Barbell Shrugged - The Art of Breath: How Controlling Your Breath Can Improve Your Health, Physical Performance, and Mental Function with Rob Wilson — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #6

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

Rob Wilson (@preparetoperform) is a coach with Power Speed Endurance which is a programming, coaching and educational platform for developing sports performance, fitness and health—and it’s not only for high level endurance athletes but anyone looking to improve their health and fitness through increased movement efficiency and better mechanics. Rob travels the country teaching the Art of Breath clinic, covering the theory and practical applications of oxygen and c02 efficiency, proper body and breathing mechanics for increased movement efficiency, and much more.  Rob has 15 years of experience in manual therapy, he co-owns CrossFit Virginia Beach with his wife, and he's worked with Kelly Starrett on the Mobility WOD staff before he helped develop the Art of Breath seminar for Power Speed Endurance.   In this episode Ashleigh talks with Rob Wilson, a CrossFit gym owner and movement and breath specialist about the course he developed with Brian Mackenzie for Power Speed Endurance called The Art of Breath – it’s a masterclass clinic on breath work, including how mindful practice and control of your breath can have positive effects on health, fitness performance, and mental health and cognition. We talk about why you should breath through your nose almost all the time, especially when you’re training; what the diaphragm is and why it’s so important; how to increase carbon dioxide tolerance; mobilizing your body effectively to use your lungs to the fullest; and actual breath work techniques that enhance your physical performance and manage stress.  Can you guess the world record for the longest static breath hold? You’ll find out in this episode!   Minute Breakdown:   0 - 18 Intro to Rob and what the Art of Breath seminar is all about: creating a universal language around breath work and a pragmatic, physiology-first approach   18 –29 How breathing can affect mindset, and how to use breath work as an anchor and a way to achieve control over your physiology when you can’t control your environment. We discuss the connection between his work and yoga, Wim Hof-style breathing, and mindfulness practices.   29 - 42 = The evolution of the Art of Breath course and Rob’s journey to becoming a better teacher and instructor, including stepping out of his comfort zone and taking a storytelling class and studying stand up comedy in order to connect and tell better stories   42 – 50: Who can benefit from the breath work course and techniques and how they can apply it specifically do their work and goals, including coaches, athletes, individuals adding it as a tool for therapy.   50 – What to do with your knowledge once you’ve learned and studied your breath and have a breathing practice: how and why your breathe practice should change your behaviors ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/mmr-wilson ----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Hey everybody, welcome to Muscle Maven Radio. I'm your host, Ashley, the killer, Muscle Maven Van Houten. And today is an important episode, I think, because it's about breathing, which is something we all do, we all take for granted, and it's something that we can actually learn to do better and train for so that we can maximize our health, we can maximize our athletic performance, we can decrease anxiety, we can essentially transform the way our bodies and our brains react to situations by taking a more mindful and controlled approach to breathing. And I think that that's really important because it's something that we think is very biological and instinctive and that you can't sort of help the way you react to external situations that are out of your control, but you absolutely can. And it's really pretty transformative when you see just how much control you have over your breath and how much your breath can then change how your body and your mind reacts to situations. So it's pretty

incredible. I don't know a soul who would not benefit from the lessons that my guest today can teach. So I'm really excited to share this with you. Rob Wilson is a coach with Power Speed Endurance, which is a programming, coaching, and educational platform for developing sports performance, not only for high level endurance athletes, but anybody who's just looking to improve their health and fitness through increased movement efficiency and better mechanics, which of course includes breathing. The founder of Power Speed Endurance is Brian McKenzie, who you may know from CrossFit Endurance. He's a real OG. His work on the book Unplugged and a ton of other stuff that Brian has done. But now Rob, who has sort of co-created this program with Brian, is traveling the country teaching this Art of Breath seminar,

which gets into the theory and practical applications of oxygen and CO2 efficiency, proper body and breathing mechanics for increased movement efficiency, and a lot more. And the first time I talked to Rob, he said something that really stood out to me for its simplicity. So if you don't get a chance to learn from him directly or take any of his courses, remember this, he says, if you're not talking or eating, keep your mouth shut. And I think those are words to live by for all of us really.

Rob, he has 15 years experience in manual therapy. He co-owns CrossFit Virginia Beach with his wife. He's worked with Kelly Sturette on the mobility WOD staff before he got into these Art of Breath clinics. And he's just an incredibly knowledgeable, well-spoken dude. You're going to learn a lot from this podcast and just kind of feel calmer hearing him explain things to you. There's just something about his voice. He just kind of calms you right down, which obviously I need. Uh, but ironically enough, when we got together to record this podcast just recently in New Jersey, it was right before one of his art of

breath seminars that I was able to take. And he had allergies so badly, he could barely breathe, but he powered through and recorded the interview anyway. So thanks Rob. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy my chat with him. Definitely check out powerspeedendurance.com for, there's a lot of free resources there. There's more information, info on upcoming events, as well as online courses that you can take. So they've got a lot of online programs too. If you can't get to a seminar in real life and hit us up on Instagram at shrug collective and me personally at the muscle Maven, let me know what you thought of the episode. I really think this is one that you can share because it's just, it's applicable to everybody, right? Friends don't let friends be mouth breathers. Okay. All right. That's it. Let's get into it.

Road rage, but it's when you're walking. Pedestrian rage. People who have the zero concept of people that are around them, where they are in space. When you, like, step out onto a busy sidewalk and you, like, you know, walk out the door and you have no concept that there might be people. I know. It's so weird. When I moved to New York in my mid-20s, I moved from Bermuda because that's where my mother is from and I was living there and working there

and that's a whole other story. And people told me, like, when you move to New York, people walk fast and they're going to push you over on the sidewalk and they're mean. And as soon as I got there, wait, hey, hey, I'm recording. New Yorker can't chime in. Anyway, within like a half an hour, I was the one like pushing old ladies out of the way. Like I, New Yorkers can't keep up with me.

So I have found my place. But yeah, I do spend a lot of my time on the sidewalks, like very angry. But then I get extra angry when I go back to a place like Canada, which is relaxed and friendly and polite. But people move too slowly. I can't. Well, in Canada, when somebody asks you how you are, they wait for you to answer. Yeah, they care. They look you in the eye.

They're like, no, I'm asking. How are you? And then there's a pause. It's nice. It's like the South is like that. Yes. Except there's always a hidden meaning in the South, like in the Southern part of the United States, like where I'm from, people will be like, how are you today, darling? Or, or bless your heart, which means you're stupid.

That's nice. Well, that's not nice. Yeah. But I'd say in my travel so far, Midwesterners and Canadians are the nicest people in the world. Yeah. They're very similar. Like if you exchange accents, you basically can't tell the difference.

Oh yeah. They're super nice. Like, if you exchange accents, you basically can't tell the difference. Oh, yeah. It's super nice. Like, Indiana. We went to Indiana. Yeah. And it was, like, not a lot to do. Like, it was pretty... There wasn't much around.

Yeah. But the people there are so friendly and welcoming. Yeah. It's like, oh, man, I like it here. Makes it worth it. That's why people still live in Canada, despite the temperatures. It's because at least it's, like, nice and friendly. It's, like, makes you feel nice. You can, you know... Well, it's not crowded, either. That's why people still live in Canada, despite the temperatures. It's because at least it's nice and friendly. It makes you feel nice.

Well, it's not crowded either. That's very true. Yeah, there's like two square kilometers per person in Canada. And yes, I said kilometers. But yeah, you could basically, if you spread us all out, we could all have our own piece of woods. It's pretty good. It's pretty awesome.

Yeah, actually, I'm convincing myself right now. Rob, thank you for taking the time to do this podcast. I appreciate it considering that you are sick and we've got a lot going on today. I'm pretty pumped for the course. But I'd love for you to, I guess, before we get into any specifics that I have or questions, just kind of talk about what the Art of Breath seminar is that we're going to do today. Yeah. So the Art of Breath seminar is that we're going to do today. Yeah, so the Art of Breath seminar is kind of a culmination of Brian McKenzie, who listeners might be familiar with from CrossFit Endurance, and he has a few pretty well-known books like Power, Speed, Endurance and Unbreakable Runner.

He helped with Unplugged as well. Unplugged. XPT, he had a hand in. Co-founder of XPT. Brian's been around. He and I have been curating information regarding breath practice and breath control for probably the last, I would say, five or six years. And the course is in its third year now. And really what we wanted to do was, so Brian and I both have had personal interest in breath practice for quite some time. But if you're a person who's interested in this work, what happens is you get kind of ping-ponged around.

Some people are in the silo of yoga or in the silo of free diving or whatever, you know, endurance sports. And what we wanted to do was to distill that information down into principles so that regardless of a person's entry point, that they could find something useful and practical because breath work is so, so powerful. And it's really at the core of, you know, basically everything that you would want good from your health and human performance. And what we found was that as we got closer to those principles, we were like, geez, it would have been really nice to have an introduction to this for ourselves. That wasn't like, oh, I have to become a yogi or I have to just go take a free diving course. It's not specific to a sport. Yeah, exactly. And what we wanted to do was sort

of break down some of the cultural silos around those things and create more of a universal language and really distill what's going on in the in the physiology so we tend to take a physiology first approach and like what does the standing science say about how our human how the human body functions and then build on top of that and like one of the things that you'll see today in the course is for us principles over methods over tools so we're not as concerned with protocols as most are like what's the specific way to do things what's the technique then we're not really interested in a certain method whether it's a free diving or pranayama but we learn from those things really what we're interested in is the big picture.

And then once you understand principles, you can actually create your own methods and your own tools. And that's why we called the seminar the Art of Breath, because it's not Rob Wilson's way or Brian McKenzie's way or whoever else's way. It's here are the underlying mechanisms, and then how do I take those and apply them for myself based on like what my needs are today and to understand that those needs over time that they change and that I have to be able to sort of move and ebb and flow with those things.

It's a very practical course with a lot of practical applications that anyone can use. I think that's why it's been so appealing to people, as you said. Can you talk a little bit about your background and how, background professionally and athletically, and how you came to this being a big part of the work that you're doing now? Sure. So, I mean, for me, my sports background is, I would say, primarily martial arts. So I started doing judo.

It was probably my first really committed martial art. I started doing judo when I was about seven years old. I did judo from the time I was maybe seven until I was about 13. Then I studied Jeet Kune Do concepts. So that's Bruce Lee's martial art. In the specific school that I went to, we studied Muay Thai, Silat, which is like a stick and knife fighting, Wing Chun Kung Fu, and then some grappling arts like shoot fighting. And then actually my instructor when I was a kid, he got his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I think in 1994. So in 1994 it was pretty unheard of for an American to be studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

And he was in the Hicks and Gracie lineage. And so we had a lot of exposure to various martial arts. And my instructor at the time was a retired Navy SEAL because I'm from Virginia Beach so I was around a lot of you know military guys all the time training with them all through my teens then I got away from it because basically once I became an adult you know my parents were like hey we're not going to pay for your hobby anymore which you know makes sense right and then I got into CrossFit. I mean, I serve, I've been a waterman too. So I served surf kayaks, body surfed my whole, probably since I was 11, all the way through present. And then, um, maybe when I was 2006 or when I was 25, I got into CrossFit because I was looking for something that sort of spanned a lot of different movement patterns.

In the interim, I studied yoga pretty deeply for about five or six years. What got you into yoga? Because those aren't, I mean, shootboxing, yoga, same thing. I'm interested in human development, i always have been so i like to know what makes people tick what makes me tick how i can develop myself how i can help develop others weightlifting has been a part of my life since i was 13 my mom was earned her pro card and bodybuilding when i was 15 or 16 and iass. I want to talk to her. She's pretty awesome.

I mean, we could make that happen. Yeah, that's cool. She's a pretty amazing human being. But I've just been around sports and sports lifestyle forever. But I got into yoga. If I tell the truth, I was studying at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. And I needed a P.E. credit. And I was like... this one seems easy.

Did you say that? No. What I said was there's pretty girls going there. Oh, even better. Yeah. And so I was like, well, if I have to have a PE credit, I don't really just want to like play basketball or go camping. I want to go where the girls are smart. yeah yeah i thought so i mean i was 19 years old you know i was a meathead so um but i went to class and there's two things that happened one is the instructor was an old school iangar instructor so bks iangar basically is responsible for making yoga popular in the west um and i can never remember her last name, but her first name was Penny. And Penny was a very, very gifted and patient teacher, like a legit yogi. And I figured out two things in there that there was really something deep going on here. And then I needed

to pay attention. And also that I was horribly inflexible. Like I couldn't sit, uh, like crisscross applesaucece like a little kid in kindergarten anymore and it hurt and I was like that's not okay I'm only 19 years old like I should be able to sit like this old lady at the time you know maybe I think maybe she was 60 years old and she could sit full lotus and I don't know that I needed to do that but I knew that what I had was not good so I actually took a break from weight from lifting weights at all and did a bunch of different types of yoga all through my early 20s and practiced just yoga and meditation and breathing practices for about maybe four five six years something like that you were pretty ahead of your time with that kind of stuff because

I mean I guess you probably got into it around the time that it started to kind of pick up in the U.S. but to be a young man who as you said was kind of like had meathead tendencies to take time off in sort of the prime of your youth from being a meathead to do yoga is not normal. That's like it's kind of impressive. It's weird. Yeah it's not normal. That's like, it's kind of impressive. It's weird. Yeah. It's not normal. It's weird. And, um, one thing that is certainly true about me and, and I, my wife will probably attest to this is that I'm pretty like one track mind. So, and I'm obsessive. So once I decide that I'm interested in something, then I will give myself to that pursuit entirely and that's just how I work I like she's somebody who will have like 20 interests at one time I'm like this is the thing I'm learning right

now and I'm 100 percent and that's just how I function so I really committed myself to it had a very deep practice I still practice some yoga you know to this day but that was my initial introduction into sort of formally thinking about breathing I mean we talked about it in martial arts but the martial arts background that I had was very focused on actual like life and death or true physical encounters. Okay. Because my instructor was from the military. Yeah.

You know, so we were learning, like, serious business martial arts very young. But, you know, that was sort of my introduction to formal breath practice was through yoga. I will let you take a break to blow your nose and stuff because the irony of this podcast that we're doing right now is that you are deep in the throes of some really bad allergies, which is maybe you can talk a little bit about that. And here it goes. He's going to sneeze, guys. As I mention it, I wonder if there's like a psychosomatic thing where if I talk about allergies and sneezing, it makes you have to do it. There it is. We can find out together.

Well, do you feel like you have the tools to better deal with being stuffed up and messed up because you know so much about proper breathing technique? Well, I sure would like to think so, but my sense as I get older and not that I'm like some old man or anything, I'm only 38, but my sense is as I grow up more that it's easier to like help other people than it is to actually say like, oh yes, of course I have the tools to deal with this. But when you're like in the moment, the truth is I'm like, oh, this sucks. You can definitely swear too if you feel like you need to. If you want to let it out.

Yeah. So it's like, oh, this fucking sucks. I can't breathe today. I'm supposed to be leading the seminar. But what I do know is the steps that I need to execute in order to prevent this from happening again as bad. And like I had, I've had pretty nasty allergies probably since I was 15. And then when I got back into breathing pretty heavily, like five, six years ago, um, I spent some serious time doing work and I haven't had allergies as bad as they are today. I would say probably like

four years and it just landed on a day where, um, yeah, I'm doing a podcast interview and I have a seminar and, uh, normally even if I have a little bit, I can sleep it off. Um, but not this go route. I feel like with the prevalence of allergies and also technology today, it is bizarre to me that we haven't figured out ways to proactively treat allergies. Like, why does everybody still every season just have to deal with this bullshit? How have we not figured out, like, some pill you take every

day to not have them that bad? Well, human biology is multifactorial, and that's the case with no matter what the sort of symptom is whether it's allergies or even like on the far end of the spectrum something like anxiety like it's human beings we like to have like a one-for-one we're like here's the problem and then here is the answer yeah and never the way it works. Life isn't like that. Things are complicated.

And so, I mean, if you break it down, something like an allergy, what is it? I mean, it's an immune response to a non-threatening, like my body is reading pollen as a virus. Right. Basically, or a bacteria, right? It's irritating the sensors that say, get rid of it. And so I'm having an immune response to, you know, basically tree right yeah it's benign so um the we don't have any control over that not to mention that the amount of just general pollutants in the air is higher and higher we have synthetic materials all over the place. Those things break down over time, let things off in the air, people who are sensitive to it.

Not to mention there's other sort of assaults on our autonomic balance. And I'm sure some of this for me is stress-related. And I do notice that, hey, if I'm a little more stressed, my allergies are more sensitive. The best that they've been is when I was the most committed to exposure practice. So we have exposure seminar tomorrow, which is doing a lot of cold work. And I haven't been doing quite as much in my personal practice in the last few months. I was, uh, I was going to ask, like, is there what, is there some element of like the Wim Hof you can kind of breathe and cold therapy your way out of immune responses?

Because isn't that what he did? Isn't he famous for doing that? He like injected himself with something. I mean, listen, listeners, we are not recommending you try at home kind of situation. But that was a big part of what made him so popular is all these weird kind of experiments he was doing on himself. And he injected himself with something and was able to yeah but i mean one thing you have to know about whim or people like whim because i don't i don't know whim so this is just my estimation from the outside you look at whim whim's in his late 50s he's been a serious devotee to breath

practice and yoga for like 40 years. So when he's breaking these world records he had like 30 years or more under his belt before he became like the Wim Hof. Now he does do some pretty amazing things with people in a matter of a few days

sometimes but you know are the effects thereof lasting? I mean that I can't say yeah and yeah there are things we can do but if we want if we think there's going to be some magic potion like i can hyperventilate like wim hof and then i'll suddenly have his magic powers it doesn't work like that it's practice you know it's like it's like people think um like same thing i was saying before people want an easy answer to things you know they look at uh somebody like for example tom brady and they see what he can do now but they don't know about the thousands of failures

that he had to learn from in order to become the athlete that he is now. And how many things did Wim Hof try that didn't work? Yeah. Yeah, it's like the superhuman dedication to one thing that people don't. This is like honestly one of the things that I'm trying to do with this podcast specifically because I'm so fascinated with people who can be so good and so dedicated and really, for lack of a better word, obsessed with one thing that they can become the best in the world at something.

So a Wim Hof or my very first podcast was with Devin at the unit. Do you know Devin Larratt? Did you get to meet him when you were at the unit? So anyway, he's ex, you know, he was in the military, but he is the world's best arm wrestler. I did meet Devin. And he is a freak of nature in so many ways. And he's an amazing dude, super nice dude.

But he, you know, he's in his 40s. He's been training this for like over 20 years. And he, to this day, trains three times a day for hours at arm wrestling. Like it's such a specific niche thing. And he's mastered so many elements of it in the training. But just the dedication, the hours, the thousands and thousands of hours. And the brain power and the thought and the research and the studying and the learning and the talking to other people for one thing. Like most people do not have that in them.

And that's why there aren't a world full of Wim Hofs and Devins really. For sure. And, you know, what's really interesting, I think, is I definitely, we all sort of look at those folks as sort of the epitome of like what a human being can accomplish. And I think there are some lessons to be learned from those people about how to focus, how to commit. But what we don't often see is the other side of that coin. And I think there's an assumption that when somebody is in the sort of throes of peak performance, that that also indicates a fully balanced life. And it does not always mean that. And in many cases, people who are peak performers in their given sort of realm have a lot of baggage. Yeah. And that they're diverting their resources as a way to deal with that stuff.

And one thing that conversation that I've been a part of lately with Brian McKenzie and his wife Erin, who started a podcast specifically about this, is a lot of peak performing athletes, when their career is over, get lost. And this happens with people who are in military as well. They are just used to like, I'm at 100%. I know what's expected of me. I can focus on this sort of singular task.

I have an identity. And then they leave that environment and are really unsure what to do. What I have noticed is that because of where I live I I have been around people in the military quite a bit most of my friends are either currently active or you know retired and the people who transition the best have a new mission and people who are don't know what to do get lost and have big problems. And I think you see the same thing with top performing athletes is that they need a new task right away. Or they get really lost and don't really know how to navigate.

So I think it's important for people to realize, yes, there's something to be gleaned from. How do I give it all? How do I focus? How do I become almost like a laser beam towards what it is that I want to accomplish? But also, what's the cost? And the cost might be everything else. I mean, I'm not saying it definitely is, but it might might be it's the same with addicts too right like when addicts if you're addicted to drugs or alcohol or food or whatever it is you're addicted to you usually have to replace it with something else that's why so

many of these like great ultra endurance runners and stuff like that you know they maybe used to have issues with addiction it's like you have to replace if you have something that's all consuming you kind of have to replace it with some things if you don't and you're lost it's it can go south pretty quickly but yeah that that makes me think of like that um alex harnold documentary the free solo something we've been talking about so much lately and it is something that is a conversation i'm glad that you brought that up because i feel like people don't talk about that a lot people and. And like, you know, you look at it, it's not even just athletics. It's like Steve jobs. It's anybody who has been revolutionary in any way and has accomplished

something that no one else has. It comes at a cost and it comes at a sacrifice. And I think a lot of people can decide for themselves consciously that I'm not willing to make those sacrifices. And that's okay because I want to have a more balanced life, or I want to have a family or I want to be able to do more than one thing in my life. But there is still like that weird calling, because I'm somebody and I've said this before in this podcast, I love interviewing people like that, because I think it's fascinating. And I want to learn from people who are excellent. But I, I feel deep in my heart that I can be very successful at a lot of things. But I don't think I have what it takes to be that singular minded about something. And while I'm okay with that, because I think that I lead a great, fulfilling, happy life, like there is still a part of me that's like, man,

if I could just be that focused on one thing, like what could I accomplish? And I think that that is a kind of weird sort of human trait that we have. What could we do if we really could? And most of us, we're talking about people who are like obsessive over one thing. Most the more common problem for most people is trying to get rid of so many distractions that they can even focus kind of good on anything. You know what I mean? That's really the biggest issue. I just interviewed Cal Newport, the deep work. He wrote the book Deep Work and this book called Digital Minimalism where that's and he's a computer science professor.

But his all of his studies are about how to get people to, you know, be able to not be on their phones constantly and to sit and like watch a TV show without being distracted or read a book or get out and do the things you want to do without being distracted by the millions of different things that are now being created purposefully to take our time away from the things we want to do. It's really insidious and it's intense. It's a scary world we're living in right now. Well, and I think some of that too, you know, in regards to the way technology is affecting us. We're starting to learn that some of the companies that develop this technology are largely disingenuous about their intentions absolutely and that they purposefully appeal to negative characteristics in our biology and try to exploit them for their material gain that said the responsibility in my

view anyway still lies on the part of the individual like once you have that information well you're no longer an ignorant participant so it's up to you to begin limiting your exposure and if you continue to engage in the same behavior whose fault is that like we're playing a grown-up game now that said the way that our sort of biological systems are set up, like what we're meant to do is mostly become relatively common alert, but be aware of novel stimuli in the environment so that we can react in a life-saving manner if we need to but a lot of the tech that we use like phones computers and the way that digital advertising works is meant to constantly be drawing our attention around and so our central nervous system arousal just generally is much higher than it's really intended to be and it's exhausting yeah right it's really really exhausting and this is it's exhausting. It's really, really exhausting. And this is one of the things that we try to deal with in breath work

is that breath work can become an anchor because it's difficult to fight that because we mostly do not have control over our environment. But what we can exercise some control over and some dominion around is our physiology and the way that our physiology responds to these novel stimuli. And one of the beautiful things about breathwork in particular is you carry it with you everywhere and it's free. And so you have access to it all the time.

And if nothing else, even if it doesn't make this crazy swing in the way you're operating, you can at least become more aware of, hey, what am I doing and why am I choosing this? I mean, even we kind of veered off track here, so I want to bring us back on, which is fine. It's fine. But what you just said reminds me of the first time we chatted and we were talking about breath work and I was telling you about how I'm running this 5k and we were talking about potential training whatever and even leading up to this run like the training that I was doing and the workouts that I was doing and I didn't take your course I didn't put like a whole lot of like learning time into it but even like you said the awareness where I was trying where I could

to breathe with my mouth closed like i just and i just remember like i'm not ordinarily a mouth breather but when i'm running or i'm working out i'm not paying attention to that i'm like just let me get some let me breathe and i was paying more attention to it and it paid off hugely that's all i did was just try to keep my mouth closed and breathe through my nose when I was exercising. That's the only thing I changed. So. And how'd your 5k go? It was, I ran the fastest 5k I've ever run. That's cool. Credit me for that. Yeah, I did. I totally did. I totally did credit you. And everyone's like, who cares? It's 5k. And I'm like, come on, fuck off. It's something. I'm a lifter. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm not built for running. Okay. But I want to bring back, we, you were talking

about, you studied and you were doing you were pretty involved in yoga for a few years how did that transition into more specifically learning about breath work and then eventually teaching it well so always I always had some awareness around it even after I stopped being a sort of a deep practitioner, and then I guess maybe it was like five years ago, I started paying attention to Wim Hof. And I did the Wim Hof online course. And I was like, this stuff is really interesting, but how does this, what I really wanted to know was,

how did it interface with what I already knew? And when I started doing it I didn't think hey in a few years I'll be traveling around the world teaching people about breathing and the deeper I got into my personal practice and started integrating it with yoga techniques that I already had exposure to I I was like, there is a whole world here, but the problem is that there's actually like 12 worlds. And there's nobody who's reconciling the yogic terminology with the freediving terminology, with the endurance world terminology.

And like I mentioned, my principal sports background was in jeet kune do and if anybody knows anything about bruce lee or his philosophy it's used no way as way and so it's an integration of any technique that will serve the individual but actually understanding the underlying principles and so that's a filter with which I see the world in general. And so I was like, who's doing this with breath work? And I was really, really excited. And Kelly Starrett from MobilityWOD has been a friend and mentor to me for a long time. And he's really, really close with Brian McKenzie.

And I was just talking to him about these experiences I was having in sort of deep practice of breath work. And he said, you've got to talk to Brian. And so I got on the phone with Brian, and he and I hit it off immediately. He's like a brother from another mother. We just really synced up, and he was on the same sort of same path. Like, yes, he had done the Wim Hof work, and he was looking into quite a bit of free diving work and had done yoga and he was like what where is the underlying connection between all these and this is what we need to look at is what's the fundamental layer of connection and language where we can bring all these seemingly disparate practices together.

And in my view, that has to be based in physiology. You have to understand how the human body functions in order to maximize that. Bless you. Juniper. Epic. It'll get you. Juniper Street. Yep. It'll get you. Juniper Street. Yeah.

All right. Yeah, so as he and I started to talk, he was still involved with XPT pretty heavily at that time. And I invited him out. His original course, which was just like performance sports breathing, I had him out to CrossFit Virginia Beach and we again taught together, but he, it was kind of funny because he sort of threw me under the bus a little bit at that seminar. Cause I had been teaching for Kelly for a couple of years and he came in and then literally like at the beginning of the day, he was like, Hey, do you want to teach the mobility section? Like, this is what I normally do. And I was like, do you want to teach the mobility section like this is what i normally do and i was like sure and then i realized like in that moment like oh i'm getting vetted

trial by fire trial by fire yeah that's what other it worked out well what other kind of trial is there yeah that's right you know so um i mean it was no problem because i've been coaching for years i taught the mobility work so it was no problem and I'd been coaching for years. I taught the mobility work. So it was no problem. And then at the end of the day, he said, hey, do you want to come out to an XBT event? And I said, absolutely. So I went out, taught with him at Laird's Place. And maybe like a month later, he rang me and said, I'm going to develop a serious course around this. Do you want to be part of it?

And I think when he and I originally went on that venture, I don't think his intention was that I would become a co-founder and then ultimately get as involved as I am in the total arc of how all of our work is together. But as our relationship developed and I had more trials by fire. So, you know, the way I function as a human being is ready, fire, aim. So I say yes first. Yeah, that's good. When somebody asked me like, hey, can you do this? Yes. And then I'll go, shit, I'm not sure if I can do that. Well, let's find out. So I like to put a challenge on myself that I'm completely uncertain if I can accomplish

because I just want to see where is my margin for failure really. And that probably goes back to that sort of obsessive personality type. I just want to see, hey, where will I fail? Where will I fall? Can I pull this off? Can I pull it off? Yeah. Yeah. And some of my like best, some of the best opportunities in my life have come as a result of just saying yes and then figuring it out. So I think maybe, yeah, say saying yes is probably

one of the best things you can do if you want to really see where the opportunity is. If it doesn't work out, you're in the same place that you were, if you had said no anyway, and then you don't have to look back and wonder so I'm with you on that exactly so we developed this course and my god it has grown I think we've taught it to close to a thousand people in the last few years we've done a seminar a month at least a seminar a month for it we're our third year. And do you only travel or do you have like, do you guys have a home base that people come to you or is it always here? No, we don't have a brick and mortar yet, especially because I'm based on the East coast. Brian's based

on the West coast. Um, but we have a team now as well. So it's like Brian and myself and then, uh, Daniel Yeager, who's from, uh, CrossFit Kingfield, who was like, he was the very first place that hosted us. And then he started teaching. And then Dr. Kevin Kirsch, who's a physical therapist by trade. Our whole team travels all over, all over the place teaching together. And we have, I would say from its first iteration. So the first time Brian and I taught the course, it started at a.m. we finished around 630 and we got in the car and we were like that was way too long like so we just started like

chopping away at it and really developing it and you know what you'll experience today is a far more well-oiled machine than the first time we presented the material. That's good. I mean, that's a sign. Yeah, it was just like we were excited, we were talking, and we would just try to download everything that we were learning on people. And what we realized was there's like some very specific points that we want to communicate. And it has to be, be you know teaching is a craft unto itself and just knowing about breath work isn't enough and if you try to unload

too much information on people at once then basically they start to disconnect and so the art of breath seminar as it is now i think think, is a really well-crafted day where by the end of the day, you've had a chance to not just learn about breath work in sort of a lecture context, but there's a lot of experiential work. So it's like, here's the introduction to the concept, now let's do a thing. And we do that over and over throughout the course of the day. And we apply it in a lot of different ways. So, for example, you know, the anchors or the pillars for the art of breath are state mechanics and physiology. Right. And so with state, we're talking about how your mind and your biology intersect.

And so we'll talk about what's going on in the autonomic nervous system, how you can affect your mental state with breathing. But then we'll actually do some work and say, how did you feel different? Um, what kind of metrics can we develop around these things as well? And how did you, cause I'm just interested in like the logistics side of it. How did you guys pull together all of the learning and the theoretical, the practical, all of the stuff that Brian knew and that you knew and pull it together to make a course. Because you touched on there that one of the downsides of being a teacher and being an instructor and being somebody who knows a lot about something is figuring out how to get that information in an effective way to the people who need it so that it's not

overwhelming, so that you're not just like vomiting up all the information you can at one time to people in a way that they can't really take in. Like how, what was the, what was the actual development process like when you were putting the course together? Well, I have to say this. First, when you're putting together an educational experience of any kind, it can't be about you and what you want to say. So it has to start with the service of the user. And so if you go from there and you take your ego out of it and like,

let's learn how to provide a good service, then you can be honest with yourself. You can be honest with each other about how the day went. And you're paying attention to how what you're doing affects people. Like, for example, there were parts of the physiology lecture where we start to go into how your body produces energy and the way your breath can change that. Well, it used to be really detailed.

And what we would notice was, like, it was after lunch. And going into that much detail about biochemistry really detailed and what we would notice was like it was after lunch and going that into that much detail about biochemistry is basically a surefire way to put a third of your group to sleep and do that after lunch and we get we needed to in the physiology lecture is still after lunch but the way that we present it is different and so it's more about learning how to construct narratives use stories make the information relatable and usable. And the honest to God truth is, you know, failing.

You know, we had to have some days where we were like, man, we could have done way better. And I think it started with Brian and I having a very honest working relationship where we can say to the other person, Hey, you could have done better on this today and not getting butthurt and taking personally, but like, Hey, I'm really interested in getting better so that we can provide a service.

And that attitude continued through to our team. And so to this day, we have a debrief after every seminar where we talk about who did what parts, what they did great, what they could do better. And that includes me. So I offer constructive criticism to the team and then they offer it back. So it's not like Rob is impervious because he's the co-founder. No, no, no, no, no. We all talk about how it could go because it's in service of the information. Because the truth is that bringing this important information to people is way more important than any of us singularly.

Or even us as a team. If you make it about the information and about the service, then the educational part and doing a good job, it almost will craft itself. Because you take the me out of it right so it's like hey we have a powerful message that can help people we need to get that out there and that needs to be the priority that sounds like such common sense but it's such an important thing that you tell like it's the difference between like a bad teacher and a good one is somebody who's thinking about the person that you're teaching and what they need to hear rather than just what you want to say or what maybe you want them to hear that those are two different things and that is really hard for people to get because even you know in

I'm not I'm not so much a teacher as I try to be like a conduit and that's why I'm doing this job so I can get the smart people and get their message in front of people who want to hear it but I'm fortunate that I get to learn a lot and experience a lot and try a lot of things. And even in my kind of close community, when people ask me questions, they want to talk about nutrition or food or exercise or whatever. And I have a hard time because I feel like I know a lot and I want to share it with people. But it's so hard sometimes to not just be like, this is what I think is the best and what I think you should do or you should try and really think about what could serve

them best and what could help them at this stage in their life and what their goals are and that I mean that's it's just easier said than done I think but I mean everything is yeah easier said than done yeah but and and look you know like we've had some pretty I've had some pretty gnarly fails where I'd be told, pull your head out of your ass today. Where I didn't do my best job. Full disclosures, Brian and I were doing a private seminar maybe two years ago now. And he said to me afterwards, I don't know what you're holding back for. But you're holding on to something,

like you need to like open up and let your personality out when you're teaching, like that was subdued. And start thinking about story and not just like delivering data. And I took that seriously instead of like, oh man, Brian's just being me. This is just how I do it or whatever that's just me i was like no so i like took a storytelling course from con academy that pixar did and

cool i started studying stand-up comedians because they're by far the best public speakers absolutely because laughter is real people can fake paying attention but you can't fake laughing absolutely and so I started studying like how do they create a story art what's the setup for a punchline like I'm not my goal necessarily isn't to get laughs but how can I lead people down a road and then have a game impactful statement that they go oh right so leading to a laugh can be a lot like leading to an aha, where the person almost feels like. I thought of this myself or like, yes, I get that. Oh, of course. I to me, a great teaching moment is when you deliver the information and the person's thought is I already knew that.

Right. Yeah, I already knew that. Right? Yeah. I already knew that. That's so cool that you took like a storytelling course. Like that's really like mastery though. Like going out and taking what's good from other maybe disciplines to try to bring it into what you're doing. Well, it's important to me to give this information to people. And so if I can do something better, like just knowing it is not enough. Yeah. Right?

And so like one thing that, you know, I say a lot when we teach this stuff, people like when you try to tell people you can use breathing to change your mind, it can seem really woo-woo. And like you need to be sitting away somewhere. But like last night we did a free workout at our host site at True Fitness. And I asked everybody afterwards I said raise your hand if you have a grandma and of course they look at each other because it's obviously a loaded question everybody has at least one right yeah or at some point yeah you have one right so yeah I had a grandma and I'm like well what does grandma say when you fall down and skin your knee and you're crying what's the what's one of the first things?

Sweetheart, hey, just take a nice deep breath and calm down. I'm like, well, why does grandma say that? Oh, because it helps you change the way you're reacting to the situation. Does grandma have a PhD in breath physiology? No. This is an innate thing that we do in order to give caregiving instructions to each other. No one taught grandma that either. Someone, her grandma said that to her. And that's an innate part of human interaction.

We just take it for granted. So now what if you can take that innate wisdom of take a deep breath and you start to be a little bit more precise with how and when you apply it. Oh, well, that's some serious shit. Create some processes around it. Do you think that there will be, or maybe there already is a, like, so this is a basic art of breath. This is like the foundation.

Would there be a next step kind of course for people who want to get even deeper into it or more specific, or is the fundamentals what we're learning today? Basically, that's what it is. And then you go take it to your specific sport or situation. I mean, the fundamentals, I think, so today definitely represents an overview of the fundamentals, but it by no means represents mastery of the fundamentals. But it helps you understand that there's a cohesive picture

around approaching breath work. We have some online programs too, to help you develop, further develop those fundamentals, nasal breathing development, developing breathing mechanics and things like that. Our course is online now as well. If people pay for the in-person course, do they get access to the... We provide a discount for it. Yeah, we provide a discount for it. And actually, I'm pretty proud of this. We just got an SCA accreditation. So professional strength coaches can now access this information and get credit towards their professional requirements. But right now, one of our main priorities is creating the 102 course,

which is going to be a multi-day event and is going to go deeper into some of the principles and like the 101, like the 101 of anything. You take a college 101 course, it's an overview, right? This is the basics of how you need to start thinking about this. But you need it. You need those fundamentals. You can't skip to 102. But you need it. You need those fundamentals. You can't skip to 102. But you need it. You can't go to an advanced writing class if you don't understand grammar and punctuation, right? So today is about starting to learn how to think about applying breath work

and getting some experience that will help you feel how things are different without it and with it. And go, okay, and start drawing some connections. So I think with the 101 course, the question we try to answer primarily is, why does breathing matter? And we try to put that in some different context. Here's why it matters for the way you think. Here's how it matters for the way you move. Here's how it matters for the way you think. Here's how it matters for the way you move. Here's how it matters for the way that your chemistry functions and give some basic sort of core outlines around those things. Then the 102 will be a lot more experimentation, practical,

and real direct interaction with coaches. Like people who already have had a breath practice for some time will go all right when we did x i experienced this what does that mean and we can kind of get into the weeds with things a little bit more and that's something you're like working on developing right now okay yeah we're developing that course right now um and then and then Brian and I are also, uh, working on a book. Cool. So there's a book in the works. Um, do you have a general timeline on that or is that still just like, if I give one, then I'm almost doomed to doomed to not, or you, it's your, you know, what fire aim. So you just give, give me a date and then pull it off. Not to put you on the spot. Okay. But that's something that you're working on.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it's in the works. We also just developed an independent from Art of Breath and Unscarred Power Speed Nerds, that whole ecosystem business. with Dr. Tanya Bentley and Brian just started the Health and Human Performance Foundation, which is looking towards what we would call intrinsic technologies for improving human performance, human health and wellness, and helping support research. So one of the things that happens is because breathwork touches so many different types of interests and important health components. People who come to these things, at one seminar we might have a rugby coach,

a sports psychologist, a yoga teacher, a CrossFit coach, a recreational runner, and it would be this immense gamut of interests. And so a lot of people will come up and say, hey, I'm a PhD student in exercise science and I want to study this. What do you suggest? And we have more and more and more of that all the time. I'm going to sneeze.

Yeah. Would you, bless you, would you say that the, oh, that's a lot. I'm going to talk right over it. It's kind of funny. I'm watching this happen. You were holding those back for a long time I was

I'm making up for it would you say that the demographic of people who are coming to the courses is like half coaches half just individuals who are doing it for their own learning or is it more teachers than I would say it's primarily coaches yeah interesting athletes

definitely come okay a lot of endurance athletes some power sports athletes um but coaches are usually when there's a new thing in human performance they're usually the first ones to pick up the reins yeah that's interesting especially you know things like wim hof and all this stuff is getting so much more popular yeah um i think it's what we do and is popular with coaches in particular because of our physiology first approach and that we're not just saying like hyperventilate a lot hold your breath and then that's the key to everything we're saying like well what it is what is it that you do and then let's talk about what your prescription might look like right and so if you're a strength and conditioning coach that's something that you really take to heart because in order to develop a training prescription

for an athlete you have to know like what sport are they in who are they what part of their season like there's a lot of considerations that have to be made. And I think because Brian and I come from a strength and conditioning background, that we resonate with that community quite a bit. I know that I can't keep you here forever because you actually have to start prepping for what we're going to be doing today. But I did want to ask a couple more kind of specific questions about breathing because we've been speaking a bit more high level. And we've spoken about this before, but you know, you talked about until people sort of have practical applications of the difference in how they feel and how they can perform when they're not mindfully breathing and then when

they are i mean i've had a couple life-changing experiences myself and one of them was at an xbt event with brian their first one in montauk and the first session that we did of the I think it was the holotropic breathing the sort of like a process of hyperventilation and it was like it was one of the most life-changing like mind-changing experiences I've ever had and I'm not somebody who's had a long-standing breath work practice, yoga practice, meditation practice. I'm somebody who probably could benefit a lot from it. I tend to be up here and have a hard time coming down here. And I'm working on it and I'm getting better as I get older. But that experience and how breath can change your brain and your chemistry and how you feel so intensely was mind blowing to me. Like I know like everyone else does

inherently that taking deep breaths when you're upset makes a difference and that, you know, being fitter and you can breathe better and all that stuff that there was nothing like this took like 30 or 40 minutes that I had no concept that time had passed. I had like tears running down my face. I was laughing despite myself. I couldn't help it. I felt high for like 45 minutes. It was like the best feeling of my life from breathing. It was crazy to me. And so I just, that was something that I took from that three-day event that I did with those guys

more than anything about how life-changing it could be and how I need to incorporate it more into a practice but that's why I asked you about were you going to put sort of like classes online that people can can follow because I was asking Laird and Brian after this I'm like can you just put a guided like a guided meditation except a guided version of this that people can pay and download because I can't do this on my own when I go home. I won't be able to replicate that kind of experience by myself. Is there like a liability issue? Because they talk about the kind of danger of doing some of this stuff in the wrong context or setting or whatever.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, in general, we've moved away from hyperventilation-based practices. It's so good, though. Why? It's so awesome. It feels so good. Because the main effect is that you feel high. Yeah, right?

Right? And so there's nothing wrong with those practices. And so if you think about something like holotropic breathing, in particular, holotropic breathing was actually developed by Dr. Stanislav Grof, who, if anybody's read Michael Pollan's new book about psychedelics. Oh, yeah, Change Your Mind. Yeah. If anybody's read Michael Pollan's new book about psychedelics, Dr. Groff in the 60s was one of the primary researchers, like a legitimate researchers into the effects of using psychedelic medicine on severe psychiatric disorders. a schedule one uh schedule one narcotic and it was banned from medical use he found that he he decided that he needed something similar because it was making such rapid changes and things like addiction ptsd and trauma and so what he did was he turned to sort of the shamanic world and he had learned through some of these things because of ayahuasca things like that that they also included hyperventilation practices now we know a lot from psychedelic research that set and

setting really matter but in essence what happens when you have a prolonged hyperventilation is that your system becomes incredibly alkaline and for all intents and purposes your brain thinks you're dying and so it starts to prepare your mind why does it think you're dying because if you're getting air that's what your body wants you're not though you're actually not getting air when you continue to hyperventilate you think you're getting air but you're actually creating vasoconstriction to your brain so here's a really interesting fact when neuro like when a brain surgeon opens up somebody's cranial cavity in order to do brain surgery and someone's intubated they make them

hyperventilate on purpose because it reduces cranial swelling so you actually reduce blood flow to the brain when you hyperventilate for a prolonged amount of time and so in essence your brain starts to think you are on the verge of coma and death. And so it starts to download that sort of like emotional status. And so your autonomic nervous system goes, ah, and that sort of all those emotions and everything that comes up. Now, not to say that that has no useful place, but when you start to have those emotions and those feelings feelings it's important that you have somebody who's educated who can help you process those

things just like it is when people use psychedelic medicine because it is supposed to be medicine now I think one of the reasons that especially people in our culture gravitate so strongly towards things like Wim Hof or holotropic breathing and like the immense emotion that they have is because we mostly close ourselves off to real deep connection relationship in that a lot of our connection to each other has become through artificial means like social media or digital and we don't sit around and talk to each other about real shit, maybe more like we once did. And I know like for some people,

even still like families who live in close proximity to each other, even though there might be like a little bit more bickering, they know a lot more like deep things about the other person. Like so-and-so is kind of a jerk and he's mad and then the person leaves and they go like yeah but i can understand because he's probably still a little scared to death because he had a close run in with cancer a few years ago and during that time his wife almost left him like holy shit you know everything about this person right so um i think one of the things that happens is we get in touch with these sort of deep layers of emotion because our body is having this immense physiological reaction um but so i suppose having a bit more respect for that process the way you would like i wouldn't be

like oh hey buddy let's come over to my house and do a bunch of ayahuasca and just chill like there's more of a ceremony and more respect that needs to be paid towards having an experience like that. And but I guess couldn't wouldn't there then be some place for that kind of breath work as therapy for people? For example, like myself in this, we're in this world right now where like microdosing and LSD and mushrooms and psychedelics and all that stuff is starting to become really big and really interesting to the health community. I, at this stage of my life, have zero interest in that kind of plant medicine, zero interest whatsoever. Maybe someday that'll change. But this way of getting there, the breath work, that appeals to me more. So could there be some

kind of, you know, time and place and therapeutic use for it? Maybe we aren't putting it into our like health and athletic seminars, but. Well, of course. And so, you know, like one of my teachers in school, uh, my physiology teacher used to say the difference between medicine and poison is dose right and i always like to add to that dose and timing so how you use something and when you use it like context matters um is there a place for this breathing stuff yeah i think so but i think we need to learn more about it what it's doing who really needs it and the good thing in general about breath practice regardless of you know sort of your opinion about how to use things is that you can get off that train anytime yeah right so once you take a psychedelic you're on that ride until your system whatever the half-life of that

drug is you're on board well with breath work yeah you can decide like okay i'm ready to stop doing i'm i need to break and you just begin to breathe normally and your body will will adjust yeah no no i mean some people will claim like that's some of the benefit of psychedelics is that you have to learn to let go um but again like with the really prominent high level research that's going on and that's there where they're actually being successful using psychedelics of various types

in medicinal settings and setting matters and there's educated people who can help you process what you learn. Yeah. Because ultimately after that it's what do I do? If you're using breath work breath work is great but it's a tool. Does it what do I do? If you're using breath work, breath work is great, but it's a tool. Does it affect your behavior ultimately?

If you do breath work for 10 minutes a day and you go to this super zen state, whether it's slow breathing, fast breathing, Wim Hof, holotropic, and then you go out in the world and you make no choices that are different, then your breath practice is worthless. It has to affect behavior or what's the meaning. Then it's just a thing you do to tell your friends. It's another Instagram post that's just bullshit. Yeah.

Right? That will be the quote of this podcast because that's really on point. But it's funny because, again, I have the drug thing. Like, I don't have a whole lot of vices in my life. I got a few, not many. But I will tell you, if there was a guided Laird walking me through 30 minutes of holotropic breathing, I'd be doing that shit every day, and that probably wouldn't be good for me. It would wear you out. That's what happens.

I mean, Brian and I have been there. That's why we know. Because I did that sort of superventilation, hyperventilation, whatever you want to call it, for almost four months daily. And it starts to cook you. You become emotionally exhausting. And then at some point you realize, okay, I'm getting pretty high here. And I feel neat. But what is this doing?

Did you have you, and we don't have to talk about it. This could go off in another tangent but have you um experimented with like plant medicine um psychedelics anything of any kind um i mean i think i tried mushrooms once when i was maybe like 19 or 20 before that's a different headspace but if you but i was a dummy and i don't even know that it did what i thought it was i didn't i don't have like some it did what I thought it would. I don't want to have, like, some crazy, trippy experience. It's so stupid. Yeah. But I went to a Tool concert, and if you've never been to a Tool concert,

it's probably hard to tell if it's the mushrooms or if it's the concert. No. It's a pretty trippy experience. A little of column A, a little of column B. Yeah. That's pretty good. I didn't really get anything crazy out of it, and the truth is I'm not really like a drug guy yeah

like I don't I rarely drink alcohol it's just not my jam yeah um and I'm pretty I tend to be pretty sensitive to those kind of things and uh the way my mind works I've found it like it doesn't need a lot of help yeah to go to those spaces and that I need more help with like, Hey, pay attention to your Google calendar and like read the whole email. Yeah. Some of the more practical aspects. Yeah. I tend to be, so like on a personality scale, I tend to be really high in openness, which means like I'm in thought a lot. And my challenge has been to ground myself, not to be spaced out more. Okay. That's cool. Uh, one of the things that you touched on a couple of times that I thought was interesting was, um, you mentioned free diving a couple of times. Obviously breathwork

is very important with that. One of the people that I interviewed for this podcast, cause this is fairly new. You're probably like my sixth interview for this new podcast that I'm doing was her name's Valentine Thomas. And if you know about her she's based in montreal but she's a professional free diver and spear fisher woman she used to be a lawyer and quit and moved from this cushy job in london to travel the world and become a free diver and she actually was afraid of the water when she started out she had a like near drowning experience when she was a kid and decided to kind of hit it head on and she talked to rogan too yes she was on joe rogan yeah beautiful french canadian woman and she's very successful and now she talks about you know ocean conservation and ethical fishing and all this cool

stuff she was very cool interview but she she was saying that you know when she started she's not she wasn't particularly athletic or didn't really have any aptitude towards this kind of stuff but she learned the proper way to do it. And she can now hold her breath for a super long time. And she's saying like, if I walk you through how to do this, anybody within a certain amount of time of me telling them how to do it would be able to hold their breath for two minutes. And I experienced this with XPT. Is that true?

That if you can, if you can do the right thing and teach people how to prepare themselves and how to do it properly that pretty much anybody has the capability to be able to hold their breath for much longer than they think they're able to yeah because we have the same physiology it's not any different than somebody who's never exercised before saying like i can make you stronger but i mean i guess you know you could with the right training you could get me to get a three 250 pound deadlift but another woman who looks similar to me might be able to get 450 so is there is there like a cutoff point or can can pretty much anybody with general good health hold their breath for say two minutes yeah I don't think two minutes is not a hard mark that's not okay but for most people like the average person like a lay person perspective the world

record for static apnea is like 22 minutes no a human being held their breath for 22 minutes yeah but you have to understand too that like um the amount of preparation that went into that it's also like uh this was not underwater, right? ...Hofford Yardson just lifted so much weight that he made his forehead explode. Yeah, that's true. But does that mean everybody's going to do that? That's intense.

No, like the most I've ever deadlifted in my life was like 470 for 10. Yeah. That's nothing for that guy. But he's a specialist. Yeah. So the real question, I think, is at what point is there diminishing returns? Forehead exploding, some might consider.

I might be able to hold my breath for two minutes, but who gives a shit? What does that mean? Unless you need it for something. A freediver means a lot, but do I understand what that means for the things I care about? And this is, just to take this full circle, this is why we developed the Art of Breath course because people would go,

oh, I did all this apnea training and it helped me and I relaxed and now I can hold my breath for three minutes and I'd be like, cool,

what else does that mean? Yeah. It's not any different, you know, I've been a coach for years and, you know, people get super a coach for years and you know, people get super into CrossFit and they're like, Oh man, my, they would, or, and I've did manual therapy as well. And they would come to me for help and they'd be like, yeah, I got my, you know,

whatever my workout times way down. I'm like, cool. But your shoulder doesn't work. How's that working out for you? So it was like, you have to like you have to look at things through a small lens and then bring it back to the big picture. Like, is this really helping me accomplish what I want? And I think that's a conversation that people fail to have with adults, which is that's a neat trick. What do you want? What do you need that for?

And most people don't have an answer. And you're like, well, if you don't even know do you want? What do you need that for? And most people don't have an answer. And you're like, well, if you don't even know what you want, then how are you deciding what to do? You have to know what you, cause you have to move towards something and away from another thing. So like, otherwise you're just bouncing around the world. You're just wandering. I know this is highly individual, but for the course, what what what are people hoping to get mostly from it is it their ability to recover from exercise to use oxygen better during exercise like what are sort of the the main goals that most people are coming into with this course trying to achieve um well i think people look for improvements in athletic performance yeah recovering faster right whether that means

between sessions overall long term like dealing with nervous system fatigue or intrasession like how do i delay fatigue um a lot of people come for help with starting to understand anxiety mental health um and then some people just come because they're just curious. Like, what is, what can I do with this? You know, I heard about this. I saw this. I really don't know how to put this together. That's what we get a lot of. I did the Wim Hof course and then I was like, okay, now what? And then I did some apnea training from a free diving course and I was like, okay, now what? But they didn't really know how to connect the dots into a way that was meaningful for them. And that is what we try to do so some people come like i said we might have a rugby

coach and a sports psychologist in the same seminar and their their goals are completely they seem disparate but really what they're trying to get is the best out of whoever it is that they work with or from themselves and that's what our's what our main, what we try to do in the course is connect dots. Like, okay, yeah, I did free diving. I did Wim Hof. Um, I did some nasal, I did oxygen advantage for cycling. How do I put it all together in a way that's meaningful? And that's what we try to do. You got to go, right? Yeah. Okay. so we'll stop it here but i appreciate you taking the time tell listeners where they can go if they either want to learn more sign up for a course maybe try some of this online stuff first where can they go to to learn more powerspeedendurance.com

forward slash art of breath and then on instagram at at power speed endurance. Awesome. Rob, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to being able to hold my breath for 22 minutes by the end of the day. Maybe I got a goal. What's it for? Yeah. All right. Thanks, Rob. Thank you. All right. Thanks everyone for listening. I had a blast at the power speed endurance event. The art of breath course was fantastic. The team was top notch. I highly recommend, uh, taking the course if you can and learning from them really, really applicable, tangible lessons that you can take home and just get better at life. So highly recommend you do that. If you'd like the interview, please leave me a nice rating and review on iTunes. You know, that positive feedback is

important. I'm like Santa Claus. If you don't believe in me, I disappear. So please do that. Share the episode on social media. That would be great. Tag me at the muscle Maven so I can help share it, uh, spread the love and please do join me next week. I'm going to be speaking with an expert on the fourth trimester fitness. So workouts for post pregnancy, all that core work, kettlebell stuff, all that Kegels, you know, all the stuff that sounds like fun, but terrifying at the same time, we're going to get into all of that. So if you're pregnant, going to get pregnant, we're pregnant, know somebody who's pregnant that basically covers everyone.

I think this will be a good episode. So join me next week and have a great day.