“So how’s your air?” This question is heard countless times between buddy teams during a dive. And it’s your air consumption that often determines who will pull the group out of the water first. While your colleague is calmly examining every shell on a wreck and still has a comfortable 120 bars in the tank, you’re already nervously glancing at your gauge and wondering if you’ll even have enough air for the safety stop.
It’s no coincidence that experienced divers can stay underwater with one tank much longer than beginners. And it’s not just about being more fit – the key is mainly proper breathing technique and the ability to stay comfortable underwater, even when something occasionally goes wrong. The good news? All of this can be learned. Let’s look at tricks that will help you extend your stay in the blue depths.
Why Do We Consume So Much Air Underwater?
To reduce our air consumption, we first need to understand why we breathe like locomotives underwater:
- Increased pressure – With every 10 meters of depth, the ambient pressure increases by 1 bar. This means that at a depth of 20 meters, you use three times more air with each breath than at the surface.
- Regulator resistance – Even the best regulator creates some resistance to your breathing, which increases the effort needed to breathe.
- Cold – In cooler water, the body consumes more energy to maintain temperature, which leads to increased oxygen consumption.
- Physical activity – Swimming against currents, improper gear configuration, or carrying too much weight means greater exertion.
- Stress and nervousness – Perhaps the most important factor that beginners often underestimate. Anxiety and stress lead to shallow, rapid breathing and dramatically increase air consumption.
Basic Breathing Techniques for Lower Consumption
1. Conscious Deep Breathing
On land, we mostly breathe shallowly without thinking about it. Underwater, however, you need to take breathing into your own hands:
- Inhale slowly and deeply – fill your lungs, but without tension
- Wait a moment (a second or two)
- Long, slow exhale – even slower than the inhale, completely emptying your lungs
- Wait again briefly and then repeat
When I started diving, counting helped me – four counts for inhaling, two for pausing, six to eight for exhaling. Like meditation, only in a wetsuit and ten meters underwater.
2. Diaphragmatic Breathing
Many divers primarily use chest breathing, which is far less efficient than breathing with your diaphragm:
- Place your hand on your abdomen
- When inhaling, your belly should expand first, then your chest
- When exhaling, your belly contracts again
- Try to breathe “into your belly,” not just the upper part of your lungs
This breathing allows for a greater volume of air with less effort and naturally leads to deeper, slower breathing.
3. “Skip Breathing” Technique (WARNING – only for experienced divers!)
Some advanced divers practice “skip breathing,” where a longer pause follows the exhale before inhaling. This approach is not recommended for several reasons:
- It can lead to excessive CO₂ buildup in the body
- It increases the risk of hypoxia
- When done incorrectly, it can paradoxically increase air consumption
For most recreational divers, it’s safer and more effective to focus on slow, smooth breathing without excessive breath-holding.
Practical Tips for Reducing Air Consumption
Body Position – Be Like a Torpedo, Not an Anchor
I’ve seen countless divers who basically dive standing up – head up, feet down, BCD inflated to bursting. That’s a guaranteed recipe for wasting air in half the time:
- Adjust your weights so you swim horizontally
- Keep your arms by your sides or behind your back, not in front of you like Superman
- Don’t overdo it with your BCD – inflate, deflate, and then just minor corrections
- Try to imagine you’re a fish – it doesn’t swim up and down like a yo-yo either
The best diver is a lazy diver. Every unnecessary movement means that air disappears from your tank faster than beer from a glass on a hot day.
Slow but Steady
I have a friend who moves underwater as if sharks were swimming at his heels. And unsurprisingly, he’s always the first to signal “I’m out of air.” It’s no coincidence:
- When you swim twice as fast, you use four times more energy (and air)
- Swim thoughtfully, as if you were walking in a park
- Don’t rush anywhere – the fish aren’t going to run away
- Kick slowly and efficiently – you’re not in a race for a medal
Don’t Dress for Siberia, But Not for a Sauna Either
A chilled diver consumes air ravenously. But overheating isn’t ideal either:
- Better a thicker than thinner wetsuit – better to sweat a little than to shiver
- Don’t forget a hood – a lot of heat escapes through your head
- For longer dives in cold water, consider a drysuit – it’s an investment that pays off
- In the tropics, a t-shirt and shorts are enough; an unnecessary wetsuit will just overheat you
I remember my first dive in Norway – I wore a thinner suit to look tough. The second tank I had to take because of my consumption didn’t seem so cool anymore.
Calm Mind = Air in the Tank
After years of instructing, I’ve noticed that beginners don’t consume more air because of physical fitness, but because of their mindset:
- Nervousness and stress = fast, shallow breathing = empty tank
- Even if you’re the best buddy underwater, leave panic on the shore
- Practice calm situations and emergency procedures so nothing surprises you later
- Dive within your limits – there’s no shame in saying “I’m not ready for this yet”
This isn’t rocket science. When you feel at home underwater, you automatically breathe better. And that’s priceless.
Even Divers Must Occasionally Get Out of Their Wetsuit and Exercise
Sure, you don’t need to look like Iron Man, but some exercise above water will help you below it too:
- Swimming, running, or cycling improve lung capacity
- Core exercises help you maintain proper position in the water
- Even basic yoga breathing can dramatically help with breath control
- A few push-ups and squats never hurt – stronger legs = more efficient kicking
Exercises That Really Work (and I Use Them Myself)
On Land
- Couch, Netflix, and Breathing
- Sit down in the evening with the TV and instead of chips, take 10 minutes of focused breathing
- Breathe with your belly like Buddha, not your chest like a startled rabbit
- At first it seems like a waste of time, but the effect will surprise you
- Resistance Training
- Roll up a piece of paper, put it in your mouth, and breathe through it
- Your breathing muscles will get a workout and get used to regulator resistance
- Bonus: you look funny doing it, entertaining your family
- Counting to a Rhythm
- Inhale on 4, exhale on 6
- Gradually extend (but always make the exhale longer than the inhale)
- You can do this anywhere – in the car, at the office, on public transport
In the Pool/At the Swimming Area
- Swimming a Length on One Breath
- How far can you go? And next time try two meters more
- It’s not about breaking records, it’s about knowing your limits
- CAUTION: Always with supervision, never alone!
- Swimming with a BCD
- Set neutral buoyancy in the pool
- Stay motionless in the water just by breathing
- If you can do it in a pool, it’ll be easy in the sea
How to Tell If You’re Improving
Here’s a simple trick: calculate your SAC (Surface Air Consumption), which is your consumption converted to surface level:
- How many bars you consume per minute at a given depth
- Multiply by the absolute pressure (depth/10 + 1)
- The result tells you how you’re doing
An example from my logbook: I went to 20 meters and used 20 bars in 10 minutes (so 2 bars per minute). At that depth, the pressure is 3 bars (20/10 + 1), so my SAC was 2 × 3 = 6 bars per minute at the surface. Six months later, after regular training, I was at 4.5. That’s a 25% improvement!
Record these values, track them under different conditions, and you’ll see where you have room for improvement.
What to Expect and What Not (Harsh Reality)
I have to tell you one thing straight – some things you simply cannot influence:
- If you’re a two-meter-tall person, you’ll always consume more air than a petite individual
- With age, lung capacity naturally decreases – sorry, that’s nature
- Some people are simply genetically gifted with more efficient oxygen utilization
But don’t worry, even with these limitations, you can dramatically improve. I regularly see my students improve by 30-50% within a few months of training. That’s the difference between 40 and 60 minutes underwater!
Final Advice: Be Like Water (and Breathe Regularly)
Improving your breathing isn’t a matter of one weekend, but of gradual training. What will really help you:
- Regularly practice the exercises I’ve shown you
- Create a pre-dive routine – five minutes of calm and conscious breathing
- Analyze after each dive what worked and what didn’t
- Dive regularly – muscles and brain forget faster than you think
How will you know you’ve mastered it? When you realize you didn’t look at your pressure gauge once during the entire dive. And that’s the best feeling – when you’re not limited by technique, but only by your curiosity and the time you can spend underwater.