Air Consumption and Dietary supplements

[ex-pat]

Hi all,

I've seen various postings on how to decrease air consumption and increase dive times through exercise, breathing patterns, and whatnot, but was curious if anyone had any experience with using dietary supplements to minimize air consumption. I've seen in some cross fit and body building sites the use of some supplements that contain cordyceps, inosine, vitamin b and other natural items are geared towards improving endurance in a workout. the supplements claim an improvement of oxygen being converted to energy in the blood stream. My thought on this: if you're improving oxygen conversion on a dive, you would need to breathe less air from your tank.

Has anyone had any experience with using supplements for this?

thanks for any advice.

 

[omega3]

LOL, I think you may be grabbing at straws here. Don't give any more money to the snake oil salesmen. What are you hoping for here, 1 more breath?
Enriched o2 is your best bet and all the complications that come with it.
The effects of Charles' law will and Boyles law will far outweigh anything else so as to make it insignificant.

 

[Simos]

I think a freediving course might help you a bit - my personal opinion is that being more relaxed in the water and better diving technique (streamlining etc) and equipment (e.g. fins) will help you more than supplements.

 

[Kars]

I totally agree with Simos' advice.

Do a freediving introduction, and see how you can safe a huge part of O2 while diving.
Freedivers are very O2 efficient

 

[trux]

Personally I would rather warn against that. Freediving and scuba diving do not mix very well. You already need to be a very good scuba diver and a good freediver to profit from the combination. If you just take an introductory course and learn some basic breath-holding techniques, you may be inclided to be using them for scuba diving too. That's a huge hazard for three reasons:

1) Barotrauma - if you start breathing with holding patterns to save air, you risk closing your epiglottis while ascending (you may forget, or not notice it). The overpressure may cause gas embolism or other damage

2) With freediving training you will also learn to resist better the CO2 driven urge to breathe. Consequently you may not notice the increased level of CO2 when you reduce the breathing pattern. The increased CO2 pattern has a huge impact on the probability of DCS, meaning you can get hit much easier and much sooner than any computer or deco tables predict.

3) The increased level of CO2 also amplifies the narcotic effect of N2, so you can get hit at smaller depths, and much quicker than otherwise.

Of course, freediving can learn you also positive aspects that can really help you - relaxation, fluidity, being comfortable under water, but you really need to be very careful when applying your freediving experience to scuba. Especially the risk of a DCS hit is very serious. I saw a light DCS hit at a scuba diver breathing with saving patterns after just 2 hours at 0-8m (mostly around 4m)!

Your best bet is healthy nutrition and lifestyle, and getting more fit so that the physical effort underwater is less stressing you. And a lot of diving so that you find the most efficient way to move, and that you learn to relax underwater quick. Relying on drugs or supplements, or on breathing patterns or breath-holding is not the way to go - they bring more risks than profit.

 

[Kars]

Trux I was pointing towards all the efficiency improvements a person would learn from a freediving course, including but not limited to general relaxation, streamlining, use of fins, improved choice of materials, breathing technique, food, hydration, improve general condition.

Surely I was not meaning you holding your breath while on scuba... But I expected Omerga3 and you to know that. Also Never freedive after scuba diving.

I'll be more complete and unequivocal next time.

 

[trux]

Sure, we know that, but newbies don't. That's why I think it is not the best advice. When a scuba diving beginner seeks advices how to reduce O2 consumption, sending him to an introductory freediving course cannot make him any favor. Freediving breathing technique, equipment, swimming technique, etc. have nothing to do with those of scuba diving, so in fact they only can harm a beginner, who will not master any of them after such a brief introduction. Instead, he risks a serious accident. You better learn first properly (theoretically and practically) one of those types of diving, and have firm habits, before starting with the other one. Being a beginner in both of them and mixing them together is a risky trip.

 

[Kars]

When I learned Scuba, CMAS, it was considered good to first learn to properly snorkel.

With full scuba gear on we did a freedive to -10m deep in dark cold murky Dutch lake.

I don't think one needs such a strict separation, just don't do breath-holding while scuba diving. What you need though is an able instructor and brains to learn the various improvements. But I like to assume people are reasonably intelligent here.


Trux I completely disagree with this statement: "Freediving breathing technique, equipment, swimming technique, etc. have nothing to do with those of scuba diving"

Because I think all these abilities will make a scuba diver a much more able diver.

 

[Simos]

On balance I agree with Kars. In fact, when I did my open-water course I was very uncomfortable in the water and I didn't enjoy it as much as I should (I also ended up damaging my ear a bit) - on paper snorkelling was a pre-requisite but I had never worn mark or fins before.

I don't scuba anymore but I am sure had I done it now, I would have both enjoyed it a lot more and also would have been A LOT more efficient in the water without risking barotrauma etc.

For anyone who understands the basic of pressure/volume etc and has scuba dived to a decent level it should be fine - to be honest it they don't, they shouldn't be diving in the first place as they could get injured even if they don't know what freediving is.

I see Trux's point though for complete scuba beginners and I think whoever is teaching freediving courses should ask at the beginning to understand what each person wants to get out of it and if they see that there are scuba divers there, some dangers can be specifically pointed out.

Our club does offer specific freediving courses for scuba clubs - they are adapted and people do find them useful. If done within the scuba club context too, they are safer.

Also I did notice a decent percentage of people signing up for the freediving intro courses are scuba divers that want to learn a bit more and improve their diving - not sure if this is also the case in other countries. Overall the feedback I heard was very positive and I haven't heard of any scuba injuries/issues relating to the freediving course but I could be wrong. We also have a number of scuba divers in the club that also train in freediving and none had any issues.

Like anything, with great power comes great responsibility. lol

 

[Simos]

Actually having said that above - there is one area I think might be risky which I've seen while watching complete scuba beginners.

The natural tendency when someone starts panicking a bit on scuba, seems to be to shoot up for the surface. I've seen instructors trying to grab panicked newbies to keep them down.

This is a habit/natural instinct that needs to be broken for scuba but freediving unfortunately will only make things a bit worse in this respect. I think that would be the one thing that I would be a bit worried about if I was to return to scuba now.

 

[omega3]

All good intentions aside, I took my stance from the question being on the scuba section of the site and how to make a tank last longer. As to what can be a stimulating factor for a bend... diet etc can be a major factor. Tea and coffee being two of the bad boys.This I have witnessed when doing tests on the ***** 140' tables at the NHC which have a high susceptability rate. Who knows what some dietry supplement ingrediant is capable of. DCI is by no means governed by a controlled set of parameters.