You might hear people talking about “Trim” around the dive resort. Well what does this mean and why do we care?
Trim simply means maintaining a horizontal body position in the water as we are diving. It means not having your feet dangling below you, and not having your dive gear, gauges etc dangling down either.
So why focus on trim?
- For yourself!
By being in trim you are going to have much easier dives. With your body straight in a horizontal position and maybe even with knees bent up, you will have less water resistance and therefore gain more power from each kick you do.If you are in a feet down position your direction of travel will be upwards, so therefore, if not corrected you could end up not really travelling in the direction you want.If your feet are heavy if could mean you are over-weighted which in turn means you will be exerting more effort than you should, and increasing gas consumption. Being over-weighted is unnecessary and easily fixed with a proper weight check! - For the aquatic life If while diving you swim with your legs hanging below your torso and you want to get close to the sea floor, your legs will most likely hit the ground and stir up visibility and damage aquatic life. By having good trim you can get closer to the floor and therefore spot more of the amazing creatures living there without causing them any harm.
Good trim goes together with good buoyancy and using your breathing for fine tune control – so practice, practice, practice, and if you need more help then ask your instructor for hints and tips.
Here at evolution we focus on trim and try to teach all our students into the best possible trim and buoyancy right from the beginning of their Open Water Class. The result is informed and efficient divers such as Chris, Herb and Junmar shown here finishing up their Open Water certification dives.