Scuba Q and A:

How Can I Use Less Air While Scuba Diving?

Q. How do you use less air while scuba diving?

Answer:

Some divers, especially low-quality instructors, usually rush to suggest all manner of easy quick-fix solutions, that don’t really work.

The truth is, your respiration demand is driven by your level of exertion and, thus, how much CO2 your body metabolises.

Fancy breathing methods help expel CO2, but that’s just treating the symptoms, not the cause.

The key to lowering gas consumption on scuba dives is to dramatically reduce your level of exertion.

That’s primarily achieved by improving your fundamental proficiencies: buoyancy, trim, propulsion and control.

When these proficiencies improve, the diver is able to exert proportionally far less exertion on a given dive. They’ll inherently relax and they’ll metabolise less O2 into CO2.. and that’ll reduce their breathing demand.

People avoid that answer because the idea of actually practising and refining their fundamental proficiencies is neither gratifying nor an instant-fix. It demands some self-discipline, patience and a willingness to simply devote your precious time to unglamorous shallow-water dedicated practice.

About the Author

Andy Davis is a RAID, PADI TecRec, ANDI, BSAC and SSI qualified independent technical diving instructor who specializes in teaching advanced sidemount, trimix and wreck exploration diving courses across South East Asia. Currently residing in ‘wreck diving heaven’ at Subic Bay, Philippines, he has amassed more than 9000 open circuit and CCR dives over 27 years of diving across the globe.

Andy has published many magazine articles on technical diving, has written course materials for dive training agency syllabus, tests and reviews diving gear for major manufacturers and consults with the Philippines Underwater Archaeology Society.

He is currently writing a series of books to be published on advanced diving topics. Prior to becoming a professional technical diving educator in 2006, Andy was a commissioned officer in the Royal Air Force and has served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Belize and Cyprus.