Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #65 PJ Nestler

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

Coach PJ Nestler is a human performance specialist with over a decades of experience preparing top athletes for competition, and a life mission to help athletes and coaches realize their true potential. He has trained dozens of athletes from the UFC, NFL, NHL and MLB and he has become a leader in combat sports performance training having worked with over 100 professional fighters. He is currently the Director of Sports Performance for XPT Life where his role entails researching and developing educational curriculums around XPT’s Breathe-Move-Recover pillars and teaching certification programs for coaches and trainers. He breaks down Breath work, Diaphragm Method, Parasympathetic breathing, sub maximal breathing and other techniques to improve overall physical and mental performance. PJ stops by to talk about breath work mechanics, ice bath's, and recovery strategies. Connect with PJ: Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/CoachPJnestler/ Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/CoachPJNestler/ Twitter | https://twitter.com/coachpjnestler YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/c/coachpjnestler XPT Extreme Performance Training | https://www.xptlife.com/ Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Twitter | https://bit.ly/2DrhtKn Instagram | https://bit.ly/2DxeDrk Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/ Connect with Onnit on: Twitter | https://twitter.com/Onnit        Instagram | https://bit.ly/2NUE7DW Subscribe to Human Optimization Hour   Itunes  | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher  | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify  | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY

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taking together their science that shows they work wonders and they're an excellent addition to any pre-workout that we have. Make sure you check out beta-alanine at onnit.com slash podcast for another 10% off. Welcome to the Human Optimization Hour podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Kingsbury, and today we have a very special guest, Mr. PJ Nessler. PJ Nessler is a coach who has joined up with the crew at XPT in Malibu. My buddies, Gabby Reese and Laird Hamilton, have started this amazing company. And we take a deeper dive into that. We take a deep dive into PJ's background, into sports performance, who he's working with today, and what his takeaways are from breath

work to hot and cold therapy to underwater training and the best in performance. I know you guys are going to dig this one. Check it out. All right, here we are. HOH, PJ Nessler. I've been a fan. I've wanted to work with you since seeing you've joined XPT. And I had, so what is XPT? I guess we could start there and then we'll get your background and how you got there. But what is XPT? So XPT is the brainchild of Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reese. And we really define it.

It stands for extreme performance training. And we always define extreme performance. People think that extreme performance means you have to surf 50 foot waves like Laird, or, you know, you've got to be a professional volleyball player like, like Gabby, but we define extreme performance as, as helping people to live at their absolute highest possible potential, whatever that performance means to them. So, um, it really just developed from, from Laird and Gabby's exploration over the past 30 years, both being elite athletes. And we take people, we define it as a performance lifestyle.

And we take people that come into our experiences. I know you went to an experience right before I joined with XPT. Just missed you. Yeah, out in Malibu. But we take people through the main pillars of our business, which is breathe, move, recover. Just teaching people how to breathe better, how to move better, how to recover better, how to live better, and really optimize every area of their life. Yeah, there's absolutely no doubt. I had an experience there.

My buddy, Kelly Sturette, who works with those guys and is friends with them, got me on there, asked if they needed a towel boy. And he was like, God, let me, let me, let me check. But I got in and it was for sure the most comprehensive seminar, if you want to call it that, but like days from start to finish that had to do with like everything with lifestyle factor, right? From the food we ate to the coffee we drank to all the different forms of breath work we did to hot and cold contrast therapy and to the coffee we drank to all the different forms of breath work we did to hot and cold contrast therapy and to the underwater training and I want to jump into all this with you but um I was just blown the fuck away you know and obviously you know you know Gabby and Laird they're amazing people you know and I think they attract that to them they attract other awesome like-minded people

in there and um you know if you've ever had a workout at Gabby and Laird's house, there's some really cool people there. Celebrities or not, they're just awesome people. They're all friendly. It's a different vibe. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, that's what got me hooked. So when I talked to some of the investors, they reached out to me and said, we've got this really cool company. I knew of XPT because I'm friends with Dr. Galpin. I'm friends with Brian Diaz, a handful of people of the company. So I had known a little bit about it, but not really. And my background, sports performance. So I wasn't in that really world, really, of breath work and all the things they were doing. And they said, why don't you go up to Laird's house and see what it's all about? So I was super nervous going up there, but meeting Laird and Gabby, and they were just so welcoming

and so just awesome people. And then, like you said, everybody else who came up, we were sitting in the sauna. I was talking with all these different people that come up there and train all the time. And it was just, I left there just feeling like, man, I have to be a part of this. You know, this community is just amazing. And I, and the stuff was really, really challenging. You know, it was way outside my comfort zone, putting me in that ice bath and the sauna and the pool. I got thrown to the fire right away. That was kind of my job interview. I was like, hey, go hang out with Laird for two hours and let him torture you and see if you survive.

They stuck me with fucking James as my partner. Oh, yeah, that's fine. James works for, is he the, did he found Mayweather Productions or he started with Floyd Mayweather? So he, yeah, he's a part of like the investment team. So he invests in, I think, in a handful of businesses. He's the CEO of Mayweather Productions, or he started with Floyd Mayweather? So he, yeah, he's a part of like the investment team. So he invests in, I think, in a handful of businesses. He's the CEO of Mayweather Fitness. Okay, there we go. And the guy is just a fucking stud, you know, an absolute stud. But they have us do, you know, all the different exercises.

We can jump into some of those too. But I mean, just for one, people can understand, farmer's walks under the pool. And the faster you go, the more fucked up you are because your feet slide on the bottom of the pool, right? So you have to actually pace yourself, not just for the burnout, but for the fact that you need traction.

And you're underwater. And it's like the bottom of a 15-foot deep end. You're way underwater. You're not just barely beneath the surface. But anyways, yeah, partnering with James, I was like, i was like fuck man i gotta keep up with this guy i was like 235 pounds he's just shredded lean you know and just flying through stuff all the experience in the world but um yeah it really is uh i think they recognize that in me the same as they recognize in you like all right you got the background let's see what's up you know so they give you a little test yeah and uh there's so much to those

experiences though right because in and i'm sure with your background and i want to dive more into that where you come from what you've been learning but um each of those experiences it can stand alone as like a really important practice to have whether that's breath work or whether that's the hot and cold or whether that's you know the hypoxic training underwater, which is extremely low impact. Like they're all these things are amazing in their own right. And then you combine all those and it's like, fuck man, it's the total package. Yeah. And that's why I think XPT is so cool. And it's challenging because as you know, if somebody asks you, who's this good for, or what does it do when you have something that can create benefits

to everybody, it becomes nothing to anybody. It's so hard to, well, it depends. If it's for your grandma, there's great stuff to it. If it's for an elite athlete, it's a little bit different, but it can be serving to all those people. So it makes it challenging, but that's also what's so cool about it is it's so scalable.

You can scale the pieces. I tell people when they come to the breathing class, and I ran a breathing class last night, and I'm like, I'm going to teach you guys a whole bunch of stuff. But if you leave here with nothing else, just take this one tip. And if that's all you get,

next time you come back, you'll get something else. So when people come to our experiences, they leave and some people will never try the pool training again, but the breath work changed their life. Some people, it was just being around those like-minded individuals that created some catalysts for change in their life. So there's so many pieces that you can kind of take out and

apply. And that's what I love about it. That's why I love teaching it. Fuck yeah. Well, let's hit this like a Tarantino movie. We've jumped right into the meat and potatoes. Now let's get the background story and then we'll jump back to the meat and potatoes of XPT. Okay. You said you had a backgroundT. Okay. You said you had a background in sports performance. You're a young dude. How old are you? I'm 32. I'll be 33. Oh, wow. You just have a great hairline. All right. You're not that young. God damn it. Anyone with hair. So what did you study in college? You studied sports performance and things like that

in college? Yeah, I actually studied psychology and then kinesiology as well. Okay. So I got into psychology because I thought I wanted to go into business, but I hated math and business classes and I loved psychology. But then I played football my sophomore year of college at University of Rhode Island and I worked with a strength and conditioning coach and I was like, this is awesome. This is what I wanted. I was always into fitness, but I didn't want to be a personal trainer. That wasn't really a career path that I was interested in. It's not fun. Yeah. And I worked out at like a YMCA local place where most of the personal trainers were just taking ladies through machine circuits. And I was like, that's not for me.

So I went in to go for business. But then when I played football, I worked with a strength coach and I was like, I want to be a division one football strength and conditioning coach that my background was football and lacrosse. So I loved those sports and I love training. Um, so I kind of went all in kinesiology from that point on. It was, I still did my degree in psych, but I was, I took every single kinesiology course they offered. Um, and then I was just, I've been full force into, into sports performance since then. I started volunteering for every, at my high school coaching, the football kids running speed clinics and just every place I could. I was just getting as much immersed into the sports performance world as I

possibly could. Hell yeah. So you went to school on the East Coast. How'd you make your way out to LA? I'm originally from Northern California. Oh, whereabouts? Bay Area. Yeah, buddy. Same, same. Where in the Bay? I'm from East Bay, Pleasanton and Danville is pleasanton and danville's okay my dad lived in pleasanton off uh ray and vine okay yeah i grew up there till i was in middle school would you go to uh move to new jersey what's the name of the school there for high school in pleasanton okay yeah it's uh amador yeah i think amador okay there's a big high school there for nobody that knows what pleasanton is i'm sorry that I just went down the rabbit hole but I like anytime we just had um Jason Kalipa on and he's like the only other guy I've had on that's like from the same neck of the woods I am really yeah like he's from the South Bay and in a spot like he went to Archbishop Middy which is right down the street

from okay yeah yeah it's a beautiful area geek out on that shit you know in Texas now I like people back from the from the where I grew up sure yeah so you moved from the bay we moved to new jersey unfortunately my parents my dad's from new jersey so we moved out there but my mom's from laguna beach so i've been going to orange county my whole life okay and i loved it i've always just i mean look good at me just one of the most beautiful places in the world and uh so i lived in new jersey i went to high school there i went to college in Rhode Island and then actually went to U of A my freshman year. I know you were Arizona State, right? Yeah. I went to U of A my freshman year, but I wasn't playing sports and I really wanted to.

So I went transferred back to Rhode Island and then I stayed on the East Coast. I ended up working as a strength coach at the University of Rhode Island for two and a half years after college. And then I just, I wanted to get to California always. I went to U of A because I was trying to get to California and I couldn't really get into all the big schools. So I was like, that's kind of close. Yeah, it's close enough. Yeah. And then- Boulder State. And then I just took a leap. I really liked working with fighters. That was one of my passions as well. When I stopped playing football, I started training MMA and I fell in love with that sport. was one of my passions as well. When I stopped playing football, I started training MMA.

And I fell in love with that sport. So I started training some fighters back east. But there's not a fight scene in Rhode Island. So I wanted to be in Southern California. I was like, this is where I want to be. I love the weather. More opportunity in sports performance. It's a huge fight area.

So I actually took a job at a facility that was partnered up with Mark Munoz's gym at Rain MMA down there. Yeah. And he's, he's plugged in with all the same guys, right? His buddies at Dr. Annie Galpin and different people like that. Yeah. So that's a, that's how I kind of got in that whole network. I just started working out and I took an entry level trainer job and just said, I need to get out there. And then I left a division one strength and conditioning job to do that. But I just, I knew I wanted to be out there and then i left a division one strength and conditioning job to do that but i just i knew i wanted to be out there and i could work my way back up once i went out and here you are yeah i've been out there for almost eight years now that's awesome and when did you jump on with xpt um about a year and a half yeah a little over a year and a half ago so they picked me up last summer really they had this the experiences like you went to, I joined right

after the experience. I was talking with them during the experience. I think you were there. Okay. I couldn't make it up to that one. So then I came up to the next Malibu experience right after that. And that was my first real experience with the company. But they said they had this great product, this great thing that people were coming to and they were leaving feeling amazing. But then they go back to New York and they're like, how do I do this? You know, I want to keep doing this stuff. So the goal was, let's scale this down. Let's teach coaches and trainers all of these really powerful methods so that they can take this stuff. And then when everyone leaves the experiences, we can say, hey, we've got four XPT coaches in New York. They'll take you through this stuff

and make it a part of your lifestyle. Yeah. I remember talking to Gabby about that. She wanted to create like satellite schools almost where people could come, they could get certified as trainers and be able to teach the principals in, in just spread it out, you know, like, cause they're not, it's kind of hard to make that into like a franchise business in terms of, you know, location and having a pool and having all the right equipment. But all those places exist on their own. So if you have a trainer that can kind of bounce around from the pool area that you can use weights in to, you know, a place where there is hot and cold contrast

to even just doing the breath work, like all those components can be pieced together in many big states, many big cities, you know? Yeah, and you can't replicate the experience of being there for two and a half days with Laird and Gabby. There's no way to replicate that. But our goal is there are a lot of people

who can't come to that. They can't make the trip out, maybe they can't afford it, or it just doesn't work with their schedule. And we only run six of those a year. And we accept like 25 people to them. So for us, if we want to really get this stuff out there, we know that this breathwork can change people's lives. We know that the lifestyle can change people's lives if they can adapt these principles into what they're doing, whether they

just live in Minnesota and they don't have access to any of those things, but just the mindset can really influence the way that they live their life. So that was our goal is start getting this stuff out to people. There's so much good information out there on this stuff, but it's all over the place. There's not really one place. I mean, me, I was interested in all these concepts, but I was studying breath work on my own, but I still never really felt like I had a good understanding of it. And even now I've, I've pretty much immersed myself in, in breath work for the past, uh, year and a half, like extensively. And I had to go to 10 different sources to get the really good pieces from each of them and then try to put them into this system that made sense to me as a performance coach, because I wasn't a yogi. I wasn't a person working with, uh,

disease populations or asthmatics. I was working with elite athletes. So I wanted to take some of the concepts that could apply to those elite athletes and nobody was really speaking that language. So that was my hope is let's take all this really good information that people are teaching, repackage it a little bit, add our own concepts and things that have come from Laird's exploration and then teach it to people in a simple way so they can apply it to military, athletes, grandma, average Joe, whoever. Yeah. Unpack that breath work because that's something that I realized when I got there. So I was familiar with Wim Hof training and a few other forms of breath work. I've done, you know,

breath of fire, things like that. So I had like a little bit of each thing, but I didn't have all of it. And when I got to XPT, I realized like, this is the most comprehensive and like mindful approach to not just to breathing, but when and why. So unpack some of that, like what, when is the best time to do Wim Hof breathing? When is the best time to prime breath before training or post-training? All these things are, that was all new to me. Yeah. And that's exactly what we tried to do was take those, a lot of breathwork practices were like, here's the method.

It's really good. Here's how to do it. But I was like, well, should you do it or should I do it? Nothing is good for everybody. So what situation should I do it? Nothing is good for everybody. So what situation- And it's not good all the time, right? Yeah, what situation should I be doing this one? And what situation should I not be doing this one?

So that's what I looked at it. I looked at it from a science standpoint. Like from a physiology standpoint, that was the biggest thing for me to understand is what's happening in my body from a physiology standpoint when I breathe fast, when I breathe slow, when I breathe through the nose, when I breathe through the mouth.

If I can understand that, then I can go to yoga. And when they start teaching a practice, I'm going, okay, this is what's happening from a physiology standpoint. So here's what this would be really good for. And then the cool thing is you start talking to yogis or you talk to other people and they say, well, here's what this is supposed to do.

And they explain it from like a spiritual standpoint. And you're like, they get it. Even though they don't know the science, they still get it because they're understanding what this is kind of trying to create. They're just not explaining it in the scientific way, which is why people like me were turned off by it for a long time,

because I was such a science-minded person. But to unpack some of that breath work, we start off with breathing for health. So how should you be breathing all the time during the day? How should you be breathing when you're sleeping? Because that's the most important. It's the most impactful. It doesn't matter how you breathe during training

if you're breathing like crap the other 23 hours of the day. So we start with that, fixing breathing mechanics, teaching people the right way to breathe, teaching them how to use the diaphragm, teaching them how to breathe through the nose. Really, really simple, basic stuff, but stuff that most people do wrong. And I always liken that to like posture. You know, if you come in to see me, we're going to teach you proper movement mechanics and posture before I

start teaching you all the cool explosive everything. Let's fix that foundation first, and then we'll keep building that higher and higher. Then we can get into some stuff like super ventilation, like the Wim Hof method. And I like to use those in the morning or before training, because those are all a little bit sympathetic driven. So they're going to ramp up the sympathetic nervous system. And we were actually just filming our certification up in San Francisco. We were filming some videos and we had heart rate monitors

and stuff hooked up. And I had a coach that I was taking through some breathing protocols. And we were just doing the breathing protocols and watching what was happening with heart rates and all that stuff exactly, you know, in real time during those breathing patterns. And what you see is as soon as you increase the respiratory rate, the heart rate's going to start to jack up, which is great if you're getting ready for exercise, depending on the person. I have athletes who are always jacked up. You know, UFC fighters are my clientele.

A little wound tight. A lot of those guys, yeah, they're always wound tight. They're always sympathetic. They're always going a million miles an hour. So for them, I don't need to teach them how to do that. Like they can turn it on like a light switch. I need to teach them how to bring it back down. So even before we train, I'm just instituting things with them

that teach them how to like, let's spend two minutes getting into a calm, focused state and then let's go train. So, but I like to do that stuff before training because we will use a pattern. I always call it resetting breathing patterns. And I use this again, the same thought process as if you just got up from sitting at your desk all day

and you're going to go squat, probably not just going to get under the bar and squat. You're probably going to do some body weight squats, maybe do some hip mobility. You're going to loosen some things up, maybe stretch out the hip flexors and things that have been tight. And you're going going to do some body weight squats, maybe do some hip mobility. You're going to loosen some things up, maybe stretch out the hip flexors and things that have been tight. And you're going to reset those patterns

to get back to normal movement, then get ready to squat. So we do the same thing with breathing. You know, if I've been sitting with poor posture and breathing to my upper chest, I bring people in and we go through a really simple protocol that's just designed to reset their breathing pattern and get them back to baseline, activate the diaphragm so that they're using the right breathing mechanics, and then maybe crank up a little bit into some sympathetic patterns where they're breathing

faster so we get a little ramped up. And my actual exact pre-workout breathing protocol for my fighters is they do what's called Superman breathing. They put the hands in the ribs so that they feel their ribs expanding. So it just- In all areas, not just through the belly, but making yourself get wide all the way around. Yeah, and we teach belly breathing is always like the first step, but it's not the end goal.

Yeah. Because it's actually, you can actually belly breathe without activating your diaphragm. So a better indicator of proper diaphragm function is lateral movement of the ribs. So we use that, especially the best compensators are our

athletes. They find solutions to complex movement problems that are not necessarily, that are using compensatory patterns because they're masters of figuring that stuff out. Like they'll find a way to complete the task. So we do Superman breathing where they breathe into the ribs, making sure we're activating the diaphragm and they'll do eight slow nasal breaths. Then we'll go same thing. Even as we increase the speed, we'll make sure they're breathing into the ribs. Still, we'll go eight little bit faster in the nose, out the mouth. We call that power breathing. And then we'll do, uh, eight real fast in and out the mouth where, and we'll make sure again, we're reinforcing that even when we switch over to the mouth and we're breathing fast, we're still breathing to the ribs and we're using the diaphragm. And it, it takes anywhere from one to two minutes to go

through it, depending on how slow those first breaths are. And it's a great little reset that, that I love. I do it before I train, my athletes use it, but that's the pattern that I like to use before training. Do you guys do any type of like diaphragmatic smashing and shit like that? I know like Kelly's been into the yoga tune-up balls. like something harder i use an orb or or his like uh whatever he calls that the the nova the supernova yeah whatever yeah that fucking rock hard one that kelly makes um but just to smash the psoas and open that up is that yeah things like that that you guys get into or is it not necessary if you're using the super breathing? I do a little bit myself. And we actually use a technique because I usually train groups of athletes at a time and I have limited equipment. A lot of times I'll use a technique

where they use their hands as a diaphragm reset. Okay. So there's actually a technique called doming the diaphragm that physical therapists can do. They sit behind you and they'll actually take their hands and push them up underneath your rib cage, basically trying to, if the diaphragm's flat, they're trying to dome it again, kind of pushing it up and getting it unstuck. So we'll use that technique, also combined with a technique I learned from RPR, which is reflexive performance reset. It's Cal Dietz's program.

I've heard of it. It's like a neuro-lymphatic reset, but they use a diaphragm reset where you basically rub the sternum, you rub down through the ribs. And then as you're getting in here, you're also trying to separate any stickiness between the ribs from like the abdominals.

So that's the simple ones that we use. If we have more time or me personally, I'll do some other smashing and psoas smashing and opening. But with my athletes, we just do that. I try to keep it super simple for them. I love that because not only is it simple, but it's something like when I travel, I don't always have room for a fucking hard ball to bring. Right. So having something where I can only, I only need my hands to really get in there and work on things to open them up. That makes a

lot of sense to me. Yeah. And it comes down to being personal as well. You know, if I have an athlete who regularly can't access their diaphragm, then we might need some different strategies for them. But this is just a general one that everyone goes through and they may not need this technique. But we just kind of use that as a quick reset. Let's get in and get training. And especially if you're training, you know, UFC fighters,

I get these guys for two to three hours a week. There's so much stuff we have to do that I have to really pick and choose. Let's find something really simple, get it activated, get ready to go, and then we'll get into the rest of the stuff we have to do for today. Because if we spend 10 minutes smashing and opening and all that, it might not be the best use of our time. Yeah. And athletes, they're pressed for time, especially when you're talking about guys that are in MMA, they have two or three training practices every single day. They have to warm up and prep for each of those. Right. So like, have you become, how you become efficient matters because that efficiency is utilized

throughout the day in every practice. Right. And add to that, they're usually 15 minutes late for training anyway. So we have to cut out a lot of time. They're on Brazilian time and fighter time. So that combined is a half an hour late. Yeah. So we've talked a bit about when it is appropriate to try to dip into the sympathetic nervous system, how to prep that to open up the body in our warmups. What are some of the ways you get guys to calm down?

Because what I've found in my post-fight career and talking with people and, and, you know, getting behind the microphone, getting a lot of questions, there's a lot of overstressed people and they're maybe not going to get punched in the face, like if somebody that's in the UFC, but at the same time, they're high stress, they're high strung and they would do better to wind shit down as well. So let's dive into that. Yeah. And I think that's the most powerful thing we teach from a breathing standpoint. That's at least in my experience, the people I've worked with, I've taught them simple protocols and I've had people who reach out. I've gave them a tip on Instagram and people reach out a month

later and say that completely changed my life. You know, the anxiety and stress I was dealing with, I use that protocol and it's something super simple, but I think that that's, it's such low hanging fruit and our society is very high stress. We're so connected. We're so just go, go, go all the time. So I think if we can give people the tools to learn how to come out of that state and get into a parasympathetic state and using the mind and the breathing are two of the absolute best tools you can use, because they're the simplest ones. I love using saunas and ice baths and all the other great stuff too.

But so that's what we like to teach. And the really simple way to look at it, we like to look at parasympathetic triggers and how there's a lot of them that are breathing related. So for me, when I teach a protocol, that's trying to get somebody into a parasympathetic state, I try to use as many of those triggers as possible. So what we've seen in the research

is breathing-related parasympathetic triggers or just triggers in general. Nasal breathing is a parasympathetic trigger. Diaphragmatic breathing and nasal breathing helps to activate the diaphragm. So those two go hand in hand. Long exhales. So the exhale itself is parasympathetic. And that was something we did when I was looking at heart rate too.

We just did a big inhale, a big exhale, and I was watching. And as the guy was going through it, his heart rate would go up about two beats during the inhale and would start to drop three beats during the exhale. So exhales are naturally parasympathetic. When you exhale longer than seven seconds, that was found in a couple of studies to be another trigger for parasympathetic. When you exhale longer than seven seconds, that was found in a couple of studies to be another trigger for parasympathetic activity. Mindfulness, so being focused on the breath and not allowing your mind to go into anything that's creating that stress and anxiety

is another great way to get into a parasympathetic state. And then we use like flexion positions as well because they're very parasympathetic. So I take advantage of as many of those triggers as possible, depending on how stressed people are. But the great part about them is you can do some of these things you can just do in your car. So one of the protocols we give people is a really simple cadence breath. I tell them a one to two ratio of inhale to exhale. So whatever your capacity is, you just take that and run with it. That could be four seconds in, eight seconds out. Yep. And most of my fighters, that's what they do for a four eight. They don't like to think about too much other stuff. So it's just four, eight, four. My,

one of my guys, when he was said he was walking out to the Octagon last time, and all he was thinking was four, eight, four, and he probably wasn't even doing the breathing because there's a lot of stuff going on. I'm sure he wasn't doing eight second exhales, but because he had his mind focused on that, it was allowing him to stay calm as he walked out to the octagon. He's one of those guys who just like, he wants to put his head through a wall three days before the fight.

So his goal was we need to keep him calm and allow him to, yeah, turn it on when he needs to versus just being on all the time. So that's one of the things we'll teach people. I like to go in the nose, and I actually prefer a hissing exhale, unless you're out in public and you don't want to do that. But I like that the hissing between the teeth is also,

I actually learned that from another breathing coach, and I haven't found it validated in research yet, but I've heard from a lot of people that the vibrations on the teeth and the lips and the tongue can be soothing and parasympathetic. So I like that hissing exhale. And it also allows people to control long exhales

if they're not really good at controlling their breath, because you can just regulate how much air is leaking out slow. So we use that all the time. Those are the protocols that we use for people to get out of that stress state. And I really combine those protocols and make them into different things.

So I'll have a bedtime protocol, a post-work protocol. I'll have a post-training protocol, all of these different protocols that are designed for these high stress times to bring you back down. And they're usually a similar structure of that. The one other thing is submaximal breath holds. Because when people hold their breath, it's a great way to be mindful of the breath.

As soon as they, and exhale holds are, I like better. They're a little bit more relaxed. People don't hold onto tension like they do when they inhale. So it's kind of relaxed attention, hold your breath. And they're submaximal. So it could be 10, 20 seconds, but it's a great time to just be aware of your body to just check in with your breath.

And then the key is they have to be submaximal. So if people start to really hold their breath and that's not gonna be relaxation, that's gonna be stressful. So that's what we'll combine. I'll combine some submaximal breath holds with some slow exhales and I'll keep it super simple and I'll have them count their tempos. So that's a great way to keep them mindful.

As you know, almost every meditation starts with follow the breath, count the breath, count inhales and exhales, whatever. There's always some sort of counting or some sort of focus task to get you to be focused on the breath. So I always have my athletes do that. And every other people we work with,

I have them do that same protocol. And I have a tactical breathing protocol that I wrote for law enforcement, military, that was designed for them to be able to use to control their arousal when they're on task, like when they're in the middle of a mission or they're in a car chase or something. They have a protocol that is designed to help keep them in a moderate level of arousal so they don't get over aroused and start to lose their- Nobody likes over arousal. Yeah.

Start to lose their capabilities. It's certainly not as a police officer or someone in the military. For sure. Yeah. That's one of the keys. They have to be able to maintain that state. So, and that's what all the protocols are based on. Using as many of those triggers as possible, counting the breath, being mindful of the breath, and then slowing those exhales down. And I like to use a lot of other little psychology tricks too. So I'll do association when I do this stuff. So I'll listen to a certain playlist when every time I do my post-workout recovery breathing, I have a playlist and it's titled by my mantra, which is just let go. Okay. So anytime I'm in a stressed state,

I have, it's like six songs on there and they're all relaxing are you on spotify premium uh yeah yeah so you got your list on there i don't think i have that one shared oh come on maybe i will now if people ask me for it maybe i will yeah yeah aubrey's got like his ecstatic dance on his spotify yeah i listen to some of his stuff yeah but that's all i do and i tell myself that same mantra. So I like to not really when I post workout, but when I, if I'm in a stressful state, I get anxiety a lot when I fly and I fly a lot. I don't, I get claustrophobic. So I don't like small spaces. So I'll do that same protocol. And I, every time I'm going to do an exhale, I just tell myself, just let go. And I listened to that music and you start to, your

brain starts to associate those things together. Just like that fighter walking out, counting that four, eight in his head, his brain associates the counting of the four, eight with relaxation states. And he might not even be using the actual breathing. It's just the fact that he's getting his mind focused on that that helps him get in that relaxed state.

Yeah, neurons that fire together, wire together. Yeah, exactly. You can create those patterns. And so often when we're not mindful, we don't realize like our brain's constantly creating patterns. It doesn't, it doesn't matter if we're paying attention or not. It's filing shit and whatever cubby hole it thinks it needs to go to. So it doesn't have to work as hard. Yeah. Right. But if we're not paying attention, we can just as easily build bad habits. Absolutely. Like, and especially if you've, if your breathing mechanics

have been mispatterned your entire life, it's probably worth taking a look at, right? Because that might be hard if you're listening to this and you're like, all right, so I just slow it down. But you're breathing into your chest and your forecount in. You may not be able to dip into parasympathetic in the way that we're describing.

Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the keys. That's why I always start with breathing for health and fixing patterns first. And because most people, I always get that question, do you really need to teach people how to breathe? Don't we do that? Don't we all know how to do that?

And the answer is your biology is not designed to help you thrive. It's designed to keep you alive. So you're all breathing fine. That's why you're still here listening to this podcast, but it's just keeping you alive. And I always say, if you don't control your breathing, it will control you. So like you said, there's no middle ground. You're either optimizing it and having it work for you, or it's working against road, and they don't even know that it was created from this 40 years of dysfunctional breathing and all the other crap you were doing,

or it just might be something small that you never really notice because you just don't know what it feels like to be living at 100%. So you just live your whole life at 70% and just have no idea that you could feel that much better or perform that much better in the gym or have that much more energy because you've never optimized those strategies.

So like you said, your brain is always creating those associations. So if you don't take the time to fix that, and there's simple ways to do it. You don't have to spend an hour laying on your back breathing all the time. I don't do that. I don't spend 30 minutes a day just doing breath work.

I do it before, during, and after training all the time. And I train almost every day. I focus on my breathing when I'm doing my mobility work in the mornings. I do it when I'm stressed. And then if I've got time and I wanna spend 10 minutes and just go through a protocol, I'll go through it. But I don't have an hour-long meditation,

breathing practice every single day. And I don't think you need to. I think that's where some of the yogis probably lost a lot of people because it turned into too much of the, they want you to be a monk. Yeah. And no one, not everyone has to do that. I think there's tons of benefits to that. And I think if you start with five minutes, you'll probably start to get closer to realizing how powerful those things are. But I think it's just, no one's going to take that jump. I've mentioned this before on the podcast,

but it really is like greasing the groove. You know, it's Pavel Tutsulin's concept on how you're training. Your training is a practice, right? It's a practice in working towards something. It's not, I'm going to beat myself up for an hour, right? So same thing goes. You don't have an hour to go to the gym. You can do-ups all day long and at the end of the day you might have 500 fucking push-ups right it's just so you that builds up over time and for sure that's a great

way to train similarly you might not have 30 minutes to meditate but if you've got five minutes here and five minutes there you can for sure you can get more than 30 by the end of the day especially if you're able to incorporate that, you know, on your morning commute or any other time, right? When you can decide like, oh, I'm alone. I've got some, let me throw on that playlist and let me just hit some really easy breathing here. You know, not super long breath holds in the car.

I think I go without saying, but fucking I've gotten shit for that before without mentioning it. So disclaimer, don't do it. I did some of the super ventilation once in the car, started getting lightheaded. And I was like, this was really stupid. I've done that. I used to do that on my drives up to Jesse Burdick's place in, uh, he was in Danville and I would drive from San Jose to Danville about 45 minutes, throw on a podcast. And as I got close, you know, like kind

of driving through Pleasanton, I'd start my super ventilation. And I just did what I wouldn't hold that long at all. It'd be really submaximal. Yeah. Like probably 50% or less. And I felt good there, you know? Yeah. So I think you've done a great job unpacking the breath work. And it is absolutely critical.

If I was to say there is one piece, I mean, even Paul Cech says this when he goes through, I don't know that I'll remember all these, but he has six like key pieces to optimizing your life. It starts with your thoughts. That's number one. Second thing on the list is breath, right? And he uses the example, you can go without food for so long. You can go without water for less long. You can go without air for less than fucking water. Laird says that all the time. You can go weeks without food for so long. You can go without water for less long. You can go without air for less than fucking water. Laird says that all the time. You can go weeks without food, days without water, minutes without breath. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how you prioritize that, right? But it is something we take for granted. Out of that, aside from the breath, which is for sure the most important, what are the other things that you've picked up either before or during working with XPT that are really something that moves the bar for people?

I think the recovery strategies and just the concept of recovery and the pool stuff, I think the biggest thing that stood out for me that didn't stand out at first because I'm such a, it's funny because I have a background in psychology, but I'm such a performance science. If it's not moving the needle for an in psychology, but I'm such a performance science. If it, you know, if it's not moving the needle for an athlete and increasing their vertical jump by six inches, I don't really care. That's how I've always thought. And really, I think I saw too many of the, the kook trainers who were like, they always said, validated their methods in, in the psychological and the things that you couldn't, that there's no way to objectify. So I always shied away from that stuff. So when I got in with XPT, I was like, okay, well, let's look at the physiology

of what's happening in these things. And I want to look at the physiology of ice baths and all of that stuff. And then I started doing this stuff with my athletes. And I realized that the mental side of it was just so massive for myself personally, for the athletes I worked with, for the people coming to these experiences. And I think it, I actually reposted something, a quote from you a while ago too. And it was just about doing things that are hard and the mindset, the resilience that you build from doing those things.

And I think it goes twofold. I think one is when you regularly expose yourself to things that are challenging, it helps you build that mental resilience. I think it helps you build that even more when you start telling yourself that I'm the type of person who does these things and most people don't do this.

You know, that's something for me, I'll jump into the ice bath because I don't want to and because I know most people don't do that. And for me, it helps me feel like I have that edge. When I run into that other person in business and whatever it is, I'm gonna have that edge because every day I'm doing that thing that most people aren't doing.

But then it also gives you an opportunity to practice those techniques we just talked about. So we put people in the ice bath and we talk all about breathing when you're stressed and mindfulness and all these things. I'm like, oh, that's great. Okay. And guaranteed they go sit in traffic on the way home

and it all goes out the window. But when we take them, we go, okay, well, now we're going to put you in a very safe environment, but it's going to feel like you're going to die. We'll throw you in a 32 degree ice bath and you have to sit in there for three minutes and figure out how to use all those things because it's going to invoke the opposite reaction

in everybody. And I had my breathing coach who taught me all this stuff, taught me how to relax, taught me how to use breathing. I put her in a 32 degree ice bath and I didn't coach her because I'm thinking like she taught me this stuff yeah as soon as she went in she immediately turned and looked at me like you know that that response of what do I do what do I do because your brain just overwires all of your logical thought and then very quickly she used her breathing to calm herself down but it was that immediate response Whereas most people don't even have that. This girl has 10 years of practicing this. She has all the skills. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But for that first

five, 10 seconds, she lost everything. She forgot all of that. So you put a normal person in there and it's a great opportunity to practice using that stuff. And I think that, I know for me personally, I do that stuff regularly and I use the breathing and I use the mindfulness. And I get in the ice bath sometimes by myself and right away, your brain starts to go into that, I don't really have to stay in for five minutes today. You know, I'm kind of stressed out

and maybe 30 seconds will be good. And for me, it's like, as soon as I hear those thoughts come on, I start using my mindfulness. I start using my breathing to overwire that. And that's what the trigger for me that tells me I have to stay for five minutes. You're already there though too.

And that's such like a critical piece to this that Dan John once said, just show up, right? Like 90% of it is just showing up. You're sore. You're not sure if you should work out today. Just show up to the fucking gym. If all you do is mobility and break a sweat, that's good. That's a win, right? So for me, because I have the same thoughts, it's never easy. Even when I'm consistent, it's not easy, right? But it's that just get in. Just get in the fucking ice bath and don't worry

about the time. And as I slow my breathing down, you get in the zone. And when you do that and you have all those things working towards that one piece, then I'm like, fuck it, I'll stay in for five minutes. This is nothing right now. But the knee jerk reaction is always like, all right, I'm doing just a minute or I'm just going to do two minutes

or there's chunks of ice floating in this thing. I'm not going to stay in long. And then it's just, all right, I know what to do once I get in. I have to slow it down. And from there, it's very easy to make the choice to continue a little longer. Yeah. And we always say that. I think it's really cool. The cool thing for me too, is I'm super fascinated by the military. I love reading about elite military operators and just the things that they do, the training they do. I just, I love elite performers like that.

And I went to a talk from the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden in Houston a couple of weeks ago. And it was like all these things he was saying. I'm like, that's what we teach at XPT. Just, we're not teaching it to military. Well, we do have military operators, but we're teaching those same concepts that they're beating to these guys' head

in Navy SEAL training, in the teams and all this stuff and the same mental resilience and all the stuff they're teaching. So it was so cool for me to connect those dots. And one of the things he said that I loved was what they tell people if they want to quit in BUDS training is if you want to quit, quit tomorrow. And I always say when you get out of the ice bath, if you're about to get out, give me three controlled breaths and then make the decision to get out. Nine times out of 10, people don't get out. But it's that, don't let your overwhelming emotions

create this decision for you. Take three breaths and then allow that conscious decision whether or not you want to get out. And then you can make the decision if you want to get out. Just like, don't let this overwhelming fatigue, stress, all this emotion cause you to go quit right now. Wait till tomorrow. And then if you want to quit when you wake up tomorrow,

then you can quit. And again, nine times out of 10, you're not going to because you realize that whatever that was in that minute is not really as bad as you're making it seem in your mind. So I think that's the biggest carryover. But then from a physical standpoint, there's a ton of benefits,

which I know you're very aware of when it comes to exposing yourself to saunas, ice baths. I think the pool training is very impactful because it's just a unique way to train. You know, I think it can be used by so many different groups. And there's a lot of groups doing similar stuff. Well, I use it for just recovery for my athletes.

But we do recovery workouts. And the goal of a recovery workout was stimulate blood flow so we can clear out metabolic waste products and aid in recovery. So we did concentric only type work. So we'd ride the bike for 30 minutes or something. We'd incorporate some breath work in there. The more I started learning about breathing. We try to get a little bit of an aerobic workout in there anyway, because we want

to kill two birds with one stone. We might as well stuff out at the same time. Yeah. So let's just train aerobics energy system. Let's stimulate a parasympathetic response afterwards, all of these things that we were doing. But for us, it was like ride the bike for 45 minutes and you're in this fixed position and you do that over and over. Whereas the pool allowed us to do all those things. We get a whole bunch of other benefits like a respiratory muscle workout, hypoxic training, practicing the breathing techniques in this stressful environments, the mindfulness of it, which is massive, learning how to stay relaxed in the pool and in these stressful situations when you're doing a farmer's carry in a 12 foot pool. And then, you know, learning that balance between moving fast, but not wasting

energy, kind of finding that relaxation balance. And then we get to move in a whole bunch of different ways. So instead of just doing it on the bike for 45 minutes, well, let's move your body in different planes of motion, different patterns. And open yourself up. Yeah, ways that you can't even move on land. So unique positions. And I think that was really cool that we did with, when I started incorporating that into our recovery days with my fighters. And we're not in the gym.

We're outside in a pool. So it was awesome. That's such a critical piece for so many, like if you are a professional athlete or if you're only used to, you know, you work out at Gold's or whatever the case is. If you have that one thing and that's your place that you go and that's your workout, like your cross-training and downtime days where you're doing active recovery and things like that, they should break that mold. They should get you out into a new space, either out in nature or in the pool or in the ocean or fill in the blank. But it should be something where it's like it's fresh because you look forward to that then. And then it becomes something you actually want

to do more often. Yeah. I mean, that's the key for recovery. I think that's where we go wrong sometimes too. And even with ice baths, one of the things I realized with a lot of the research I was doing was if you're looking to help people recover, if they hate doing ice baths, it's probably not the best strategy for them. You know, maybe from a mindset standpoint, it can be a good strategy, but if you're working with elite athletes and they need to recover before a competition and they just hate it, it's probably not the best strategy. And I look at the same way with certain massages too. I think people go too far from a recovery standpoint and they, they take, they wear it as a badge of honor when they make people cry on the massage table

for an hour and a half. It's probably not what you needed at that time. Maybe from a muscular standpoint, that's what they needed in that specific joint. But I got a massage once after the certifications because I'm on my feet, I'm teaching for eight hours, three straight days. So I got a massage and the goal was,

I'm always feeling beat up and tight and I just want to feel better before the next day. And that I got tortured for an hour and a half and I was like, this is not what I needed. I was so stressed coming in here. I didn't need all this more stress. This did not help me at all. So it's kind of finding out, you know,

I think we like to beat the crap out of ourselves. And if you can get people out of the gym and doing something they enjoy and make it beneficial, then they'll keep doing it. Yeah. The bell curve on that. And so much of these things is like, if it's like for massage, for example, if it's too light, you know, like Swedish, they're just rubbing your skin. You're like, come on, you know, I need a little bit more than that. But you can go to the other extreme where if you're in pain, it's like when Kelly Surrett says, don't make the pain face while you're rolling out. Your body knows what's going on.

If you're sitting there fucking squinting and going, oh, God, that muscle's not going to loosen up for you. It just won't. That's not the way the body works. So finding that happy medium of where you can relax and breathe into it, that's where the body will open up and you'll get the result you're looking for. Yeah, it's funny how every single thing in fitness and life is always on that spectrum. And the right answer is always somewhere in the middle. People live on those other ends

and they scream at each other about how important each end is, but the right answer is always somewhere in the middle. Yeah, and those extreme ends aren't sustainable, right? And you might be able to do that for a short period of time, but they're not sustainable practices. I mean, something that I saw mma when i was in it was that there were extremes people would fucking take a lot of time off in between camps and they'd go balls to the wall during camp you know over train for six to eight weeks and then back off training only in

the last two weeks and show up to the fight still over-trained half the time sick or injured because they thought that would be enough time to, to make up for the fact that they had over-trained that whole fucking training camp. Right. And like, we know that's impossible. Yep. You know, like that's not true periodization and, and certainly it's, it's, it's look no further than how many dudes get injured right around fight week. Always, always. Right. Those last three weeks,

when I started working with fighters, it was like all my guys, we were doing really great and they would feel their best about four weeks out. And then they'd start to break down. They'd start to get sick. They'd start to get overtrained. And then the last two and a half weeks was like, let's just make it to fight week.

Let's just make it to the fight. Like, let's just survive. For me, training was just pull it back off, back off, back off, back off, because they weren't periodizing. They were just overtraining. A lot of them were coming in out of shape because they looked at a fight camp as,

now I need to get ready for a fight and get in shape versus stay in shape. And then let's, you know, get ready for the fight. So that was one of the biggest things I did was start giving them a rest week in the middle of camp, which was hard for them because that was their only eight weeks of getting ready. But it was like, we're going to deload. I can just take the week off, but we're going to deload. We're going to change intensity. We're going to change durations. Now it's hard because MMA,

as you know, there's 17 coaches that are all doing stuff. So for me, it was like, well, at least the stuff we're going to do is all going to stimulate recovery. And I'm going to try to convince you to maybe not go to that practice with that coach who runs you into the ground for four hours. Yeah. Let's just take this one off this week. Yeah. It is a pissing contest in a lot of ways. Like boxing coach, even if you're just, even if it's just mitt work, hard mitt work, hard bag work, right?

And you did to like, all right, we're going to drill for a little bit now, hard rolls for 30 minutes. Like, well, fucking, I just sparred today hard as I could jujitsu, like, all right, we're going to drill for a little bit. Now hard rolls for 30 minutes. Like, well, fucking, I just sparred today hard as I could. You know, like, why do I have to roll as hard as I can, you know, on the same day? And then it mitts as hard as I can on the same day. Like, it's not, it's not, I don't know. We've seen, you're still in the game. Obviously, we've both seen it progress.

And because MMA is kind of still in its infancy there's a lot of room for development you know the nfl has it fucking dialed they realize like their players need to see health stay healthy for through a long season right so they're going to back off appropriately and then utilize the best in in recovery protocols and everything that goes with that even the best in medicine yeah for that right? You hear guys in the NFL that are spending half a million dollars a year on recovery, like on massage. And I think I heard LeBron James spends like a million dollars a year on his body.

Yeah, I remember when- Just on his training and his recovery. I think it was Bill Romanowski was one of the first guys to sleep in a hyperbaric chamber. Terrell Owens did it when he was in the Super Bowl and had the high ankle sprain with the Eagles. I think Romanowski used to have like a massage therapist that would come and stretch him and massage him every single day it was two people actually I actually got stretched by them they

were from the East Bay also I think Hayward and when I was working with Victor Conti he set me up with them but they would do like two like four hands at the same time it was a guy and a girl they were a couple and like nothing would open me up like that. Cause it was stretch as well as massage. And they would do like ART before it was ART. So they kind of worked through knots, open it up and just get the fascia to move all the way across your body.

And they would work in that X pattern cross body. So I might have the guy on my right arm and while the girl's on my left leg. And that, yeah, I mean, Romo's fucking dialed. He's also buddies, you know, with, with Gabby and Laird and, and, uh, I got to meet him at, at the XPT that I was at. Um, well, shit, man, where can people find you and where can people follow XPT and jump into some of this stuff? Do you offer any of this training online to people or is it all just in person? Yeah. So right now we have a certification that's in person. It's two and a half day course, but we're, that's what I was in San Francisco

filming. So we're going to put it online and we're going to make it available separate. So right now it's like the level one course covers breathe, move, recover. And it really it's breathing, pool training, recovery. And we go deep through the science of hot and cold immersions for the recovery. And then we're going to split that up into pieces so we can allow people to just take the breathing, just take the pool, just take the recovery. So that'll be available probably early next year. Right now it's just in person, but you can find anything XPT on our website, xptlife.com or on xptlife Instagram. Most of what I do goes on there. I write articles and content, all it goes through XPT. And then I have my social media is all coach PJ Nessler.

And I post a lot of just tips, anything that comes to mind that I think will help people. I'll just post it up on my social media. Okay, brother. Well, we'll link to all that in the show notes. Uh, it's been awesome having you here. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me down. Yeah, brother. We'll invite you back on for sure. I appreciate it. Awesome, brother. Thank you. Thank you guys for listening

to the Human Optimization Hour podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a five-star review. It helps other people find the show. Also, you want 10% off all supplements and food products, go to onnit.com slash podcast.