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Weighty issue

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Ms Mer

Active Member
Apr 15, 2012
175
9
33
I have just started having issues with my weighting and buoyancy in dynamic apnea. I am 147cm and 55kg. I was using 4.5kg on weight belt and not having any problems with being over or under weighted. I was at that stage diving with my ams along side me. Have recently changed technique so that I am swimming with my arms out in front, head tucked down so am in a more hydrodynamic position. On doing this I have began floating to the top. So we added a neck weight (1kg I think was what I used). This seemed to overcompensate so I then was literally scrapping along the bottom of the pool and of course this added extra resistance and I had to push myself up of the bottom. Reduced weight belt to 3kg - started popping back up to the surface again, but sometimes end up on the bottom also with that same weight combination.

Have also tried kicking less, and kicking more. Seems no rhyme nor reason to either popping up to the surface or scrapping along the bottom. I do know that I need proper fins as my current ones are not FD ones and have little flex in them, but would they contribute to such buoyancy problems?

Is there something I might be doing wrong in my technique or something else I could try? Could I be "pointing" my body down too much or pushing off wrong?

Would appreciate some advice.
 
Have a person video you under water.

Use consistent technique, same breath etc.

Make sure your suit is not holding air.

Yes hands, arm, head angle make a huge difference.

Also during a long dive you'll find that buoyancy is slightly reducing. If I recall correctly Tom Sietas reported 600 gr over a distance of 200m. So he would weight a little light so that in the end he would be neutral.

It's better to be a bit positive.
Swimming a bit deeper makes a big difference.

Using small or big fins does not make any difference in my mind.

The push from the wall indeed makes a big difference. Many people put their feet much to high, doing a banana like push off. With some coaching and practice it will become much better.

I'm looking forward to the video, maybe there is something I've not covered.
 
Practice is part of it, just learning to adjust aspects of your kick or hands to keep you level. In a streamline the way you plane your arms and even palms can change your elevation, same as rudders on a submarine. If you train in a wetsuit then weights become part of the game since a suit is just so bouyant, and they compress and lose bouyancy at depth in the most inconvenient way possible. I doubt it is applicable in your case but in a pool using somebody else's soft fin I have to fight a little more to maintain a good body position and stay at my chosen depth. I don't wear weights when training in a pool; don't wear a wetsuit either but am of course very bouyant on a full lung. With a stiffer fin I find it easier to maintain form and be at whatever depth I like.
 
Thanks Kars and growignupninja - all really helpful for me. I will make some adjustments to body position, streamlining and pushoff etc and see what happens. My suit is a triathlon wetsuit and is pretty buoyant in the legs and chest.

I also think that I need to push off more gently as in glide into the swim. Past swimming experience has me automatically pushing off harder but I know that's not the case with dynamic apnea. Need to re-train the grey matter!!

I will see what I can do about getting someone to film me under the water.

The pool drops off to 2.10m, so not deep.
 
How's your shoulder flexibility? Sounds a bit like you might have had he head up more when you started swimming with arms in front - why would you start floating when you put the arms in front? Check your head position...
 
You could just leave your arms down and improve that technique. Depends on your dive profile and speed.
Best thing is to video yourself not so others can critique you but so you can see for yourself. Try lots of styles in the video.
 
Although Iam no expert,i currently train in the pool with F/D fins but not wetsuit just togs no weight either.Upon reading this forum the difference between having arms outstreached and also beside my side is dramatic.Having arms outstreached even the slightest of finger/hand movements affects your depth intensly.
I generally train both styles i guess its the old adage "Practice makes Perfect".Maybe you need a training buddy to help with your technique???
Cheers SQMerman
 
How's your shoulder flexibility? Sounds a bit like you might have had he head up more when you started swimming with arms in front - why would you start floating when you put the arms in front? Check your head position...

Shoulder flexibility in right shoulder not great at present due to recent injury. I have just started yoga classes which I hope will help rehab with it. I think that my head is probably not tucked in enough now you mention it. I am probably looking towards end of pool too much which probably means I left my head unconsciously. Is it better to tuck chin under?

You could just leave your arms down and improve that technique. Depends on your dive profile and speed.
Best thing is to video yourself not so others can critique you but so you can see for yourself. Try lots of styles in the video.

Cheers watts. I will play around with different styles.

Although Iam no expert,i currently train in the pool with F/D fins but not wetsuit just togs no weight either.Upon reading this forum the difference between having arms outstreached and also beside my side is dramatic.Having arms outstreached even the slightest of finger/hand movements affects your depth intensly.
I generally train both styles i guess its the old adage "Practice makes Perfect".Maybe you need a training buddy to help with your technique???
Cheers SQMerman

Thanks for sharing your recent training experiments SQMerman. Clearly then as you and others have said, slight hand movements make much more of a difference than I could have thought. I train with a club but other than 2 weekly pool sessions I don't have a training/diving buddy. I am sure that having a buddy makes much difference. Hopefully I will find someone to train with regularly.

Can people advise, is it best to place one hand on top of the other, or link fingers of top and bottom hand? Also, is it best to keep hands quite flat, not to relaxed/curved?
 
I think that my head is probably not tucked in enough now you mention it. I am probably looking towards end of pool too much which probably means I left my head unconsciously. Is it better to tuck chin under?
I am just a relative beginner but here's what works for me: I'm just looking down. Usually there's a line on the floor which ends like a »T« before you reach the end of the pool. That's the only moment I lift my head and prepare for the turn. It's a great reference point (an I suspect they were meant for that… Took me while though :duh)!

For me this not just helps being streamlined but also staying in the moment and being more relaxed. Otherwise I'm always thinking to much about reaching that wall… You don't have to worry about bumping you head somewhere as you have your hands in fornt of you :)
 
Definitely agree - don't look up!

If I need to look up, or around generally, I've found that rotating slightly so that I'm swimming more on my side helps.
 
Moving the head up indeed messes up many things...

- streamlining,
- speed,
- altitude,
- relaxation,
- mindset,
- flow state,
- blood circulation.

Also I believe there is a Japanese saying about keeping your head down, don't be the nail that sticks his head higher then the rest. very well tamed slaves they must have there.

I'm looking forward to your video :p
 
Shoulder flexibility in right shoulder not great at present due to recent injury. I have just started yoga classes which I hope will help rehab with it. I think that my head is probably not tucked in enough now you mention it..

Can people advise, is it best to place one hand on top of the other, or link fingers of top and bottom hand? Also, is it best to keep hands quite flat, not to relaxed/curved?

Fingers clasped is not done so much except by platform divers who need to protect their fingertips from impact with the water but still be kind of hydrodynamic. Hands over the other, straight is good. If you have poor shoulder flexibilty you can do hands next to each other thumbs touching.

One terrific streamline/shoulder flexibilty drill is to kick on the surface with a kickboard, chin tucked, arms out straight, one hand on top of the other, holding the kickboard. So you are basically streamlining on top of the water with a kickboard in your hand. The bouyancy of the outstretched kickboard will stretch your shoulders. Maybe this is old news for pool freedivers but a monofinner I train with showed me; we never used kickboards this way when I swam competitively. I do a lot of sets this way, no fins, in combination with apnea although she liked to do it wearing a snorkel.
 
Bit of an update:

Firstly thanks to everyone who gave me advice on what to be aware of, right technique I should be using and things I could try. I really appreciate it.

I had dynamics last night. I took on board suggestions and still found myself floating up to the surface. I tried angling my hands different ways to see if that made a difference but not enough for me to notice. Ended up playing around with different neck weights. 0.5kg too light, 1.3kg too heavy and back to being a bottom crawler, 1kg too light. Also tried arms by my sides and did seem to keep more level in the water that way. Also I am playing around with where I put my weights on my weight belt. Had been suggested to have them more at the front but am finding more to the side might be better. Will also try at the back. Or pehaps I need less on the belt (using 2 x 1.5kg ), more on the neck.

I don't have access to a camera yet to film me but one of the club members kindly offered to follow me on the surface and watch my body streamlining. She told me I was over extending my neck (as in my neck was still up too much - despite me thinking I was doing better!) and I was not extending my arms enough. So after getting it right sitting on the side of the pool she followed me again to see how it was - it felt much better (though went back to bottom crawling, with a 1.2kg neck weight). She told me the arm position in my wetsuit would be harder physically to start with and I would not be able swim quite as far to start because of that but it would improve with practice. Next we looked at fin technique as I was finding that at times I seemed to be going a bit wobbly (not due to hypoxia, just feeling unstable). She told me that I was being a bit too gentle and need to use a harder but deeper kick so I maintain momentum and stability. So tried changing kick and that was better. I now know what the technique I need to use "feels" like so can build on that. It's all a learning curve for me but I'll get there with practice and once worked out the best weighting for me. I will do the fin practice that ninja suggests as this will no doubt help shoulders and my kick.

I also have a little checklist in my head now - breath up - quiet, low straight push off - start deep - check head position - stretch arms in front and close in against head - kick stronger and deeper not shorter and faster.
 
Re: kickboard streamline drill. I don't know what kind of fins you use but I would not do the drill I described using long fins, especially if you are still working out aspects of your kick and feel for the water. I'd do no fins or stubby duck feet training fins at most. If you are stretched out long and planing properly, you will be very much on top of the water and feet may break the surface of the water or at least be 'boiling' the water, which is not considered optimum for long fins, and if you bury your legs to optimize the longfin kick, then you are training an inefficient (higher drag) body position. I use it as a stretching/streamline drill since the bouyancy of the kickboard allows me to stretch my back and shoulders past 'normal' streamline, but there is no sense in training a compromised body position. Just my opinion.
 
Question, do you consider yourself good in handling balance above water?

I do some qi gong to train my mind and flex my body.

I would love to see a video of your pool dives, I think Ninja, others and I will be able to say what needs improvement.
 
Forgot to ask - do you wear a suit for DYN? If yes, what type?
 
Question, do you consider yourself good in handling balance above water?

I do some qi gong to train my mind and flex my body.

I would love to see a video of your pool dives, I think Ninja, others and I will be able to say what needs improvement.

I have started doing yoga in the past few weeks which is going to help with flexibility and balance. We just started doing standing leg poses this week - hard going! I have an old IT band problem and some other old injuries which the yoga is really testing me with as the particular muscles I have injured in the past are feeling it during and after the sessions but it will help in the long run. The breathing etc is also good for me, mind included.

I will see what I can arrange with the video. Someone at the club has probably got an underwater camera that they can record me with.
 
Forgot to ask - do you wear a suit for DYN? If yes, what type?

I wear my swimming wetsuit which I use for ocean swimming and triathlon. It's a Blueseventy Enegerie. It 's smoothskin and is very buoyant in the legs, probably about 3mm in the quads and torso region. thin in the arms. It's designed to keep you high in the water obviously, given the purpose it's designed for. I do have an older triathlon wetsuit which is not as thick but it's pretty bashed up these days as have used it mainly for snorkeling so its got chunks out of the smoothskin now but won't be as buoyant.
 
Re: kickboard streamline drill. I don't know what kind of fins you use but I would not do the drill I described using long fins, especially if you are still working out aspects of your kick and feel for the water. I'd do no fins or stubby duck feet training fins at most. If you are stretched out long and planing properly, you will be very much on top of the water and feet may break the surface of the water or at least be 'boiling' the water, which is not considered optimum for long fins, and if you bury your legs to optimize the longfin kick, then you are training an inefficient (higher drag) body position. I use it as a stretching/streamline drill since the bouyancy of the kickboard allows me to stretch my back and shoulders past 'normal' streamline, but there is no sense in training a compromised body position. Just my opinion.

I went to the pool today and did drills with the kickboard as suggested. Found it really good for training my body and mind to become more familiar with the correct streamline position and how it feels. Its easier without a wetsuit too as I can get my arms right against my head, the wetsuit does reduce some shoulder flexibility in that regard, but the more I train in the pool this way, the more second nature it will become. I did not use my fins. They are not long fins anyway but would be long enough to probably not make it efficient when kicking at the surface with them.

I also did a few short lengths (20m or less) under water with my fins on, just to try out the streamlining underwater to make it stick mentally. First one I floated up so next time I made sure I started deeper and kicked stronger but deeper - found I did not have to kick as fast as previous as I got a really good glide from my kick. I also played around with hand angles to see the effect of that, which was interesting. But basically, I was able to stay at the bottom without floating up or scraping along the bottom. Yay! I was just in swim suit with no weights.

I do believe the issue is only partly to do with my streamlining and kick. I think that there is still an element of weighting, particularly with my wetsuit - I wonder if freediving wetsuits (smoothskin) are as buoyant as swimming ones - perhaps not?

Now that I am working on streamlining correctly it will be interesting to see how I go in wetsuit and weightbelt/neck weight this week at training. Hopefully will get a camera sorted.
 
Sounds like you are making good progress - to be honest, if you are kicking continuously you should be able to move horizontally regardless of the weights (unless they are REALLY off) - with a bit more experience you'll just be able to adjust head position, kick angle etc and move horizontally despite of your buoyancy (obviously not what you want).

The above though does not mean you have correct weights etc - moving horizontally by kicking harder is not what you obviously need as you waste energy.

One of the ways to make sure your weight is the right one is to not kick - just check what happens during the glide. You can push off the wall and not kick and see what happens - do you float/sink? are you moving horizontally through the water or at an angle?

If you are not wearing a suit, you can try kicking off the edge and seeing how far you can go just by gliding. You can vary the amount of air in your lungs to get a better glide. This is a good exercise to teach you how neutral buoyancy and streamline feels..
 
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