one hand on your chest over your heart, and another on your stomach over your belly button. Now, watch yourself breathe. If your upper hand moves in and out, you're a chest wall breather. Keep breathing, but instead make your lower hand move in and out while keeping the upper hand motionless. This is how trained singers breathe. Ricardo uses complex mental imagery for diaphragmatic breath control. At the beginning of a breath, he imagines a bubble forming in the upper chest, growing slowly to occupy the upper chest, the middle chest, the lower chest, and then the abdomen. Now, let's talk about the difference between "not breathing" and "holding your breath". In holding your breath, air goes in and you willfully close your throat to keep it in. Maybe you make a gasping noise when you finally release the trapped air. What actually happens is that the vocal cords come together and close off your airway. In SCUBA, this is dangerous. Remember Boyle's law. If you ascend (even just a little bit) while holding your breath you run the risk of pulmonary barotrauma (pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum) and air embolism. "Not breathing" is a different concept. Air is neither going in nor out, but your throat is open, and if you ascend, expanding air in your chest will come out. This is what you did in practicing emergency buoyant ascents from depth. You should not practice any of the breathing patterns described below until you completely understand the difference between these concepts. Next, a word about "skip breathing". If you pause too long between breaths, carbon dioxide will build up in your blood and stimulate the breathing center in your brain. You will feel short of breath and start breathing heavily. If you blow off too much carbon dioxide you will feel even more short of breath and hyperventilate. This can cause a feeling of anxiety as well as trigger headaches. If reading this makes you hyperventilate, you can take a few breaths in and out of a paper bag in order to bring your carbon dioxide level back to normal. That method doesn't work underwater, so "skip breathing" should be avoided. Any of the methods below, taken to extreme, will result in "skip breathing", so go slow. Tony's Underwater Breathing Patterns
Each of these is different, but each will result in slower underwater breathing. They can be practiced on land, and I've tried doing so while riding a bicycle. Don't practice them to the point that you are in any way uncomfortable or short of breath! Tony made the point that with practice they become second nature, and just happen automatically. In a dive, you should switch patterns from time to time (saving pattern #4 for special situations) not only for variety, but also in case one doesn't feel right at the moment. There's a lot of potential for adding some Zen, Yoga or Transcendental Meditation into all this, I guess. I can assure you that this works. Although I still have my beloved HP120's, I usually come up with 1000-1500 PSI left - and did the 2001 Roatan trip on AL80's. Now for some other ideas that didn't come from Ricardo or Tony (Nerk-nerk!)
Dive long, and prosper. And dive safe. |