Scuba Fitness: Your Tanks Are Your Weights
Are you stuck on St. Midgets Island, with no possibilities for working out but the concrete patch behind the dive shop? Still want to keep the fit body in shape to be able to deal with the physical demands of scuba diving, and to attract the women or men of the island? Sick of pushups, chin-ups and burpees? Try these ideas: scuba tanks as weights. A full Al80/11l scuba tank weighs about 17 kgs, so that’s a good weight for a lot of exercises right there.
Which exercises to do? Here are a few ideas:
Front raises with scuba tanks: This is a fun one, and can be done dynamic (raising and lowering the tank repeatedly) or static (raising and holding the tank). The latter is good one for friendly competitions, testing who can hold a tank the longest with arms out more or less horizontal. My PB as of October 2021 is 27 seconds, this doesn’t sound very long and I will work on it.
What this hits: mainly front deltoids, side deltoid, trapezoid.
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Shrugs with two scuba tanks: This is also a classic. Can even be done while schlepping tanks from or to the dive boat, hence combining a chore and exercise. The 2 x 17 kgs of two scuba tanks are a tad light for me for this exercise, but you can always make up for that with high reps. Bros science says that trapezoids are best hit with either very heavy weights or high reps.
What it hits: forearms, trapezoid, forearms.
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Pushups with a mounted tank. An interesting variant on the pushup, the all-time classic strength exercise, popular from the grade schooler who saw a bodybuilder on TV to the elite powerlifter who wants to do a light chest day. Just put your tank on your BC and start doing pushups. This works even better My backplate weighs 3 kgs, plus 2 x 17 = 34 kgs, gives a total weight of 37 kgs on your back.
What this hits: Chest, shoulders, triceps, core
My PB: 18 pushups with doubles, performed at Arizona Dive Shop, Subic Bay, Philippines.
Also check out my blog post on basic scuba fitness.
Best Fishes,
Klaus
