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Physical Fitness and DivingDr Mike GonevskiWater is dripping down his face as he struggles with every step. By the looks of it, he is going to collapse soon. We on the other hand are staring at each other uneasily, mentally making notes where the Oxygen bottle and the face mask are, in case we need to grab them in a hurry to bring him back to life. We might need a new box step.The minutes seem like hours. This is a diver with more than 500+ dives below his weight belt (pun intended). He came for his medical as he plans a trip abroad and needs the paperwork for his insurance company. It is not going well and I start asking myself where do I draw the line? Do I make him suffer for the full 5 minutes of the test or take him out of his misery? Will this be sufficient enough to make him realise that his 300 pound frame is not exactly like that old T-shirt of mine: "Instant Diver. Just Add Water?" Three minutes have passed. I can see it in his eyes. It is obvious that if he had any doubts before, by now he has definitely got the message – "Not fit to dive". This made me think how many times I've been on a boat with divers at various levels of experience, where you could see several "die-hard" macho divers sitting uptight, a family with a teenager or two and the odd couple of older mature divers who have been around the block a few times. Seems like your average scuba diver is a male, in his early 50's, overweight, likes his pint and smokes. Some of them look so out of shape that you start to worry when you see them struggling to don their equipment and later seeming exhausted when climbing up the short ladder out of the water. When you politely enquire "have you been through any kind of fitness test recently" they might tell you that there was no problem 20 years ago when they started diving or that they were never required to have one. Around the dawn of recreational diving, pre Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a lot of people were reluctant to even consider diving because they thought it was deep, dark and dangerous. Today, it is just the opposite. Many have at the back of their minds the glossy pictures from the tourist magazines and they view it as simple, safe and easy. Indeed, diving takes place in a relatively weightless environment, the closest to being in outer space without actually being there. But it does require a degree of both health and stamina... To read the rest of this article, you'll need to get your hands on Tanked Up Magazine. It's free. What are you waiting for? |
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