To Exercise or Not to Excercise After a Dive? June 30, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Decompression, Uncategorized , trackbackWithin my technical diving training and spending many hours reading medical texts, I have always thought the general concensus is that exercising before a dive is fine, but exercising after a dive is a big no no, and empirically I have felt this myself. Whenever I simply chill out and make special efforts not to do anything representing exercise after a dive I have felt better than those times where I have immediately jumped up and hurried around the boat tidying kit away and lifting cylinders about. Obviously me ‘feeling’ better has nothing to do with the bubbles in my system, but it is generally accepted that you could create or aggravate any bubbles by exercising too much after a dive.
Well, this piece of research now suggests that strenuous exercise after dive also reduces bubble formation, therefore turning the whole theory on its head.
was conducted on just 7 male military divers. More research is therefore needed before firm conclusions can be reached for sports divers.
The volunteer divers were in the open sea at 30 m for 30 minutes, with standard decompression. The post-dive exercise session lasted 10 minutes but was intensive.
Maybe this is the case for relatively short and shallow dives, but I am not sure that this would be the case on longer, deeper exposures.
[via Scubatravel]
Comments»
The numbers look suspect to me, the error margin is too big (from there only being 7 divers tested).
*And* it was with highly fit, well trained military divers too. Repeat the experiment with your average recreational diver who likes his/her bacon buttie.
I’d stick with the “less-is-more” post dive routine until some serious studies are done & published.
To me it just seems that it is better to sit upright and have a beer after a dive than to lay down and have one.