Spherical Chicken

A short note on what it means to have high standards around trim position and why, and where the focus on trim becomes silly. There is a middle ground with appropriate focus on trim that assists our diving and striving for excellence in the water, while at the same time not leading to attempts to look perfect at all times which begins to hinder our diving.

High Standards

We need to have high standards for having trim position. This is in order to achieve numerous goals of moving through the water: non silting kicks, efficient kicks, lower gas consumption, lower CO2 build up, better buoyancy control, and above all else a more stable platform in the water.

Divers should be attempting to hit a zero degree trim angle when relaxed and stationary or kicking in a plane. It is not being a trim nazi to have this as a desired reference point. And the simple fact is that by shooting for zero trim, a diver will typically be able to find a comfortable 0-10 degree trim position, which will only deviate up to 20 degrees under a lot of stress. By accepting that “20 degree trim is good enough” at neutral and relaxed, that will lead to 30-40 degrees of trim when stressed which is simply going to negatively impact performance.

By having bad trim it will make valve drills harder, it makes knees drop, which affects anti silting kicks, any errant kicks will propel the diver up in the water column leading to the diver maintaining slightly negative buoyancy which will produce yo-yo’ing under task loading.

The National Socialist Party of Trim

Where the focus on trim gets silly is to take this desired zero degree trim and to place it above everything else missing the bigger picture. When divers dump gas they need to roll and break trim. When going up or down in a cave or wreck divers will need to break trim. When using fin kicks for buoyancy control divers will need to adopt a head-up or head-down attitude in order to kick to go up or down.

Where the focus on trim gets silly is this idea that divers must always be board flat at all times. Combined with the idea that breath control should be used as the primary mechanism of buoyancy control. This is a common mistake that newer divers make when learning breath/buoyancy control, which produces too little buoyancy adjustments in the wing and drysuit, and complete neglect of using fins to kick up or down.

The overfocus on trim can lead to new divers floating to the surface in perfect trim form, while not breaking trim to dump gas. In tech divers, you sacrifice one of the best ways to initiate changes in depth, or to quickly control a buoyancy problem by using your fins. Watching divers float away or sink in trim while fighting to deal with buoyancy and not simply breaking trim and kicking would be comical if it wasn’t actually dangerous on a real tech dive.

Trim and Comfort

It hopefully goes without saying that a diver that has to fight to stay in trim constantly and is not comfortable has a problem where trim is impacting their ability to dive negatively. Trim position should not be difficult, it should be natural. And that is where skill needs to come in fixing the divers body position, their weighting, adjusting their tank straps (typically lowering their tanks), tightening up the crotch strap, and tightening up the waist belt. Addressing more fully how to correctly address these problems requires another article, but the end result should be a diver who is comfortable with 0-10 degree trim.

Comfortable divers in trim will have more situational awareness, more enjoyable diving, and will lead to substantially more success in more advanced courses. Divers who struggle with trim constantly in an effort to look good without fixing fundamental issues in their balance and stability in the water are not going to be doing themselves a favor.

Summary

Trim is measured when the diver is not changing buoyancy control or deliberately breaking trim to accomplish an action. And there is a bigger picture to why trim is desirable other than simply looking good. You should above all else be able to feel that you move through the water more efficiently when you are in trim position, and it should make your diving more enjoyable. When maintaining trim is not helping your diving, it should be broken (usually temporarily).

And it still is desirable to refine how much we break trim. Newer divers will need to break trim and roll more in order to dump gas. Some drysuits have poor dump valve placement and will require a more exaggerated position in order to dump gas. The concern placed on this is often vastly out of proportion with its significance, however. A diver should first be concerned with having stable trim position at rest, and then with many other skills such as team positioning and situational awareness, before needing to focus on the refinement and finesse of breaking trim to dump gas.