How fit do you need to be to scuba dive? It’s often thought that as long as you can carry your tank to the water, you should be fit enough to dive. That may be well If you plan on rarely diving, and you may be taking some unnecessary risk if you are not thinking about what happens pre and post-dive and how your fitness affects this.
Swim/fitness requirements
PADI Open Water
- Swim 200 metres/yards (or 300 meters/yards in mask, fins and snorkel) without stopping. There is no time limit for this, and you may use any swimming strokes you want.
- Float and tread water for 10 minutes, again using any methods you want.
NAUI Introduction To Technical Diving
- Be able to swim 400 meters in under 10 min
- Completer a 50 foot underwater breath-holding swim in full technical equipment configuration.
A diver should be fit enough to safely dive in the weather conditions (wind, sun, current), be able to carry and dawn their equipment and safely perform a rescue on their buddy if need be.
So how fit do you need to be? Let’s take a look.
Diving style
I feel that how you choose to dive will have a larger effect on fitness requirements. If you plan on being a warm water recreational diver you will have a very different equipment configuration (single tank, single regulator, BCD, lead weights t-shirt or 3mm wetsuit) and weather conditions than a cold water technical diver. ( double tanks, double regulator, harness and wing, with a drysuit). That’s not to say that a recreational warm water diver can be out of shape, it just means that the fitness requirements in a warm water recreational diver are different.
Diving by nature can be very relaxing and peaceful once under the water, provided you have a balanced dive kit, and your trim is good. However, getting to the water and the post-dive off-gassing require different fitness areas that one may not think are more than just carrying your tanks.
Both tech and recreational divers carry a lot of weight. An average warm water diver can carry up to 80lb of extra weight between the tanks and lead weight. A technical diver doing a simple dive plan with just one deco stop can have up to 200lb of excess weight to carry to the water. This is the part of the dive where strength is required one can always get help, but being able to carry your equipment safely to and from the boat and when you get out of the water is a great asset to enjoying your day. But the often forgotten form of fitness that many divers forget is the cardiovascular system. (cardio). The most critical part of diver fitness is effectively using the air you are breathing. When one trains their cardiovascular system, they are teaching the body to utilize oxygen better and remove CO2.
As a diver, one must keep in mind that the off-gassing that the body has to do on our surface interval and at the end of the day is handled by the cardiovascular system. The better your body is at circulating blood the better your body is at gas exchanges. Therefore, with solid cardiovascular fitness, the easier it will be for your body to remove the build-up of gas accumulated in your blood and tissues. This leads you to be less tired from multiple dives in a day or long decompression dives and may be beneficial at preventing the bends.
How often you dive and conditions
Your commitment to fitness may depend on your commitment to diving. I am a regular cold water diver working toward my technical certifications. I often dive all year round in Ontario, Canada, where surface temperatures range from 32 degrees C to -10 degrees C while diving double steel tanks and a dry suit. So I usually take my fitness pretty seriously. I lift weights or do some kind of strength training 2-3 days a week and do cardiovascular work about 2-3 days a week and regular stretching most nights. Because I like to dive as often as possible several times a week with long walks to the water with my equipment, being in shape helps how much I enjoy my diving.
Personally, if you are a technical diver or plan to be one, your fitness should be a big consideration in your dive lifestyle. I dive with divers who neglect that aspect of their diving, and they are the ones who make very strange grunting sounds when picking up their equipment or look entirely out of breath when surfacing from a dive and climbing the ladder on the boat. Also, most of our dives here in Canada are considered cold as the water rarely key gets above 10 degrees C. That adds quite a bit of stress to the cardiovascular system, after all, your heart will start pounding when donning a drysuit in 30-degree weather, and then your heart will drastically slow down when one hits the cold water and starts the dive. These are the stress that one may not consider when diving.
Let’s consider a warm water recreational diver who only drives when on vacation. Seemingly this sounds like it should be pretty easy relaxing diving. But one should consider the physical requirements to better prepare, and maybe you will have an even better time. When you’re not a regular diver, think that if you’re on vacation, you may be drinking alcohol more than usual and in warmer weather than normal, this will all lead to dehydration. Dehydration is a significant factor in dive injuries, and being physically fit both strength-wise and most importantly, cardiovascularly will help you mitigate any potential dive accidents. If you find yourself in this situation where you seldom dive and just do it when on vacation it might be a good idea to take up a short 12-16 week fitness routine before the vacation to help prepare your body for the dive and enable you to perform a rescue if need be. And let’s not forget the beach body you might get. Time to pack the Speedo!
Kieth webbers Cardio Kettlenel routine might help you get in shape.
Hopefully, I helped show whether you’re a regular technical diver diving cold water with a ton of gear or diving warms tropical water in a t-shirt, all diving puts stress on our body and the fitter you are the better diver you will be.
If you plan on regularly diving to escape. Having a regular fitness routine that rotates through strength and cardiovascular workouts with regular stretching will not only improve your life but drastically improve your diving.