Northwest Dive Club

Not sure if this is the right place for this post but...

I've been diving with Turtle Fins for awhile now and using the frog kick and took an Intro to Tech class but I've noticed that I have the hardest time keeping my feet up...If i consciously think about it I can force myself to keep my feet up and knees bent but once I'm not purposefully doing it my knees go down and the fins drop down (horizontal with body- not down to the ground). My drysuit was form fitted but is now little tight (I got married and gained some weight ;-P) Not sure if tightness has anything to do with this.

Any tips on keeping knees bent and feet up? I'm trying to have the same form as tech/cave/wreck...UTD/GUE,etc...

-Thanks in advance for the advise.

Do you dive doubles or singles?

The key is that your knees drop. If it were just that you rotated to a feet-low position with the knees UP, it would be all static weighting. But if your knees drop, that's posture and muscle fatigue. Any time you flex at the hip joint (break the straight line from shoulders to knees) your feet will also drop. Staying straight through the torso and hips is a learned behavior and requires muscle tension, so when it is new to you and the muscles aren't strong, you will fatigue, and without constant attention, you will lose the posture. To this day, if I am distracted or tired, I will pitch a bit head up.

If you can maintain the straight line from shoulders to knees, with your arms more or less in front of you, and your entire body rotates to a feet-down position, then you need to correct static weighting, which means moving weight upwards in most cases.

Jeremy wrote:Do you dive doubles or singles?

I dive doubles...legs down never was an issue or thought in my singles beginning phase.

LCF wrote:The key is that your knees drop. If it were just that you rotated to a feet-low position with the knees UP, it would be all static weighting. But if your knees drop, that's posture and muscle fatigue. Any time you flex at the hip joint (break the straight line from shoulders to knees) your feet will also drop. Staying straight through the torso and hips is a learned behavior and requires muscle tension, so when it is new to you and the muscles aren't strong, you will fatigue, and without constant attention, you will lose the posture. To this day, if I am distracted or tired, I will pitch a bit head up.

If you can maintain the straight line from shoulders to knees, with your arms more or less in front of you, and your entire body rotates to a feet-down position, then you need to correct static weighting, which means moving weight upwards in most cases.

I'll have to pay attention to what is going out of form...my knees dropping or if I'm too upright. Will get back about it. :-)

Thanks!

I would suspect you are rearing back from being head heavy in your doubles. Very common issue and often initially perceived as being foot heavy when its really the opposite. Video of you in the water would be a huge diagnostic help.

CaptnJack wrote:I would suspect you are rearing back from being head heavy in your doubles. Very common issue and often initially perceived as being foot heavy when its really the opposite. Video of you in the water would be a huge diagnostic help.

I have a 6 lb tail weight. I'll try to upload one tomorrow and send a link. :-) thanks...I'll upload my intro to tech class.

CaptnJack wrote:I would suspect you are rearing back from being head heavy in your doubles. Very common issue and often initially perceived as being foot heavy when its really the opposite. Video of you in the water would be a huge diagnostic help.

This. Also, make sure you're keeping your back arched. If you start not doing that, your knees will drop for sure.

Ryjoph, let me know if you'd like to meet up for a dive at Muk some afternoon and kick around a bit.

CaptnJack wrote:I would suspect you are rearing back from being head heavy in your doubles. Very common issue and often initially perceived as being foot heavy when its really the opposite. Video of you in the water would be a huge diagnostic help.

This certainly was my issue.

What type of doubles are you diving?

Nwbrewer wrote:
Ryjoph, let me know if you'd like to meet up for a dive at Muk some afternoon and kick around a bit.

I'm gonna try to dive with Brendan Wold Sunday morning if it works out...mukilteo t dock. Not sure of specifics yet but will update when I know if it works out.

ljjames wrote:What type of doubles are you diving?

They are Faber LP 95's, Halcyon 300 bar manifold, aqualung legend regs.

Without seeing you in your kit, this is a guess, but I'd say keep the tail weight and let your shoulder straps out a bit, and tighten up the crotch strap and make sure to adjust your waist belt (I almost always have to tighten mine - and then loosen it again when i stand up out of water at end of dive) when you get in the water to keep kit stable.

You'll know when you've got it because you will be able to just hold still in trim with just enough gas in drysuit for lofting and not have to move.... stretch arms out forward a bit so you become a nice big stable platform. If you are finding yourself just a hair head heavy straighten your legs just a whiff, placing your heavy fins further out on the 'lever' and that should counter act, and then you know to drop your tanks just a wee bit more or just know you will need to not have knees at a perfect 90 degree angle (also remember that tanks will change up towards end of dive as you breath them down so what is perfect at the start may become more annoying at the end, thats just life and physics, and thats when i use body position to balance things out)

I know this all sounds counter intuitive, but Richard's right, you're likely head heavy and since humans don't like to feel like we are falling forward, we unconsciously trap a bubble of gas in the shoulders of our suit (or top of BCD) to get rid of that feeling. That will automatically force your body into a 30 or so degree angle, and make you feel super foot heavy. By getting the weight further down, balancing the kit, you are able to get rid of that falling forward feeling and bring your body into trim and feel stable. How to check for this? find a nice flat area in the shallows, dump the majority of the gas out of your drysuit (just enough in there that you are lofted) now make yourself neutral with your BCD. Now relax, and ease your self into trim, bring your legs 'up' (having a buddy there to help 'put' you into trim really can help this) and then hold perfectly still. Very likely your feet will start to float up and you'll flip ass over tea kettle This isn't cause you have gas trapped in your feet, its cause you are top heavy

Listen to Laura imo. I did...and it's worked out pretty well so far.

Went diving yesterday...I ran the tanks down to 500...shed some extra weight I had (cuz it's been so long since I've been diving I didn't want to have weighting issues so I wore extra weight) and am perfectly weighted. I tried getting in proper form and staying perfectly still and realized I AM top heavy..I have 6 pounds for tail weight but will throw an extra pound or 2 on and then recheck it. After talking with Brain Weiderspan about it he mentioned that the Turtle fins are known to be heavy and with the converse I use for rock boots it's hard to keep a little air in feet as well. He also said that the tanks I have are known to be a little top heavy... Will see how some extra tail weight fixes things on Tuesday. :-) fortunately I can just MOVE some of the v weight to the tail weight instead of having to lug more weight around. That long walk yesterday sucked.

The Faber 95s aren't so much as top heavy, its that they are butt light. If you take an empty one and toss it in Puget Sound it will barely float. More importantly it will be very strongly butt up, valve down. It may be close to neutral in overall buoyancy but the center of gravity is somewhere around the crown, nowhere near the center of the tank and nowhere near your center of gravity (belly button-ish). The PSTs and Worthingtons are not so butt light. 95s are also relatively short and this putts more mass up high on your back too. Moving lead down into tail weights and/or onto a weight belt will help. Still with the turtles on your feet. After that it starts to become more and more about posture.

Sounds good. Thanks CaptnJack....will be testing it tonight. I'm adding 2 pounds to tail weight so see if that will do the trick...and gonna focus on posture too.