When it comes to maximising your diving performance, recovery is just as important as training.  Every training session pushes your body out of balance, disrupting homeostasis and temporarily lowering performance. With proper recovery, your body not only returns to baseline but adapts and improves, increasing your stamina and strength over time. Understanding how recovery works and learning how to track it can help you train smarter, dive better, and stay energised for repetitive diving and the adventures ahead. The Role of Sleep in Recovery Sleep is your body’s most powerful recovery tool. During deep sleep, the body releases growth hormones that repair tissues, restore energy, and support immune function. It’s when your system resets physically and mentally. Quality sleep is the foundation of recovery, performance, and overall well-being. By understanding your sleep patterns, you can better gauge your readiness for your next dive or workout and perhaps adjust accordingly.  With Suunto Ocean, tracking your sleep is effortless; just wear your watch to bed, and it does the rest. Each morning, you’ll receive a sleep summary: total sleep time, estimated time awake, and periods of deep sleep. Over time, these nightly snapshots evolve into trends and you will see a bigger picture of how well you're resting and recovering. To view your sleep trend, swipe up from the watch face to open the Sleep widget. You’ll see your most recent sleep at a glance, along with a rolling 7-day graph that helps you recognise patterns whether you're consistently well-rested or starting to fall behind. Tracking your sleep consistency is just as important as tracking duration. Regular sleep and wake times help support your body’s natural rhythm, making recovery more effective and energy levels more stable. For deeper insight track your  HRV during sleep to better help you understand how your body responds to training, stress, and environment, even while you rest. Read more about how to use HRV to optimize recovery. Sleep isn’t just downtime it’s your body’s chance to reset, repair, and prepare. And now, with Suunto, it’s something you can understand better than ever. Using HRV to Optimize Your Training The Suunto Ocean tracks over 95 activity types, including diving, swimming, strength training, and more. Combined with HRV insights, it shows you when it’s time to push forward or pull back, ensuring a sustainable training rhythm that supports long-term performance. HRV measures the tiny fluctuations in time between your heartbeats. It's one of the most reliable indicators of recovery and nervous system balance. A high HRV often signals that you are well rested and ready to perform. HRV isn't just a stat it’s a decision-making tool. By keeping an eye on it daily, you can tailor your training intensity, prevent overtraining, and improve overall resilience. High HRV: Your system is adaptable and recovered. Green light for more intensity. Low HRV: Your body is still under stress. Time to scale back or rest.Suunto Ocean monitors your HRV during sleep and after workouts, offering key insights into how your body is responding to stress and recovery. Balancing Stress and Recovery Peak performance comes from balance. The Suunto Ocean helps you understand your training load versus your recovery status. If your load is high and recovery is low, that’s your cue to rest before fatigue turns into burnout or injury. Technology is powerful, but your body’s signals are just as important. If you're feeling unusually sore, fatigued, or mentally drained, listen to those cues. Use the Suunto Ocean as a guide, but always tune into how you feel after your dive or your workout. Your body knows when it needs rest, and you just need to listen. Conclusion: Rest Smarter, Dive Stronger Recovery isn’t downtime it’s a performance tool. With the Suunto Ocean, you gain access to powerful recovery metrics like HRV, sleep quality, and training load all in one device. Prioritize rest, train with intention, and give your body what it needs to reach new depths. Because the better you recover, the better you dive.

Training intensity plays a crucial role in preparing for scuba diving. It’s not just about hitting the gym or logging endless cardio, but finding the right workout intensity is the key to getting the best results, whether you want to improve your diving fitness, breath hold or boost your endurance. What Are Training Zones? Training zones are intensity levels that help you follow a training plan and reach progress. Each zone targets different physiological systems, helping you build the endurance, power, and control you need for scuba diving. Here’s a breakdown of the most important zones for divers: Zone 1 – Recovery Used for warm-ups and active recovery. It promotes blood flow, aids in muscle repair, and helps ensure you’re not overtraining before a dive. Exercising in zone 1 is relatively easy on your body. When it comes to fitness training, intensity this low is significant mainly in restorative training and improving your basic fitness when you are just beginning to exercise, or after a long break. Every day exercises like walking, climbing stairs, and cycling to work are usually performed within this intensity zone. Zone 2 – Endurance This is your base-building zone. It improves aerobic efficiency and stamina, perfect to prepare you for long dives or extended underwater activity. Exercising at this intensity feels easy, but workouts with a long duration can have a very high training effect. The majority of cardiovascular conditioning training should be performed within this zone. Long duration workouts in this zone consume a lot of energy, especially from your body’s stored fat. Think steady swims or long-distance walking. Zone 3 – Tempo / Steady Effort Exercising in zone 3 begins to be quite energetic and feels pretty hard going. It will improve your ability to move quickly and economically, ideal for when you want to  improve your finning,  buoyancy control, and dive longer dives. This zone boosts moderate-intensity endurance that you rely on for continuous underwater movement. Zone 4 – High Intensity This is where power is built and limits are tested. Training in Zone 4 pushes your anaerobic system, improving your ability to perform in high-stress, physically demanding situations like hauling gear or responding to emergencies underwater. It’s fast, hard, and effective: a zone that rapidly boosts performance and resilience. But it’s not for every day, as too much intensity without recovery can lead to burnout or injury. Use it wisely, and Zone 4 becomes your edge when the pressure’s on. Zone 5 – Maximum Effort This is your redline, the zone of short, explosive bursts where you're pushing at full capacity. Training here targets your VO₂ max and anaerobic threshold, sharpening your body’s ability to respond quickly and powerfully under pressure, giving an edge in critical dive scenarios. Zone 5 efforts are intense and brief, lasting only minutes. They demand full focus and come with a high recovery cost, which is why elite athletes use them sparingly and strategically. For most fitness enthusiasts, this zone is optional as they are not required, but if you are chasing peak performance, include maximum-intensity workouts in your training program. How to Calculate and find your heart rate zones It is important to know your zones to be able to follow a training plan and to keep structure in your training. Use the classic formula (220 – your age) to estimate your max heart rate. You can build your zones off this baseline, but refine it as you get more experience. Once you know your zones, you can focus on gradual progression, tailoring each session to meet your diving goals. The Suunto Ocean makes zone-based training easy. Use its built-in heart rate monitor and analytics to track how your body is responding to each workout.  Start with a basic estimate, then refine as you go with data from your training sessions or tests. Suunto’s tools help you track it all so your training stays intentional, efficient, and aligned with your underwater ambitions.  Why Zone-Based Training Matters for Divers Each zone develops different capabilities from long-haul endurance to explosive power. By mixing the right training intensity with purpose, you’ll condition your body for more efficient movement, better recovery, and improved control underwater.  As Suunto expert Janne Kallio says: “Training doesn’t need to be complicated.”

Diving is about more than just exploring the depths, it's a journey of continuous improvement and mastery. Learn how to use Suunto app throughout that process Technology has become our trusted companion in the digital age, guiding us through the underwater world and empowering us to explore our limits. With the Suunto app at our fingertips, divers unite to share insights, harness cutting-edge features, and elevate their diving skills to new heights.  Join us as we delve into the depths of data analysis, uncovering the secrets that will make you a better diver with every plunge.   Dive profiles, dive logs and trends One of the most critical pieces of data for any diver is their dive profile. The Suunto app provides detailed dive profiles, including: Dive time Start and stop times Average and max depth An algorithm deviation alert if present during the dive Maximum and average temperature Gas list of active and enabled gases Start and end pressure if linked with Suunto Tank POD Avg gas consumption for each gas if linked with Suunto Tank POD Current Gradient Factors CNS and OTU values Average heart rate if enabled Surface time Analysing your dive profiles helps you understand your diving patterns, identify areas for improvement, and adhere to safer diving practices. Paying attention to events such as alarms, nearing no decompression limits, safety stops, ascent speed penalties, and extra time allows you to refine your practice and enhance your overall experience.  The app's comprehensive dive logs enable you to track your progress over time, identify trends, and set goals for future dives, whether aiming to increase dive time, extend gas usage, improve buoyancy control, or explore new sites confidently.   Gas consumption Connecting with the Suunto Tank POD before a dive makes it easy to monitor your gas consumption during the dive. The Suunto app logs your gas usage over time, providing insights into your efficiency. Analyzing your consumption rate can help identify areas for optimising breathing techniques, such as improving buoyancy or learning better breathing strategies like pre-dive visualisation to help you relax more. This can aid in more effective planning for future dives. Factors such as depth, dive duration, current strength, equipment efficiency, proper weighting, individual physiology, water temperature, and appropriate dressing significantly influence your breathing rate. Understanding how these factors impact your dives helps form better habits and enables improved dive planning in the future.   Environmental conditions Dive planning and safety get a whole lot more exciting when you truly understand the environmental conditions. The Suunto app lets you dive into a treasure trove of data, recording everything from real-time water temperatures at various depths while visibility, current strength, and weather conditions can be recorded in the notes. Imagine being able to anticipate the perfect dive site or tweak your plans based on a detailed history of your past dives. With this info at your fingertips, you're not just diving, you're mastering the underwater world, ready to adapt and conquer whatever the ocean throws your way!   Daily well-being Track your steps, sleep, and calories with the Suunto app to keep a perfect balance between training and rest, ensuring you're always at your best. Use the feeling monitor at the end of each dive to see how your daily well-being compares to your dive experience. The Suunto app keeps all your activities—sports, adventures, and dives—in one place, with a home screen view that makes tracking your key activities a breeze. Training load is a standout feature in the Suunto app, quantifying your training stress using Training Peaks’ Training Stress Score (TSS). Suunto app uses TSS to quantify training load. TSS is calculated based on duration and intensity. The intensity can be based on heart rate, pace or power. To get a better understanding of the TSS values, it is good to know that a one-hour time trial effort equals 100 TSS. At the same time, a three-hour easy bike ride can accumulate the same amount of training stress. The value always depends on the intensity and duration of the effort. Get your anaerobic threshold settings right for accurate TSS calculations, with adjustable intensity zones on Suunto devices. Track your long-term training load through the app's Diary ‘Progress’ view, monitoring Cumulative Training Load (CTL), Acute Training Load (ATL), and Training Stress Balance (TSB) to stay fit and avoid over-training. Check out your daily activity levels or dive into your sleep patterns with the sleep tracking feature. Boosting your sleep quality today can make you a better diver tomorrow. Only time (and tracking) will tell!   Be the first to know Get notified about the latest news, software updates, and improvements for your dive computer. With the Suunto app, divers have a powerful tool to enhance their skills, monitor their progress, and make informed decisions underwater and beyond. From analyzing dive profiles and tracking gas consumption to understanding environmental conditions and maintaining daily well-being, every aspect of your diving journey is covered. The app not only empowers you to dive safer and smarter but also encourages continuous improvement with its comprehensive data insights and user-friendly interface. So whether you're a seasoned diver looking to refine your technique or a beginner eager to explore new depths, the Suunto app is your ultimate companion.  Dive deeper, explore further, and enjoy the underwater world with confidence, knowing that Suunto is with you every step of the way.

Suunto Zoop is a great choice for your first dive computer, its full decompression capabilities and nitrox mode mean it's designed to give you years of serious fun. This Tuesday we take a look at how to enter and change the nitrox settings on the Zoop. Get support for your Suunto product at support

They are one of the most popular team of female divers in the world. Co-founder Margo Sanchez gives us the lowdown. The Scuba Diver Girls are perhaps the most popular girls in the underwater community – and certainly some of the most active. Located in San Diego, California, the ocean is the girls' backyard. In their cold water dive gear and their Suunto dive computers, Margo Sanchez and Stephanie Adamson dive multiple times each week. If they are not diving in their local southern California waters, they are traveling the world looking for the next hot spot for amazing sea life. This fun, adventurous dive team got started when Stephanie, a PADI dive instructor, invited Margo to learn how to dive. Stephanie wanted to share her love with the ocean and the amazing experience of being under the water with her family. Margo instantly felt a connection to the underwater realm, but also was amazed at how much fun it was to dive with Stephanie, her sister-in-law. As the girls began to dive together and share their adventures with their friends on socialmedia their popularity grew in the dive community. Industry leaders and manufacturers commented that the girls were 'bringing the fun back to diving'. Margo and Stephanie quickly realized that there was a lack focus on women in the dive industry. From dive gear to online content much of the industry was focused on men. The girls decided it was time to put a female spin on the sport and began to build their online presence as Scuba Diver Girls. “When we started posting our dive photos and videos on social media, there was a lack of interesting content about and for women in diving – we received an overwhelming response,” says Sanchez. She says the team made it their mission to put a brighter focus on females in the sport. The girls worked with various manufacturers, including Suunto, to test dive gear and give feedback to the companies from the female diver perspective on fit, usability, as well as look and feel. "Much of the gear we were originally using was designed with a man's body as a base for fit and then they just put some pink on it and called it women's gear,” Sanchez explained. Together the girls began racking up dive destinations and posting photos and footage of their amazing adventures online. Their community, which started back in 2009, has grown to over 500,000 Facebook fans who actively interact and communicate with the girls each day. You can join the community via their many social channels and get the best content and information on their dives, gear and amazing destinations. Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube Images © Tanya G Burnett, Brian Kirby and Margo Sanchez

You’ve seen the diving videos of the Scuba Diver Girls and now you’re wondering how to get started with your own adventures. Margo Sanchez, president of the team, shares their secrets. “It’s what everyone asks,” says Margo Sanchez when discussing the girls' many adventures. Along with her sister-in-law Stephanie Adamson, Sanchez formed what is perhaps the most-watched team of female divers in the world, with large followings on Facebook and beyond. Whether it's advice for the newly certified diver about meeting more local dive buddies or suggestions for the veteran divers about their next exotic scuba trip, Sanchez suggests utilizing local resources. Dive shops are always a good hook-up. “Look for your local Suunto dealer dive centers,” says Sanchez. “They're usually a great starting point for training, equipment as well as adventure and travel.” She adds that dive clubs are another fantastic resource for organized dive trips, group events and making new friends. Meetup.com is also a popular online resource used by many divers to find and join local dive clubs. “Most importantly, local dive clubs, groups and shops are all good for one thing – meeting buddies who share a passion for the same sport and are excited to experience the next adventure,” says Sanchez. Images © Brad Holland and Jennah Caster