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Descent rates?
- Thread starter seahunter
- Start date
Thread Status: Hello
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Hi SeaHunter,
My understanding is that competitive freedivers strive to be neutrally bouyant at 33ft. So a meter per second is probably about the average freefall rate of a negatively bouyant freediver who is in sink phase.
They try to calculate descent and ascent rate equally at about a meter per second.
I have done many dives using that logic and it seemed to work quite well, lately within a second or so, when estimating duration of dives to different depths. As my tolerance tables practice increased my overall durations, I could calculate pretty accurately what my potential depth could be.
Lungfish
My understanding is that competitive freedivers strive to be neutrally bouyant at 33ft. So a meter per second is probably about the average freefall rate of a negatively bouyant freediver who is in sink phase.
They try to calculate descent and ascent rate equally at about a meter per second.
I have done many dives using that logic and it seemed to work quite well, lately within a second or so, when estimating duration of dives to different depths. As my tolerance tables practice increased my overall durations, I could calculate pretty accurately what my potential depth could be.
Lungfish
here's my opinion:
on descent you try to take advantage of gravity by moving slowly and stopping to kick at some point completely (usually around 30m). the benefit of saving o2 outweighs the benefit of a few second shorter descent. i think most people are slower than 1m/s on the descent (maybe around 0.8-0.9 m/s). on ascent you might want to go a bit faster and take advantage of a stronger dive response and anaerobic metabolism. so overall your average might be around 1m/s. bi-fin divers are also on average a bit slower than monofin divers. eventually it will depend on your diving concept.
cheers,
roland
on descent you try to take advantage of gravity by moving slowly and stopping to kick at some point completely (usually around 30m). the benefit of saving o2 outweighs the benefit of a few second shorter descent. i think most people are slower than 1m/s on the descent (maybe around 0.8-0.9 m/s). on ascent you might want to go a bit faster and take advantage of a stronger dive response and anaerobic metabolism. so overall your average might be around 1m/s. bi-fin divers are also on average a bit slower than monofin divers. eventually it will depend on your diving concept.
cheers,
roland