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Arms buoyancy problem

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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mattbigblue

Limitless - Mateusz 'Matt' Malina
Nov 7, 2008
220
45
118
In last few months I've lost few kg of mainly fat + I've transform some fat into muscles

anyway, this resulted in some noticable buoyancy change in my body..especially the arms play a big role now. (speaking about DNF)
When I do the push off with arms above my head, front of my body is sinking, when I finish the stroke, my head starts to come up and my legs are sinking...
It was always a problem, but now it's really annoying.
I use Aquasphere which I believe is 0,5mm thick in arms. Is there any solution other than thicker suit to fix that? How do You guys deal with that? Does anyone know how buoyant are our arms(what range of neoprene thickness we need) ? I'm thinking about putting some extra 5mm neoprene on my arms beneath the wetsuit, will see if that's too much or too little.
 
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That's just weird. I have pretty muscular arms but don't find them to be adversely weighing me down!

I use a sleeveless suit or better fit of my upper body and it also removes the resistance in the shoulder area.

Are you sure that with the muscle gain that you didn't lose shoulder flexibility and that your arms might be acting ad a rudder / planing you downwards??
 
Arms I meant whole limbs, not just "arms"

I will try to cut a video and show what I'm talking about
 
Here is short link:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i8kqESOWg4]Arms buoyancy change - YouTube[/ame]

first I do push off with arms by my side and you can see a result. If I do it with my arms in front it's opposite...You can see later how I play with them...
I have relaxed all muscles etc..I don't tense my body or anything
 
Reactions: Kars
Well Mateusz, heavy muscle guy, try the thick sleeves I'd say!

Cool video, and the effect appears to be very strong in your case!

I'm plagued with heavy legs, so I need the 3mm suit I have there. Measured over distance it makes a big difference. I also have a separate 3mm neoprene cap, that helps to keep my head up.
 
I have the same problem. Only way to fix it would be to add buoyancy to your arms, to make them neutral. Or, like me, just live with it because you can't be bothered messing around with neoprene
 
I was hoping for Your answer Dave, however, more optimistic one

I will try Orca Free, but I don't like 2mm around my legs, it complicate buoyancy as well.
 
I'm just surprised that you have lost so much weight... on your ARMS!

I guess neutral buoyancy suit is the only solution, when moving limbs around in different positions.

You and Mullins sure can do some looong, sloooow dives... fantastic. But on a quick sidenote if it's ok, why didn't this dive register as 250m? You clearly touch the wall before surfacing. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCgcPFw0okk]Mateusz Malina 249m Dynamic Apnea National Record Brno 2012 - YouTube[/ame]
 
Turns I did on the deep side were below the step, thus resulted in reducing 1m from the total distance.
 
Hi Mat,

It's hard to find a solution for this one; adding buoyancy to arms will correct when they're overhead but mess you up when they're by your side. In the video you do look slightly underweight, though. When you push off the wall and don't do anything, do you eventually float up? Maybe you could do with 300-500 grams of led more.

One way of dealing with your issue without adding weight or buoyancy would be to change your technique a bit. You could do your leg stroke in a slight upwards angle (so kicking more towards to bottom), to compensate for your arms sinking. Your arm-stroke could then be a tad more downwards. It's not ideal, but it minimizes wasted effort.

Another way to compensate for arms sinking could be to point your feet downwards a little: the drag that causes should straighten you out a bit. But you need speed for that (you snail), and drag = waste.

For me it helped with my heavy legs to engage my core muscles some, to keep the streamline, but i swim a bit faster than you, and it's not as relaxed as your stoned sloth pace. But see if speeding up some and sucking in your gut helps.

See you in Belgrade,

Daan
 

Well, I got to conclusion that making myself neutral buoyant with my arms in front after push-off and doing what You wrote above it's best solution for it.

I've also tried 5mm neoprene on my forearms underneath the suit but it didn't feel comfortable to my arms while swimming. Haven't tried long swim, tho.

p.s. I know I don't have enough lead in this video, I was playing around, normally I have ~0,8kg on my belt, there I had 0,2kg..despite that my feet were still sinking with arms by my side.
It's funny, last year I need all together 8,0kg with this wetsuit, now 7,2kg feels about right.

Hope it will pay off in depth diving, cause I always need so much weight to become neutral buoyant.

p.p.s. The day You will see me swimming fast will be the end of the World
 
dannybuoy said:
It's hard to find a solution for this one; adding buoyancy to arms will correct when they're overhead but mess you up when they're by your side.
Click to expand...

In theory, making the arms neutrally buoyant would mean that it wouldn't change any overall buoyancy, even when moving the arms around: Neutral is neutral!

The tricky part is making it perfectly neutral. To put the right amount of neopren exactly where the weight is.

That also means you can't put everything near the hands. It needs to be either

a) distributed along the arm, with more neopren around the bigger upperarms...

oooooOOO <-arm
xxxxxxXXX <- neoopren


Or

b) perhaps just as good; placed at or around/near the center of the arms weigth distribution. This center is probably somewhere around the lower biceps or elbow, depending on your build...

........X
oooooOOO
........X


I had some difficulties picturing this and figuring this out, and had to make a drawing , but this is what I've comeup with, and I think this is it... Not 100% sure, but 95%... ;-)
 
Btw you could try one of these neopren elbow pads, or make one yourself...

 
Anything that thick around elbow is wrong cause it disturb relaxation and stroke efficiency. I think best place for them would be forearm(best in term of relaxation and not disturbing You while swimming). You don't have to worry about weight distribution cause from kinematic point of view, joint (whole arm) is not free, it has restraint in Your upper torso where is Your centre of gravity.
What You desribe would be practical if You would consider Your "hands" as free joints, but they are "attached" in shoulders so You don't have to worry about it so much. Relaxation and comfort is much more important.

@Mullins
I know fat is not so much compressible.
However by taking less lead, Your mind is more relaxed due to placebo effect

for instance, I feel much worse wearing 2kg of lead and being neutral at 17-20m with Orca Free than William Trubridge for instance, he told me that fully packed without any weights, he is neutral at 13-15m...:duh

However, what I meant by saying it...By having less lead because of less body fat, more dense bones etc..means that Your are more lean, create less resistance and drag while moving through water which is more energy conservative..So loosing fat and buoyancy because of that, does not contribute directly but in some way it does.
 
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mattbigblue said:
Anything that thick around elbow is wrong cause it disturb relaxation and stroke efficiency.
Click to expand...

Just cut it in the middle...




Oh but you do (theoretically). And you would only be able to relax 100% with an even buoyancy distribution. And I'd say that if you put all the buoyancy near hands, your body would have a tendency to do the opposite of what it is doing now (so when arms are stretched above head, head would rise, and if arms alongside the body, head would fall). But I'll admit that the tendency would probably be much smaller than what it is for you now, when arms are not neutral.

Fx if you have all the buoyancy near hands and relax in shoulder joint, hands will have a tendency to "go up" and create drag (actually it will be straighten by water probably, at least when alongside the body, but that creates drag also), and shoulders will push body down (a little bit). If you don't relax in shoulders, but instead lock the joints, your lower body will "go up" (a little bit)... That's how the upwards and downwards forces would influence the body theoretically.

So with moving limbs only neutral buoyancy is ideal. Evenly distributed or centered. But there's a third solution I forgot: Neopren in both ends (near hand and shoulder). If it actually makes a noticable difference in drag, I don't know. My guess is that it does...
 
I've tried to re-adjust buoyancy for best effect and this is one of the attempts.

Problem with it is that I can do only 1 reliable check on training, cause if somebody does no-warmup approach, buoyancy in 2nd, 3rd...attempt is slightly different. Thus for final tuning I don't bother to check it in consequent attempts.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoo_Ji9ptJA]Buoyancy checks - YouTube[/ame]

what do You guys think, 50g more on belt? I've also noticed that I pop my ass up after hand-stroke, haven't done it in the past, might be buoyancy related issue as well.
 
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