Weight distribution for pool disciplines

[nyspear]

I just tried my new Orca Equip full wetsuit in the pool for the first time, and I'm having a hard time with the buoyancy of the suit, especially my legs, with weight around my neck. I had been using a 1mm Aquasphere sleeveless suit prior to this. I'm finding that my legs are now too buoyant and keep breaking the surface (especially in DNF). I'm thinking that I should have bought the Equip Lite (1mm throughout), but since I've already gotten this suit wet, I'm going to try to figure something out in terms of weight distribution.

To those of you that wear weight on your waist for pool training, is there a common method of doing this to maintain streamlining, or am I limited to using a typical weight belt? Or should I just buy a new suit? Please excuse my inexperience. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[sgnips]

i guess nothing else but the weight belt could make the job

maybe you can think about something on your ankles but it surely is impractical, especially for dnf: i'd go for the belt

 

[rafacuatic]

I am using a 1mm Orca Equip Lite in the pool for DNF with 4 kg neck-weight plus 1kg in the belt.Whithout suit for DYN or DNF i take off the extra kg.
Rafa

 

[chrismar]

You can wear weight inside the wetsuit in the pool disciplines. That is if you're worried about streamline...

 

[fflupo]

i like your streamlined belt-weights

 

[nyspear]

i guess nothing else but the weight belt could make the job

maybe you can think about something on your ankles but it surely is impractical, especially for dnf: i'd go for the belt

Thanks, Gabriele. I guess I'll give it a go and see what happens. If that doesn't work, I might have a barely used Equip for sale, size 6

@Rafa - Wow that's a lot of weight for a 1mm suit. If I had that much weight around my neck with this suit I'd probably look like I was doing synchronized swimming. Thanks for the input. I'll see what I can do about distributing the weight properly.

 

[nyspear]

You can wear weight inside the wetsuit in the pool disciplines. That is if you're worried about streamline...

I probably shouldn't be worried about streamlining at this point, but that's a great idea. I have some soft weights that I can stick inside the suit. Then at the very least I won't be able to blame my poor performance on a lack of streamlining. Thanks!

 

[trux]

Nyspear, very often the legs / feet float higher not because of higher buoyancy, but just because of the exact opposite - when you have too little weight on your neck. In such case you automatically start swimming diagonally, with head down and the feet up. Watching your position when swimming is very often very misleading. You have to make a glide test until full stop to see whether your legs are really too buoyant, or whether it is the other way. Simply push off the wall horizontally, and glide without any movement, and without any position maneuvring, until you stop fully. In the full stop you should either stay hanging horizontally, or ascend very slowly still in horizontal position. If, instead of it the head starts ascending first, add more weight on your neckweight. If the feet ascent first, add some lead on your belt. Have a 3rd person watching you - you are often not perfectly objective, when doing it alone.

 

[chrismar]

Dead on, Trux. This is the most effective way I've found to get weighting just right. Though doing one kick or one stroke lengths gets close...

Speaking of, I noticed while attempting one armstroke lengths that my buoyancy balance with my arms above my head is different enough to when I have them by my side that it causes problems.

 

[nyspear]

Trux - wow, thanks for that advice. When I get to the pool on Tuesday I'll bring a belt and an assortment of weights and give that a try. I'll report back on my findings.

Thanks, everybody, for your replies. I now have a bunch of ideas to try once I get to the pool.

 

[Kars]

I use some cheap lead from a roof, bought 2nd hand, which I hammered into two curved strips, put them in a glued mountainbike tube, added some velcro (hair side) -to keep it in place- and put it inside my suit, one on each side on the lower back.

Advantages are not only better streamline, but also easier breathing, inhaling, swimming.

I could also make a strip to put on the calf's.

 

[sgnips]

put it inside my suit, one on each side on the lower back..

hi guys,
not that matters here, but isn't it prohibited in comp?
at least with FIPSAS (and CMAS, i guess) rules it surely is, dont' know if in AIDA too

 

[mattbigblue]

Weighting, it's been such a pain in the ass for me for a very long time :head Still havn't figured it out.

The thing I admire the most in Dave Mullins DNF's is his perfect buoynacy!!

Glad there is a topic about it. Here is one of my video's. What You guys think, there is not enough lead around my neck, or is it my technique wrong ?? Any clues what should I change?? I would lie if I didn't say that I try thousands of different variations over the last year, adding or taking off 100g from 5-7,43kg range and always get similar effect...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5R9XcirPws]YouTube - 29.11.2010 + 175m DNF.mp4[/ame]

cheers,
Matt

 

[pingshui]

To me it seems you have too much neck weight and it is rather your head going down than your feet going up. But it is hard to tell from the distance.

I made the experience that not only the weight plays an important role, but also the head position. Of cource you should be as relaxed as possible for dynamic swims, but it could help to raise the head a little.

 

[mattbigblue]

Maybe it looks so but it's not. In the link below You can see buoyancy check with same weighting configuration and I'm clearly swimming up. I know head play important role and I try to keep it straight.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ply8o6PBAs]YouTube - buoyancy check[/ame]

p.s. don't bother about subtitles, I edit just a small part of the video.

Matt

 

[Kars]

From the first video I say your weighting is close to ideal, but take 100 - 300gr from your neck weight to your hips. Another thing you can consider is your arm pull, the direction you place your thrust. And also keep in mind that you'll loose buoyancy during an apnea of maybe 400-500 gr. it's better to be a little buoyant in the beginning and neutral at the end of your dive. Also consider speeding up your dive when the contractions have started.
Shifting your arms forward and backward also changes the weight centerpoint.

 

[aris ioannidis]

nice comment Kars. I always do more strokes and spead up in the second half of the dive. Heard it before but do not remeber the reason - why do u lose buoyancy towards the end of the dive?

 

[Kars]

I don't know for sure why one looses buoyancy, but I suspect the CO2 uses less space than O2.

Speeding up (a bit) for the moment after the dive helps to go strait, and I suspect will not cost extra O2 because you're vascular constricted.

 

[trux]

I don't know for sure why one looses buoyancy, but I suspect the CO2 uses less space than O2.

More precisely the buoyancy changes not because of different size or different molecular mass of CO2 (which would be bigger anyway), but especially because part of the CO2 produced by the metabolism is not released back into the lungs, but dissolved in liquids. However, the total change of buoyancy will be very small - in most cases somewhere between 1% to 5% of the TLC (50ml - 250ml at 5 liters TLC). First of all, the content of oxygen in lungs is already below 20% after inhaling, then it still contains around 10% at the end of apnea (perhaps a bit less - I do not have the exact numbers at hand right now), and only a part of the consumed oxygen is not replaced by CO2 in lungs.

 

[alonrivkind]

Hi Trux,
This issue of getting heavy in dynamic was kind of mysterious-i was thinking it becuse the o2 co2 relation:head
It sounds logic that part of the co2 is staying in the body in form of liquid...
Thanks,
Alon