How to choose undergarments for diving

you've guessed it it's about undergarments i'm packing for a trip here this coming weekend in some cold waters and i figured what would be a good opportunity to talk to you about the strategy i take when it comes to undergarments underneath our dry suit [Music] hi and welcome to another episode of utd scuba diving tv now no one likes to be cold underwater no one likes to be cold in general i guess but going about it sometimes lets people go into a compromise where they accept being cold because of movement restrictions or other other things that that makes them go down the path of being cold a good example is thick gloves you get people diving thin gloves because they feel thick gloves hinders their feeling underwater well yeah you might think that it's logical but in reality when your fingers get cold they get numb now i'd rather have clumsy fingers that i can feel than numb fingers that is completely useless to me and that kind of relates to the whole uh strategy when it comes to uh keeping yourself warm underwater it's super important i mean from a decompression standpoint it's super important from a mental capacity it's super important it's proven time and time again in different studies that as soon as you go even mildly hypothermic you lose you know mental ability you lose dexterity you lose motor skills it's a lot of things and we can see it when we got with students in the water as soon as they get a little bit cold they lose focus and when you lose the focus you lose the enjoyment so keeping warm is absolutely paramount so let's jump right in and let's start with the base the base starts with a base layer it's important to get some kind of a good base layer on you as the first layer because it adds to a little bit of isolation but the most important property of a base layer is the wicking capabilities when we get dressed we're getting dressed in relatively warm air usually the air is warmer than the water we're going to dive in plus the air is not so good if it could have a conductor so when we get dressed even though the temperature of the water is the same as the temperature of the air we get warm working getting our stuff together working on the boat all that sort of stuff so having a wicking base layer is super important to keep that sweat away from your body because if you get that sweat on your body that sweat it's gonna act as a radiator your skin is a radiator per for definition if you start sweating that sweat evaporating from your skin is cooling you down that's the whole idea behind sweating so if we want to keep our heat we want to get that sweat away from our skin and that's what a wicking base layer does so wicking base layer super important nice and tight fitting all the way over your body then when we got to the extremities we need to talk about socks and gloves now um your feet and your hands are the first to get cold because those those things are the first that your body shuts off from your extremities are the first that get isolated from the warm blood because the body wants to keep all the warm blood in the core now if you keep your core warm to keep your extremities warmer for longer so it doesn't just help by getting a thin undergarment and thick gloves and thick socks and hope that works uh it's a balance so having said that uh having some good socks um as a as a solution is a is a good thing um normal you know wool ski socks usually don't do the job our ski boots are much more tight fitting or our winter hiking shoes are much more tight-fitting so we have a lot more air pockets that we want to fill out with something fluffy like this or a flea sock or something like that now having a nice thick woolen sock as a as a liner is perfect but then for all the small gaps in your feet around your ankles you need something that fills out those gaps a little bit but a bit more about the gaps and and air movement in the suit later um get get a sock that has like a protective bottom because sometimes when they're completely fleece or completely like flimsy material um they can get wet and wet's not good so in this case these have like a water repelling sole so when you start getting out or in your dry suit if you're stepping something moist it doesn't go to your feet so that's important now when we talk to talk about gloves um you can either go a fancy way like this like heated gloves they're super nice i mean you you they're they're a good glove uh you know from from a gloves point of view but then when you feel like oh i can use a bit of extra comfort you turn on that battery and you get all nice and cozy warm hands so that's super important and obviously the more demanding your diving gets the more you need to use your fingers for camera use or stage bottle or gas switching or you know what um dexterity in your fingers is super important some people like i said uh choose the compromise where they say if i wear too thick a glove or two thick inner gloves i can't move my fingers well that's that can be dealt with with training you can train your fingers to move in a different way so you can get the job done however if you have thin gloves either thin neoprene gloves or just thin under gloves your fingers gonna get stiff and numb and you can't train numb fingers numbness numb you cannot feel anything you cannot do anything so it's better to get uh a bit more clumsy and get used to that than to just you know get cold if you don't have heated gloves um i like these uh i think they're swedish brand and luva i got them once at a a dive show and they're they're crazy warm uh they're kind of like a filled woolen thing i don't know if it's alpaca or some kind of sheep or some kind of animal that makes wool but they're all i know is they're nice and warm and they're durable and they don't really fluff as much use them in combination with a thin liner in this case this is a merino wool liner together with these these are super super nice and warm in really cold cold dives i might even do this liner underneath my heated gloves for extra insulation now back to the feet a little trick i've done myself to my dry suit boots as i've taken the insole out this black neoprene insole and i've gone to the local shoe store here and i bought these i don't know old persons filled thermo inlay and i just took a piece of double-sided tape and i stuck these to my insole now this little reflective heat reflective on the bottom keeps the cold out and your feet are on this field i tell you it makes a difference so that's a nice little tip there go out and get one of these you know inlays and just put them there so when we got to the base layer then we need to address what kind of top what kind of insulating suit we want now you can go fleece you can go like these downy things personally i prefer the thinsulate based uh undergarments like you can see behind me these are um these are sandy bz200 and bz400 um these are my to-go suits i i like them because a they're warm and b they're durable they're strong like you won't believe this suit is i think 10 years old and it's it's getting some use you know and it's still going strong i mean it's it's made to last so what i like about the thinsulate material is that when you when you look inside this it's tiny layers of this insulated material back stacked up onto each other that creates a very high insulating capacity or capability without too much bulk because even the 400 grams suit it's still reasonably thin and the way especially the way the manufacturers nowadays think about their garments and sandy is a perfect example of this it's like in the areas where you where you compress the fabric like in in your armpit here it's thinner in the same way like underneath their arm it's it's it's nice and fluffy inside but it's stretchable and the same thing here in inside your knees you know on the inside of your knees it's nice and compact and the last part of your ankles where your socks go over it's also not very thick so even though it's a thick suit and you can feel that you're you're wearing something substantial underneath your dry suit it's not hindering in you in in such a way if you look at this suit let's see if the wind actually doesn't play with me here but if you if you can see the way this leg is sewn it's almost like them like a motorcycle suit like it the knee wants to bend you can see there's more fabric than you need because underwater you're not with straight legs you're like with bend legs so if this fabric here is too tight like it would be on a normal pants as soon as you bend your knee it'll tighten up around your knee and you get cold knees no one likes cold knees so when you look at these suits they're actually well thought out i have a bit of extra padding here on the thigh and on the knee to keep those areas warm they have a through port for heating accessories p-valve ports i mean this just zipper goes from both directions so it just makes a lot of sense in my mind a heated suit versus a heated vest and heated accessories now personally i think you should use heated undergarments as the nice the comfort the ah the extra bit of you know pat yourself on the shoulder you're a good guy you can treat yourself um kind of thing you shouldn't i think you shouldn't use thermal heated underwear as the primary source of insulation or heat or warmth because it's electrical if your battery fails if your battery runs out it's not in the beginning of the dive it's in the end of the dive we need it the most and this is where we get into the the thermal exposure which relates to your decompression everyone knows by now and there's been studies go online on youtube and and do a little search but there's a very very um clear uh test be have been done by the nidu that shows okay if you go into the water warm and come out of the water cold that's the worst scenario from a decompression point of view and let's face it that's usually what we do right we get into our suits and we get warm we jump in the water and gradually during the dive we had cold and at the end of the dive we make our decompression and we get even colder because we're hanging still on the line now this is where i think heated undergarments for long exposure decompression deep dives is almost a must i always think okay how much battery life do i have in my heated battery and i wait and then i turn it on towards the end of the dive but it's more for comfort than it is for for necessity i think you should be able to be war be warm without the battery having to be turned on um and and you know do your exposure accordingly getting cold has a huge effect on your mental capacity so if you're starting to get cold you start losing focus you start losing enjoyment and it's just unsafe so a lot of divers do the same with the with the with the glove arguments like okay i don't want to wear this this thick beast at 400 because then i can't move i can't reach my valves well you can i mean i can i'm no monkey i can do it you can do it and if you take that in that that mindset with you you can train yourself i mean can't never could right so it's all about the fit of the dry suit the fit of the undersuit and the combination and obviously skills i've done a whole video on how to reach your valves on double so if you struggle with that go have a look at that i'll post the link down in the description but if you have a dry suit that fits you properly and it has to fit you with all the undergarments that you want to choose so if you have a summer suit which is more tight or like a cave suit for mexico where it's nice and and tight where you may maybe only need a thin fleece like this as thermal protection that's perfect but if you dive a lot in cold waters your suit needs to accommodate for the extra bulk of this undersuit there's no shortcut you cannot just put more air in your suit and i'll come to that in a minute you need to have an insulating layer and there's no you know no short way around it now when when we look about the movement of your suit underwater and the air in your suit you have to think about and it prolludes a little bit to that video about reaching your valves when you when you start putting on your equipment you take on your suit and it starts you know sagging down a little bit most of these suits come with let me see if i can dig one out with these seals suspenders so make sure they're nice and tight so it keeps your suit up and then when you put on your dry suit on top of it before you put on the top part of your dry suit reach down into your dry suit and just pull up your legs and that way your suit is as high as it can be in your unders in your dry suit and then you to put on the top you zip it up and you go into the water when you then get into the water you can feel the suit kind of squeezing around you now stretch out underwater as far as you can you can actually feel that suit getting a bit tight and then you give a puff of air in your dry suit that sends a wave of air in your dry suit and kind of loosens everything up do that for both legs or sorry both arms and and it'll actually help you out immensely with with the um the maneuverability of your arms in your dry suit now when i do these long dives i have a wicking base layer then i wear my heated vest and then i wear my bees at 400 and that's a lot of layers and a lot of people think oh can you move yes i can move partly because of the way these are designed but also i've been very careful in choosing uh the sizes so when you choose the sizes of your undergarment regardless of what it is don't think about hey this fits me well like this and look in the mirror i like i look sharp like this is nice no put yourself in a position you would be when you're diving go flat on the floor lay on your stomach put your feet up put your arms in front and now you can feel is the suit nice does it you know is it tight anywhere stretch out all the way in the top if you cannot do this comfortably without giving yourself a wedgie the suit's too small go a little go size bigger you know and the same thing goes for your dry suit so don't uh don't be um don't be tempted to buy this undergarment because it makes you look all you know buff because it's going to hinder you in your movement underwater so make sure you seek some advice and uh and and get the right size okay now let me explain with this little bit of crude drawing that it's not just the air in your dry suit that insulates you it's very important to have a bit of a layer that traps the air because from an insulating point of view it is still air standing air that insulates you if the air gets allows to move around it doesn't isolate you think about it when you're outside in the winter time it's not enough to have a big big fitting raincoat on you underneath on top of a t-shirt even though there's a lot of air between you and your t-shirt and the raincoat that's way too big it's still too cold you need something fluffy underneath right so when you look at this diver i drawn the black indicates your skin the purple is the outside of your undergarments and then this green area with the lines in is the excess area of air that you hear sometimes people put in their suits at winter time to keep them more warm or things they think they're keeping them more warm whereas if you need this amount of extra air in your suit you need something to fill that gap in now first obviously this is a little bit exaggerated but it illustrates a point when you look at a cross section of this part that's what i've drawn here you have your skin and your skin radiates a lot of heat indicated by these orange arrows then that heat that warm air gets trapped inside your undergarment illustrated by this purple layer with the warm air now trapped inside if there is too big of a air gap above your undergarment inside your dry suit and the dry suit is topped is this green layer here that's the top of your shell dry suit and then the blue indicates the cold water the dry suit itself doesn't offer any insulation so what happens is the warm air goes through your undergarments and heats up your undergarments and that's nice but now the undergarments radiate into this air void here where the warm air rises up gets into contact with this cold non-insulated layer on the inside of your dry suit gets cooled down and cold air falls down cold air is heavier it'll fall down and replace the warm air and now you get what's called convection and this is actually how a refrigerator works so adding more air on top of something that's nice and warm and insulated actually doesn't help you it it can actually contribute to getting yourself colder and colder now at the same time it shouldn't be so tight that it compresses this layer because if you compress this layer so that the air entrapped inside is not enough if you can imagine what i mean here then that's also not good so you have to find the right amount of dry suit insulating undergarments and then the dry suit that fits so ideally the layer of your dry suit stops around about here so you have the maximum amount of expansion of the undergarment and therefore the maximum amount of insulation and this is why when i told you the the sandy undergarments are in manufacturers in a such a way that you have bulk where you need it but it doesn't hinder you because where it suits compressed like your armpits or your knees on the inside of your knees it's actually less materials whereas on the top of your knees where you bend and when you compress the materials there is more material so it's quite clever the way they made that so i hope this illustration even though it's a bit drawn by an amateur and i hope it gives you a good idea of what i mean by that all right how to care for your undergarments now most undergarments can be washed normally use a sports washing detergent that's really good at getting the sweat away especially from the wicking layer and do wash them every so often please because some of these understood they get a bit a little bit yuck you always sweat a little bit there's no way around it because your dry suit is completely closed and there's you know there's some of these breathable dry suits but as soon as you go into the water that breathable breathability goes away because the water is not breathable it just stops there so you're gonna get some condensation on the inside of your suit it makes your suit a little bit wet and you know combined with some sweat and some bo it they get nasty so wash them you normally wash them just follow the your your manufacturer's description on how to wash them i use one of these the same laundry detergent i use for my cycling gear it gets away from the sweat and it smells nice so i do that the only thing i don't wash that often even though they say you can is my my heated fist so it's always underneath the big wicking layer and i think i've washed it once just by hand make a little tub and just wash it and i keep the stick out even though they say it's waterproof i just there's no need to wash this so i keep it out of the bucket wash everything by hand leave it out to dry and and off you go and if you notice this is one of the earliest uh heated vests i've got i mean this is i think the first model they came out with it's only been back to the factory to get a new stick fitted but that's it and it's still working so take care of your stuff and it'll take care of you and so that's what i had to say about undergarments and keeping warm so don't go into compromise and going for the thinner suit to keep you with dexterity because you're going to just be freezing you're going to be miserable and you're going to just have a a bad dive train yourself away from the restrictions seek out one of our utd instructors if you want some help with reaching your valve or or picking out some undergarments i'm sure they'll they'll be more than happy to help you out there um otherwise stay diving stay sharp and see you out there [Music]

Channel: UTD Scuba Diving

Views: 6,790

Rating: 4.98 out of 5

Keywords: UTD Unified Team Diving, UTD Scuba Diving, UTD, unified team diving, Ben Bos, Jeff seckendorf, Andrew georgitsis, GUE, DIR diving, Tech Diving, Scuba Diving Skills, diving Skills, ISE, Achim Schøffel, Doing it right, scuba diving, diving theory

Id: 7vkzMCvsGHI

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 03 2020