Exercise and Diving?

[Scuttler]

I was reading into this very subject on my flight to Dubai today.

Some research went into excercise during, prior to and post dive. It was done by Duke University and showed that

- heavy excercise on the bottom can increase deco time threefold
- mild excercise during stops could reduce stop times by as much as 30%

The crux though, was that there was insufficient data to provide statistical validity to the study. Furthermore, the term heavy and mild excercise is highly subjective.

Excercise after diving has been shown to increase the risk of DCI. The recommendation was that divers should avoid ANY exertion for at least 12 hours after ANY dive and especially after a deco dive.

It explained that increased circulation resulting from excercise increases the gas supply to the tissues and speeds up their saturation with nitrogen. Also the build up of carbon dioxide associated with excercise may aggravate bubble formation and the contraction of muscles causes low pressure areas which can act as a nuclei for bubbles.

*source: The Essentials of deeper sport diving by John Lippmann

[JasonP]

Originally Posted by Kanga

Hurrah! I absolutely concur.

I believe that light exercise, say lifting approximately a pint of liquid with one or more arms during an evening is the most that should be contemplated.

Jason

[Lofty]

The Navy see's it like this:

"Excessive exercise after diving may increase the risk of decompression sickness.

After dives approaching the ‘no-stops’ limit or those requiring stops, particularly if the dive was deeper than 42m, divers should not indulge in excessive or prolonged exercise for a period of 2 hours after such dives."

I'd leave it 6 hours before going for a serious phys sesh lasting over an hour. Otherwise, the 2 hours is fine if you're going to do a quick blast.