{"id":"1773775610426-xaNl2EY8b-c","videoId":"xaNl2EY8b-c","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaNl2EY8b-c","title":"How To Breathe Properly | Brian Mackenzie | Modern Wisdom Podcast 121","type":"youtube","topicCount":14,"segmentCount":112,"createdAt":"2026-03-17T19:26:50.426Z","uploadDate":"20191118","chunks":[{"title":"Introduction and the Missing Link","summary":"The host introduces Brian Mackenzie to discuss breathwork. They reflect on how even top strength and conditioning coaches often overlook the profound role breathing plays in performance.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: Today, 500 million years ago, aerobic metabolism sits at the forefront of the most efficient way to use energy. And so, anything outside of aerobic metabolism becomes anaerobic. So, if I don't have that process, that conversion of energy, I'll default very simply, and we should, to this higher stress situation of using energy. So, anaerobic doesn't necessarily become a training process, it's more or less the byproduct of I'm no longer able to handle aerobically what's going on. So, how quickly I can come back to that aerobic is literally how well I can. So, having a very high aerobic capacity means I function higher aerobically. So, when we look at people like a guy smashing the two-hour marathon, what does he look like physiologically? And although there's, like, look, to be totally hon- like, look, I support and I'm very happy for the man and everything, but realistically, if he were in the same setup as they were in 1950, or even 1980, he wouldn't have run a sub-two-hour marathon.","offset":0,"duration":69},{"text":"Host: I'm joined by Brian Mackenzie, the man behind Power Speed Endurance, and today we are talking about something that you will all be familiar with, but are probably doing a little bit wrong: breathing. Brian, welcome to the show.","offset":69,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian: Thanks for having me.","offset":81,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: It's gonna be awesome. I'm really excited to speak about this sort of stuff today. We've been talking about endurance a lot recently. Had Alex Hutchinson, writer of Runner's World on analyzing Eliud Kipchoge's recent performance. We've had Brian Carroll from Power-X-Strength on talking about squatting over a thousand pounds, and all of this is enabled by a lot of different things, but I guess principally, one of those is breath work, right?","offset":82,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, well, physiology, and almost chemistry is regulated through our breath. So, anything and everything- I mean, I- I- I've known Alex for quite some time, we've kind of gone back and forth over the years, he's a great fucking kid, man. I like him a lot. I don't know your other- the other guy, but to squat a thousand pounds is to understand some things.","offset":111,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: He really does. He really does understand some things. I mean, Kelly Starrett, we just released an episode with him today, we've had Dr. Stu McGill on, so, you know, we've had a lot of these guys, and when they talk about this, even, you know, Kelly and- and- and Stu, people that are really, really kind of at the- the top of their game, very well respected in their field, it's rare that I hear someone bring up breath work. Why do you think that is?","offset":138,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Kelly- Kelly didn't. Kelly didn't, no. We were talking a bit about the Game Changers- we were talking about the Game Changers documentary and veganism, we went off on a rabbit hole down that.","offset":164,"duration":8}],"startTime":0},{"title":"Discovering Breath Mechanics","summary":"Brian shares his background in endurance training and yoga. He explains how skeptically trying an altitude training mask surprisingly taught him about diaphragm activation and spinal organization.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: Oh, really? Wow. No, I know Kelly's very much into the breath work at this point. Uh, I mean, I introduced it to him, so, you know, and I know he- he uses it inside of his- 101s and 102 courses now, so, you know, from his work. But, you know, at any rate, Kelly's been a very close comrade of mine for a very long time. Um, so we've kind of grown up in the industry together, but, you know, the- it's interesting how I stumbled onto the breath work and why, even though I was introduced to it quite some time ago, and it just didn't take. And I understand why it didn't take, um, because it was never explained in a way that made sense to, especially, a guy who was participating in strength and conditioning was all about performance.","offset":172,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, I understand. So, I- I- I entered into this world of yoga many years ago and had a yoga practice because I was a triathlete who was getting tight. And when you get tight, you need to loosen up. And so I went to yoga and I ended up enjoying yoga real- like a ton. And I chased around a yogi in Ashtanga um, that was really good at what she was doing. But I just never paid attention to the fact that we were in- we were utilizing a breath practice at the foundation of this practice. Like we were controlling our breathing, we were told to control our breathing, we were told to control our breathing in specific patterns. You know, this went on and on, and I was like, you know, I just remember it blowing over to a large degree.","offset":223,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian: And that in and of itself is kind of how we all behave to a large degree, and I'm- I'll connect all this through this talk so that it makes sense for everybody else. Um, you know, but I largely just paid attention to the fact that I needed to get more flexible or more mobile at the time. And then I drifted away from yoga for a little bit, really got hardcore into endurance training, obviously wrote a couple books on that and came to a pretty good understanding of some ways to tweak things for people who are busy um, and who were injured. Um, you know, and that that was a big part of my career for about 10 or 12 years. And then somebody handed me a training mask and I laughed, and I was like, \"This doesn't change altitude. I know how pressure works. I've actually worked on altitude training for quite some time and this can't change pressure.\" So, you know, but nonetheless, you know, when you you you make fun of something and if you're in you know, done enough work in your life to understand that you haven't if you're making fun of things or you're crit- criticizing things that you've never used, that's called ignorance.","offset":276,"duration":75},{"text":"Brian: And I didn't want to remain ignorant to something, so I put the damn thing on. And I instantly went from like I'm seated now to I sat up and I engaged my diaphragm and I felt my ribs expand out and, like, my back light up, and like I was like, \"Whoa!\" Like, you know, it was it was just- I tend to feel a lot. And because of my background in teaching movement and getting people fixed, or helping people to fix themselves, I um, you know, I I was just like, \"Whoa, here- whoa! What happened? Like maybe we've got something that I could put on my athletes when they're warming up so that we can get 'em moving properly and using their you know, their core correctly, organizing their spine in a way that it should be, because, oh shit, like it just so happens that we organize the spine based on our diaphragm. We have to. At the- at the root of who we are and what we do is a system that is dependent upon one thing, and that is life. And that life is predicated on a deal that was made 500 million years ago in order to use aerobic metabolism.","offset":351,"duration":74}],"startTime":172},{"title":"The Physiological Alarms of CO2","summary":"Brian explains how rising carbon dioxide levels trigger deep survival alarms in the brain. Poor breathing mechanics can default the body into unnecessary anaerobic stress responses, even at rest.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: So, suffocation sits at the heart of that. So we could remove our amygdala, our panic- our freak out- our, not our panic center, our fear center, and you will still have chemoreceptors that will set you off in a panic when carbon dioxide levels raise. So, if I'm not organized correctly around my spine, I don't use my diaphragm correctly, so I default into poor breathing patterns. So, this is a rabbit hole of movement that really made more sense to something about organization of the spine, right? And there's a- there's a lot of minutia around the spine and organization and core stability and everything we want to do, but by and large we have figured out and theorized that the only reason you need to organize that spine correctly is to actually take a breath and understand that breath. Because the lungs don't do that work on their own. The diaphragm is the primary in that and then we follow up through the intercostals and several other muscles that end up getting involved. But poor breathing habits elicit poor responses including that of the sympathetic nervous system, or I default into some poor breathing patterns that have me using my anaerobic system more than necessary.","offset":425,"duration":71},{"text":"Host: And is that in and out of exercise?","offset":496,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Yes, that is without exercise, my friend.","offset":498,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Wow.","offset":500,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: You are constantly using anaerobic systems and aerobic systems at all times. We all- we're like- this is- we know this. What we started seeing was like look man, we took a look back, so this started with a training mask and it inevitably became like \"Oh shit, you've got your own training mask on your face, it's called a nose.\" And holy crap, it like it has this filter system and it's got these- this humidification system, it's got- oh my gosh, this thing, mucus, oh, it releases like immune cells. Like, um, so it helps my immune system function better. I spinning the air differently, it forces my diaphragm to actually pull more because it's- it's not allowing for fast air to happen. It doesn't mean we can't breathe through our mouth or shouldn't, it's just when is it necessary? And we can get into that in a bit if you want. But, you know, it- it's interesting we we started understanding we started looking at the physiology behind all this stuff and the framework behind physiology, and we've missed some big, big things.","offset":501,"duration":71}],"startTime":425},{"title":"CO2 Tolerance and Oxygen Efficiency","summary":"Looking at cellular respiration, Brian discusses how carbon dioxide tolerance dictates our efficiency in using oxygen. He contrasts the static CO2 tolerance of freedivers with the dynamic needs of working athletes.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: And it- it's all there, it's just the way we've taught it and the way we've looked at it has not been real um, I would say it- it's not a very creative process, thus why it's eluded us. And even in the world of yoga today they've missed it, and they've misunderstood what it is that pranayama actually means. And pranayama is a word that is basically- it's a Sanskrit word that's probably about 5,000 years old, and there's other languages that use these very similar terminology, including um, Hebrew, um, that it means \"energy control\" at its root. It also means \"breath control.\" Odd that they're the same. Odd that we use a cardiometabolic device in order to measure our breath, which tells us what's happening from a cellular level. So, through cellular respiration, we understand the only way we can we measure that is through the gas exchange of what's going on here.","offset":572,"duration":58},{"text":"Brian: So, we said let's look at this realistically and see what happens. And so we started measuring things, and we were measuring things in many different ways including just a simple breath practice um, or hey, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to walk my dog. And Rob Wilson, who's my counterpart in the Art of Breath, who's our lead on education- he's our Director of Education, um, went for a walk with his dogs with his mouth open. And then he came back, reset his device, and we have portable metabolic carts, and he shut his mouth and went for a walk with his dogs, the exact same route. Turns out those are two different and totally, totally different metabolic profiles. Weird. And- and it's not weird. This has been said for thousands of years. We're not actually bringing- we're not actually saying things that, you know, are that crazy, but unfortunately they are crazy in our world because there's so many really, really, really smart scientific people who we look to who've missed the boat on a lot of this stuff, and the simplicity of it.","offset":630,"duration":72},{"text":"Brian: And it's not that they're dumb or that they've you what- whatever, it's just we weren't really looking at this. And so we started really going after not only the movement and and and how the mechanics work around this, but then the physiology, right? Um, and then starting to see that, oh wow, it's all chemistry in the body is regulated through our breath. All of it. So how we shift from alkaline to acidic is literally governed through how I breathe, and how I absorb oxygen is dependent upon how well my body actually plays with this molecule this- this thing called carbon dioxide. In the body in the blood it's carbonic acid, and then as we exhale as it gas exchange it becomes carbon dioxide. But I am largely dependent upon how well I actually react to that and that can, you know, that has other facets to it, I'll go here in a second. But my relationship to carbon dioxide is actually how well I play with oxygen and how well I'm efficient- how efficient I am at using oxygen.","offset":702,"duration":64},{"text":"Brian: So, I may be a freediver who can actually sit here and do breath work and be very, very, very oxygen efficient because I can hold my breath for long periods of time, which also requires an ex- a very high level of CO2 tolerance. This is static CO2 tolerance. This is non-working CO2 tolerance. When we look at training or we look at human performance- and I use quotes because performance I think is- we're about to kind of shift a paradigm on what human performance is. Um, but the idea that if I work- like, when I start to work out, that shifts. There's a different response, or there's a- there's a very different play that happens within CO2 tolerance. And so I've been I've been able to observe and take people who are freedivers who are highly specialized, or big-wave surfers who are also, you know, freedivers in essence to some degree, but they're highly specialized.","offset":766,"duration":65},{"text":"Brian: And when we apply work to them, we see a very different story happen. So we see the specialist kind of come apart, right? Meaning, there's a very different- like that CO2 tolerance that was really high when I'm static and not a lot of stressors going on, or a big wave- some things like that- I'm very accustomed to. When I start working out, my respiration rate goes up considerably higher than it would with somebody, let's say, let's call it, you know, Eliud, right? His respiration rate isn't going to go up so high, right? But the interesting thing here is I would bet if Eliud's never really participated in any sort of static breathing or carbon dioxide tolerance training, he's probably shit statically. Right? And so there's this weird world that we started to see.","offset":831,"duration":46}],"startTime":572},{"title":"The Neurobiology of Respiration","summary":"Brian breaks down the neurobiology of breathing, from the neocortex down to the brain stem. He explains how unconscious respiration centers constantly react to emotional states and physiological predictions.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: Now, my fascination is in connection with the brain and- so the neurobiology of it and the physiology. I'm- I- I'm now considering what physiology is more or less our mind. Our abili- that's what our mind is, and our ability to connect to the mind and understand the feelings and the processes and the things that are going on. And so the brain is where the circuitry and- and the information is being sent out. The brain works perfectly fine as long as we're connected to the physiology and understand the physiology. If we don't understand the physiology, the brain will get away from us and start overthinking, right? And so as kids, when we come into this world, we have this thing where we're attached to a parent and we learn- this is- it's unavoidable, right? And and so from a neurobiological perspective, at the top layer, the most evolved part of the brain is our neocortex, and this is where the stories- this is where some of the emotional things, like, start to trigger.","offset":877,"duration":65},{"text":"Brian: But this is where the storytelling, motor control- a lot of- there's a lot of dedicated area to motor control in the brain, um, to where we can do different tasks. Like I can talk or- like I can talk and drink water at the same time, or think and drink water. You know what I mean? I mean, just simple basic shit that we go throughout our day that some of us confuse ourselves in thinking it's multitasking, of which it's not. Um, so that's the storytelling side of things. Below that becomes the limbic system. This is where emotions are now concrete and set up in the system, and where I will have a reaction emotionally to something, and then the storytelling gets played into there, right? And so it can get exacerbated. Then down below that, we have the brain stem where the- or we could call it the reptilian brain, the oldest part of the brain. And this is where the kind of evolution of everything takes place. Oh, it just so happens that our respiration centers are set up in that brain stem. So, meaning, they are on autopilot with my system, and they can respond to every emotion and every thought that I have.","offset":942,"duration":60},{"text":"Brian: It also can respond to the work that I have because I have dedicated chemoreceptors set up in the carotid and the aortic valves which are headed out to the periphery. So that means we're on a prediction system that carbon dioxide levels that are set up in my brain stem react to a prediction of what's occurring in the system through chemoreceptors and baroreceptors that are in my arteries, and it's triggering me to breathe. So my heart rate responds to that, right? So the heart rate's late to the game. And so, you know, there's a whole plethora of things in there, but how I decide to grow up and how I go through my experiences in life inevitably have a Rolodex of things on how I actually respond to breath. So, when I actually am working out, I can tell with many people where the potential trauma or problems can set up, or we can see metabolic issues, even from somebody who doesn't work out as they sit and are doing things.","offset":1002,"duration":71}],"startTime":877},{"title":"Conscious Control Over Heart Rate","summary":"The host asks if humans possess any direct control over internal organs like the heart. Brian demonstrates that intentional breathing is our primary conscious mechanism for manipulating autonomic functions like heart rate.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I get you. Yeah. Um, one thing that's just come to me there as you were talking. Do you think it's strange that we don't have control over our heartbeat as humans, as evolved creatures?","offset":1073,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian: Well, the only way you're going to control your heart rate is how?","offset":1083,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Output? Movement?","offset":1088,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Nope.","offset":1089,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Breath?","offset":1091,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: You got it. So, if I just said, \"Hey, Chris, check it out. Control your heart rate for me right now.\" And if we put you on a heart rate monitor, because that's what you- we- most people would do, they go \"Alright, let me get on a heart rate monitor.\" Like, no no no no no. Can you feel your heartbeat right now without doing anything? Can you feel it?","offset":1092,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: A tiny bit- I'd have to be very tuned into my body.","offset":1116,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took me about- it- about three years ago I was able to like I can just sit there and I could pick it up anywhere in my body I really want to. Whether I want to do it in a toe or a finger or my neck or whatever, right? But it's like, alright, how do I lower that? And I literally will go [breathes in deeply and exhales slowly] and my heart rate will start to drop by controlling my breathing.","offset":1118,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: I understand. I think that obviously shows that the heart rate is um, at the mercy of the breath to a large degree. I was just thinking about whether it's- I can control my breath. I can consciously hold it, breathe quicker, breathe slower. But that's not something that we have with our digestive system, that's not something that we have with our heart. You know, that- that- it would appear that from our- the- the things that are inside of us, the lungs are kind of the only thing that we have that kind of control over. Is that fair to say, or am I missing something there?","offset":1143,"duration":31}],"startTime":1073},{"title":"Regulating the Nervous System","summary":"Brian outlines how breathing influences digestion, heart rate variability (HRV), and sympathetic nervous system activation. He details how breathwork acts as a powerful recovery tool for overtrained, highly stressed individuals.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: Your- your breath is- so, check this out. This and this might flip your lid.","offset":1174,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: I'm ready.","offset":1182,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Your- your breath controls all of that.","offset":1183,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay. Rest and digest is controlled by the breath.","offset":1186,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: BKS Iyengar has a quote. He is responsible for bringing yoga to the Western world. He's one of the last great yogis. What- now, he also taught things in a way that was fairly brutal. Um, it would not have gone by real well today. Um, nonetheless, I- I'm of that school. Like, I- I like that- I don't need to be coddled. I- I- I want work, and I want real work. Um, nonetheless, the mind is the king of the senses, but the breath is the king of the mind.","offset":1190,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: Hmm. I like that.","offset":1231,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Okay? So, that was his. It's not mine. My breathing affects how I digest things. How so? Well, my diaphragm pushes down into my organs. I have regulation of my para- I- I- I have regulation of my sympathetic activity due to how I control my breathing. The inhale is known as the sympathetic and for a long time people have said the exhale is known as parasympathetic. Well, it's not parasympathetic. It's inhibition of sympathetic.","offset":1233,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: That's interesting, because that's that's where HRV, a lot of HRV stuff gets um, wrist monitors and stuff would come from, right? It's the variation within heartbeats.","offset":1268,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian: Yes. Yes, yeah. And so the con- we- started figuring out a long time ago that you could manipulate heart rate variability through breath control. Easy. So you could change a profile of an athlete who who might not have the score or the readiness state that we want, right? And we'd apply breath work to that person and we could manipulate and then they'd have a green light.","offset":1279,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: What's readiness state? What- what's the- uh, characteristics that contribute to that?","offset":1307,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: You fit into a specific profile of- so, like, think of a spectrum, like think- think of an arc, right? Um, of sympathetic and parasympathetic, right? There's a specific arc with para- inside parasympathetic and slightly into sympathetic that you can be in order to be ready to train at let's call it 80% and above, right? So we would have- if an athlete fell too parasympathetic, that meant that they were literally, you know, you're dissociative, you're shutting down type of thing, you need more upregulatory things like cold plunge, like some, you know, things to kind of bring you up out of that. Um, but lo- from the- and there's there's a lot more to that. But from a more sympathetic side, this is where most of us tend to fall, is where we just aren't coming down enough. We're not coming out of that high sympathetic activity. That's by and large most of the people I deal with and I see. This is the people who are probably listening to here.","offset":1312,"duration":66},{"text":"Host: The overtrainers, the people that are caffeinated, overworked.","offset":1378,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. I like coffee, I like to work out hard, I like to uh work hard, I'm very passionate about what I do, I'm type A, you know, maybe not so type A, but I do like to train hard and do things hard and do all this. And and by and large, what we end up getting with those people is an inability to understand actually what they're training for. Like they, you know, and this is why breathing's so important is because I can actually get you to understand a lot more through that process of training and understanding your breath. It's also why we created a gear system around training and how you can actually manipulate the one variable that is actually responsible for the rest of the variables that you're training for.","offset":1382,"duration":44}],"startTime":1174},{"title":"The CO2 Tolerance Assessment","summary":"Brian details his three-part CO2 tolerance test involving a controlled, maximum exhale. He explains how this assessment acts as a diagnostic tool for an individual's mechanical, physiological, and emotional reactivity.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Hmm. Yeah, that is that is right. And it- it does make sense that you have this direct control over one of the internal processes that's going on. We have a, I suppose, a quite diluted control over the thoughts that go through our mind, but I have a lot better control over my breath than I do the thoughts in my mind, and that's after three years of pretty consistent meditation. So, I think I think focusing on the breath seems like a good place to start. So if we were to do a uh breath MOT, Brian, where would you- where would you start? If you lay someone down, you're gonna look under the hood, you're gonna look at the way that they breathe, either in or out of- of a training situation. Where do you start? Is it the cycle? Is it the pace? Is it-","offset":1426,"duration":39},{"text":"Brian: I start with a CO2 tolerance test. I get a CO2 tolerance test down on 'em, a max exhale test. That tells me literally what's going- like, I mean- look, so my- Rob who I work with, he's in Virginia Beach, which is lar- the largest hub of um special forces, so special warfare in the world. Um, it's where they house seal te- Dev Group, Seal Team Six, um, you know, there's another team over there too, but there's a lot of high-level dudes over there.","offset":1465,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: A lot of badasses.","offset":1493,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, but these dudes like to train a certain way too, right? And so, you know, like you get these guys and and they've got problems going on and it's like, \"Alright, you know,\" Rob got called in yesterday for- or no, this morning. We were on the phone this morning and it was his afternoon and he um- it was like, \"Yeah, I- I couldn't finish training, I got called in to go over to this uh- this place to go meet this guy who seems to be a pr- pretty problematic and he's got a lot of issues and he can't recover, he's got these injuries going on and blah, blah, blah,\" just a whole host of shit. And he's a team guy. And um, you know, he- Rob went over and he's like, \"Guess what his CO2 tolerance level was.\" And I was like, \"Under 20 seconds.\" And he said, \"17 seconds.\" And I was like, \"Yep. Get it.\" And uh, you know, he is cooked.","offset":1495,"duration":57},{"text":"Brian: And most of us are cooked. If I've got somebody who's training like that, if I've got an operator, especially an operator, who's got anything under a minute of a CO2 tolerance test, I've got somebody who's reactive, I've got somebody who- their system is reactive. They might not be emotionally reactive, but their suppression of things- I know that. The tissue isn't responding well, meaning they're tight, they've probably got painful tissue. Like, these things start to like compound, right? And they're all signs- like- so, so carbon dioxide is the metabolic stress messenger of the body, of the system. We don't even need an amygdala, man. You know, so it tells me what's going on with the person. So if- like when I have too much going on upstairs, I push that CO2 tolerance down, right? If I'm overtrained, if I've been training too much and I haven't let my body recover enough, I'm pushing that CO2 tolerance level down. When I think, when I do too much, I'm pushing that CO2 tolerance level down. Meaning, when CO2 raises, it doesn't have to raise as much in order for me to react to it- respond to it- and the first respondent of that is your breath because I have to offload that CO2 in order to feel better. So my aerobic efficiency, capacity, threshold, whatever, switches based on how much- how- how well I tolerate CO2.","offset":1552,"duration":94},{"text":"Brian: It's also telling me what basically is going to be happening cognitively. So if I get a person, the first thing I'm doing with them most likely is a CO2 tolerance test to tell me exactly where they're at. It's a threefold test. So, I- we- you sit down for a couple minutes or you lay down for a couple minutes and you just do some slow controlled breathing that you're comfortable with. Not fast, you can't hyperventilate. Then we go into a four-breath pattern to where we breathe up for like three- three or four seconds and then you relax, let it go for about five to seven, you know, five seconds or so. So it's a little bit longer of an exhale, but let's relax, let it go. Then inhale. Fourth breath you pull it in, you start the timer the moment it hits the top of the breath and you start exhaling as long and as slow as you possibly can. So you have to control it.","offset":1646,"duration":50},{"text":"Brian: So this- there's a three-part test in that it tells me how much control you have of your diaphragm on the negative, how well I have control of that, so there's the mechanical aspect of it, right? Then from a physiological perspective, it tells me how well you how- how well your physiology is responding to carbon dioxide, so how aerobically efficient you're going to be just calm. Okay? Remember the dog- walking the dog story? How- how well do you respond in a very simple fashion to carbon dioxide? Cognitively, so from a state perspective and arousal state perspective, how what you- how you react to carbon dioxide. The panic switch. So when you're going to be reactive, how you're going to be reactive. Anybody below 20 seconds and we have a very reactive volatile environment that we need to actually start working to clean up.","offset":1696,"duration":58},{"text":"Brian: And that's usually done fairly quickly with most people if and only if they're willing to actually back off a bit and learn. That allows for a gap to start to occur, an improvement to start to occur in the CO2 tolerance. So then we start to administer some breathing protocols: \"Hey, let's figure out-\" and this is why we built the State app was so that we could actually get people some protocols to use to actually work on breath control to increase uh their CO2 tolerance, but also allow them to kind of get into this more focused or calm, clear state um or downshift them prior to after training or prior to bed. That was the whole point of that. And so we'll set protocols up for people based on where they need the most help.","offset":1754,"duration":54}],"startTime":1426},{"title":"Customizing Breath Protocols","summary":"Moving beyond one-size-fits-all methods, Brian emphasizes the need for individualized breathing protocols. He also explains why large athletes with high muscle mass must improve their aerobic efficiency through nasal breathing.","entries":[{"text":"Host: How much of the breath control that we're talking about there is simple ability to avoid discomfort? Because someone who is in a good place, who might feel like \"I can control this gasp reflex for longer,\" that'll contribute a little bit, but as you've mentioned as well, the CO2, this CO2 tolerance appears to be like the master of this. Is that right?","offset":1808,"duration":25},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, so what's the question? Am I rephrasing? Or- or- you're bringing that back again?","offset":1833,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So, how much can be trained in terms of someone's ability to breathe that is um separate to the way that their physiology is put together at that time? So, is there someone who's very good at controlling their breath but still might be in this-","offset":1837,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that- that's- that's the interesting thing. And this- why- this is where my work really diverted because I was running around with guys like Wim Hof- I was literally pretty close with Wim Hof. Um, and there's nothing- like Wim's got a great thing, he's doing great work, um, you know, uh there's other- like I've gone and participated and learned about Tumo, um many of the you know yoga practices, etc, etc. Holotropic, um, like there's Buteyko, um, like there's a lot of methods out there, right? And unfortunately each and one of each and every one of these methods is making claims that it doesn't do in some fashion. In some fashions they do, in other fashions- and this is the problem with you know getting caught up in and understanding our attachments to things and you know thinking that you know we've got an answer, and the answer is you. You're the answer, you're the only answer there is. It's not your breathing, your breathing's not an answer either. It's just an indicator of something, right?","offset":1851,"duration":59},{"text":"Brian: And so our ability biologically is- is not even close to being tapped. And I I think that be true even with something like, you know, what happened with Eliud. But going back to this is- I started seeing that not everybody reacts to the same protocols in the same way. Hmm. And so it became a there is not a one-size-fit-all fits all. There's a- there's a more or less kind of a fingerprint to some degree. And although we can bucket people and categorize them in specific ways or you know things that are going on, like \"Hey, this guy is angry about stuff and that guy's angry about stuff and she's angry about stuff and you know she's more emotional and he's more emotional about things,\" like- like meaning, depending on how you emotionally handle things, there are going to be certain patterns that are going to set certain th- things off and connect you to certain things.","offset":1910,"duration":56},{"text":"Brian: So, we had to I had to start- I was literally running around fingerprinting people with breath breath protocols because not everybody was responding the same way, and that wasn't a very you know viable thing for helping people. I was sure I was helping specific people, but I was burning myself out and there was no way I was ever going to be able to do this by myself. So, build an app and build an algorithm that work with that and we understood how to do that. So, we we literally customize things to people, but then it's like, okay well a lot of these people like to engage in performance, and they should because you should have a movement practice. Any human being that does not have a movement practice is not being a human being. Um, we we are designed to move. Now, getting neurotic about that to the degree that like I have to be this specific thing or whatever, that that's where it gets crazy.","offset":1966,"duration":50},{"text":"Brian: But nonetheless, applying this inside of movement, the framework of movement, becomes the next catalyst in how we do things. And the base layer of that is, hey, for the first few weeks we're going to just be nasal breathing. You can't go anything past nasal breathing. And for most people that's such a kick in the balls that it's like \"I don't want to do- like my ego's not ready for that check.\" And, you know, you take a powerlifter that squats a thousand pounds, I can tell you right now if they've not done any breath work, their CO2 tolerance is shit. That's a massive, massive carbon footprint. You're carrying so much lean muscle, so much muscle, but you don't do you know most of these people don't do enough of the kind of aerobic efficiency work and and that's a scary word to guys like that and and gals because they think they're scared of aerob- and it's like that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the thing that actually makes you survive.","offset":2016,"duration":57},{"text":"Brian: Like, aerobic metabolism is what makes you survive. So when you're resting, you should be high level aerobic. And yet you see these guys and gals on oxygen tanks and like breathing like [panting heavily] and- that's not necessary. It's not. And and it's not healthy. It's an indication-","offset":2073,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: What's that due to?","offset":2093,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Por- poor CO2 tolerance.","offset":2095,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay. And that is exacerbated by people who are high mass, high muscle mass, heavy weight.","offset":2097,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Huge- look look- how what's the demand for oxygen with more muscle mass? It's up. Higher. So I need more oxygen in order because the mi- like look or- like- you know, so I've got all this tissue. Well, when I don't have enough oxygen or I'm not efficient enough [panting heavily], about four five breaths in, you're going to start dipping that needle more towards those anaer- like more towards the- the demand for the tissue's demand for more glucose, more glycogen. Okay? The nervous system and brain are- are stuck with glucose and glycogen. There's no- there's no if and but- and buts about that, right?","offset":2105,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian: But fat is what the muscles like can use. So the more fat we're using with the tissue, the better, right? And so the better we get the mitochondria functioning, the better off we are. And there's no reason why an NFL lineman and a gymnast or an endurance athlete can't all be aerobically efficient. It's just different thresholds at which point- like- sure, the lineman's going to be much more of an anaerobic athlete. Like much more high level, you know, spr- sprinter type explosive, you know, and so's the gymnast to some degree is, you know, pulling it back a little bit more. And then we got the endurance athlete where you're like, you know, all slow twitch, right? And it's all the same thing in terms of efficiency aerobically. So if I've got an- if I've got an endurance athlete who's going out on an- high level aerobic ride, but they got to open their mouth, I can tell you right now they're not as aerobic as they could be. They might be somewhat aerobic, but they are not as aerobic as they could be and they are not utilizing the system in a way that they could. This- this is literally factual things we have tested that are now going into re- that- that have raised some eyebrows enough to go, \"Wow, we didn't really look at it like this. We should really be testing this.\" So, this is what's happening.","offset":2148,"duration":79}],"startTime":1808},{"title":"Practical Steps for Better Breathing","summary":"Brian provides actionable advice for listeners looking to improve their daily breathing. He recommends using specific app protocols morning and night, alongside a challenging three-week phase of strict nasal-only training.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I get it. So, let's take it from the top with regards to Brian's advice for good breath. Where do we begin with that? What are the- what are the principles for good breath?","offset":2227,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian: Like the State app was created for this. Like look, start in the- do one- one breath protocol exercise in the morning, do one in the evening for sleep. Play with that for a few weeks, see where it improves what you feel, how- what you like, what you don't. If you want to play with more, go for it, right? That's probably going to be in the vicinity of five minutes each, right? That's not hard for people who like to train.","offset":2239,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: Morning and evening.","offset":2266,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Morning and evening, right? Simple. If you want to do all four, go for it. Do it. Like, you're- you're getting an A+ now. Um, the- the second part of this is if you're not going to the world championships or you're not competing for, you know, an Olympic medal or you're not like going to an A-priority race within the next two months, you do- like- there's no reason why you can't go dedicate three to four weeks to strictly nasal only breathing and take enough step back to actually get your physiology rewired.","offset":2267,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: Across all- across all training methodology? Whether you're-","offset":2305,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: Across all training methodology. I don't care if you're an MMA athlete, powerlifter, Crossfitter, whatever. I've done it with the Crossfit athletes. I did it with Tia. Like, I've done it with like I've- done it with several fucking athletes that people would never consider would do- would be able to do something like this. And it rearranged what was going on and gave them an ability to do things that they didn't think they could- they could manage to do. And so it just empowered them in a level. Yeah. Yeah.","offset":2308,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: What- I mean, how long does it take to create adaptation to something?","offset":2342,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: Right around three weeks.","offset":2346,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: I like it. I like that. Um, of course, everyone who is listening, the State app will be linked in the show notes below. Brian's app, which I'm pretty certain- is this the first iteration or is it on to kind of like a 1.5 now?","offset":2349,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: What's- the app?","offset":2363,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Yes.","offset":2365,"duration":0},{"text":"Brian: Uh, this is the first ver- there's been a couple updates on it. Yeah. Yeah. But this is the first version of it. We're- there's- there's a lot more that's going to come into the pipeline of- once we get through the first investor stuff that we're going through. Uh, there will be some serious, serious things that are coming down that pipeline. Um, you know, I mean, it's already a- it's been way more successful than we ever thought it was going to be. Um, but we also know like- there's- there's a lot more that we do than just doing some simple breath protocols. Like there's high-level things you can do in order to change your physiology that could, you know, that are game-changing things.","offset":2365,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Hmm. So what happens when you breathe through your nose? Tell me. Someone's training they're just breathing through their nose. What's happening? Why- we've talked about the- the different workout of the walk with the dog with the nose open and closed. What- how's that characterized?","offset":2412,"duration":14}],"startTime":2227},{"title":"Evolution and Elite Endurance","summary":"Brian explores the evolutionary origins of aerobic metabolism to explain why nasal breathing is biologically optimal. He uses marathoner Eliud Kipchoge's nasal breathing technique to illustrate supreme aerobic efficiency.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: It's- it's your biological way of staying aerobic. 500 million years ago, cells single-cell organisms figured out how to become multicellular organisms. They said, \"Hey, let's you and I communicate like you and I are right now. Let's talk about some things. Let's share some information so that we can pass this shit on and p- see that oxygen-rich environment now? It used to be hostile. It used to be mostly carbon.\" Like and it was we had to be mostly anaerobic and we changed energy otherwise. And this is where like we're headed right now is this is all about energy. There's nothing else. There's nothing other other than energy. All energy that's ever existed has existed. It's how we're con- the conversion of energy is happening. We don't b- it's not we burn- we don't burn calories. Okay? That- that's us- we're converting calories. We're literally taking energy converting that energy and then putting energy back out. Like it's literally this cycle of and we forget about all this thing. And so that energy deal got made when cells learned to communicate and said \"Hey, let's take this oxygen and let's use this,\" and it's much more complex than this but this is just the story that I like you know like- but it's like, \"Hey, 500 million years ago multicellular organisms figured out how to use oxygen after algae and algae literally figured out how to convert sunlight into energy itself and the byproduct of that was oxygen.\" So the Earth became engulfed in this algae, all of a sudden there's all this oxygen in the environment. Then cells were like, \"Yo, there's a- got to be an efficient process to this.\" And here's that process.","offset":2426,"duration":93},{"text":"Brian: Today, 500 million years ago, aerobic metabolism sits at the forefront of the most efficient way to use energy. And so anything outside of aerobic metabolism becomes anaerobic. So if I don't have that process that conversion of energy I'll default very simply and we should to this higher stress situation of using energy. So anaerobic doesn't necessarily become a training process, it's more or less the byproduct of I'm no longer able to handle aerobically what's going on. So how quickly I can come back to that aerobic is literally how well I can. So having a very high aerobic capacity means I function higher aerobically. So when we look at people like a guy smashing the two-hour marathon, what does he look like physiologically? And although there's like look to be total like look I support and I'm very happy for the man and everything but realistically if he were in the same setup as they were in 1950 or even 1980 he wouldn't have run a sub-two-hour marathon. That that wouldn't have- it's not the same marathon. It's a different marathon even though the distances are the same. The shoes, the pacers, the- the- all of these things exist, but I don't deny the fact that this man's physiology is off the hook and the only reason I really know that is not only have I studied how he moves, but I've watched how he breathes.","offset":2519,"duration":108},{"text":"Host: What's your analysis? What's your analysis of his-?","offset":2627,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: He primarily breathes through his nose.","offset":2629,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":2632,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Most of his marathon is done nose-only breathing. You can find pictures all over the internet with salt marks that come down his nose, and you'll see when he's running that most of the pictures are of him with his mouth shut. Hmm. I did notice that. So I've watched video. Yeah. Yeah, I've- I've- I've videoed the video so that I could go and slow it down and look at it and watch it, and you know there it is. And, you know, I mean he comes from African culture, right? And what what is of the African nose? Like they've got larger nostrils. Well, they've dev- like genetically they are set up to do something. Like if you've ever watched a horse race- so I watched an- I watch animals like like- it's a like big passion like I'm almost neurotic about it. You know, you watch animals who don't sweat and they don't actually the only time they're mouth breathing is when they're overheating. Okay? You watch animals who do sweat, a horse, a racing horse, they will not breathe out of their mouth. They just have a bit in their mouth. They breathe through their nostrils. They literally will not breathe out of their mouth.","offset":2633,"duration":76},{"text":"Host: Why do we then?","offset":2709,"duration":4}],"startTime":2426},{"title":"Historical Wisdom on Nasal Breathing","summary":"Referencing 19th-century observations of indigenous cultures and Comanche warriors, Brian highlights how native populations innately understood the benefits of nasal breathing. He contrasts this wisdom with the chronic overstimulation of the modern world.","entries":[{"text":"Brian: Uh, you know, it's interesting, we have um done real well at progressing ourselves culturally through comfort and convenience. And in that process we've more or less stressed ourselves more than we actually needed to. So by that I mean this. Uh, there was a book written in 1867 I believe, I forget the date, um but George Catlin wrote a book called \"Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life.\" And he wrote this book as a historian who was a lawyer from England who came over to the State- which was basically North America and South America at the time- studied about a million and a half indigenous cultures and civilized world. He was uh the biggest thing he picked up on was the fact that in- in indigenous culture, they did not breathe through their mouth, rarely. And- and when they- when they spoke, they spoke with intent. They did not speak too much. They meant what they said, they said what they meant. When they slept, they slept with their mouths shut, when they hunted, they hunted with their mouths shut. They did everything they could, including when children came off of the nipple, mothers would shut the mouth of the child for fear of the black mouth. Because not only was the white eye called the white eye or round eye, he was called the black mouth. And the reason he was called the black mouth was because his mouth looked disgusting.","offset":2713,"duration":108},{"text":"Brian: And why would that be? Well, look at what we started doing cultu- look at what we- were starting to do. I mean, we were drinking more alcohol, we were- sugar started to become- agriculture started to kick in, all of these things of convenience started to happen, right? And here's a culture of people who pay attention to nature. What is nature? Physiology. That is literally one of the definitions of- of physiology is nature, origin. And thus paying attention to the feelings of nature and what's going on. So what happens when I feel when I breathe through my mouth? Right? Well, I get ramped up, I turn on, I speak. If I go speak somewhere and I talk just for an hour, I'm on, like I feel like I'm on. If I speak for an entire day, I'm exhausted. I don't go work out, I try not to go to dinner with people afterwards. Why am I so exhausted? I'm blowing off a ton of carbon dioxide, I'm more sympathetic dominant, I'm actually using less of the fat so I'm- I'm not as aerobic as I could be, even though I am still slightly aerobic, I'm not as aerobic as I could be, right? So it's learning those waves, they felt that shit, man. They felt it.","offset":2821,"duration":70},{"text":"Brian: We don't feel. We have- we have these things in front of us and we're getting stimulated and we've got all these kids that are going batshit crazy because they don't have recess anymore, they're pulled from play, they're told what to do, they're told how they're going to learn, then they're given infinite possibilities on a machine to play games and keep them occupied because Mom and Dad don't want to deal with 'em. And then they've got anxiety because of this. They don't have anxiety. They've got proper stimulation from being overstimulated. They've got physiology that's run amok and they don't understand it, and this has been by and large what's going on with us even those of us that like to train a lot. Like I mean, I'm on I'm talking to you, I'm on, I need to sh- when I'm done here, I mean I'm feeling this. I feel it. So I've gotten to the point where I feel all this stuff and I'm paying attention. If my mouth opens when I'm asleep at night, I wake up.","offset":2891,"duration":55},{"text":"Host: Why? Why would you wake up if your mouth opens, based on everything you've just gone over?","offset":2946,"duration":9},{"text":"Brian: Because you become more stressed. Bingo. I'm now slipping more into sympathetic and I'm turning myself on. Hmm. Okay. I understand. How many of us are trying to sleep in this high sympathetic activity state, right? And I'm also not as aerobic, and then oh shit, I've got sleep apnea so now I'm holding my breath in an awkward fashion and [gasps and exhales heavily] like, I've got all- like weird. Like, what are you paying atten- are- like, you need medication and a fucking- you need a mask to wear at night? I've got friends who do this and they refuse to do breath work and I'm like, \"Dude, it's your choice.\" Um, I've got more DMs and P- I don't even talk about this I don't write about this stuff publicly. Like I don't go out and go, \"I'm going to solve your problems.\" No. Here, start with some breathing protocols, start rearranging your training, then start feeling what's going on in your body.","offset":2955,"duration":54},{"text":"Brian: You're going to default to places that you can. Is it weird that George Catlin was also in a book that I've read and the- I'm the only person who's caught this so far, right? Only because I've read this other book. It's a book called \"Empire of the Summer Moon\" and it is about the Comanche Indians who are arguably the- the most war-driven tribe of people that have almost existed. They- they're in comparison to the Mongols in like- uh lot of the stuff that happened with 'em, but they were very, very gnarly. They were so gnarly that had the Colt revolver not ended up in the hands of a few young white boys from Texas called Texas Rangers, they would have- this world- this country would be a very different place right now. They knew how to fight off of horseback in a way that no other culture had understood and they couldn't combat it. So shooting a rifle with one shot was no good, right?","offset":3009,"duration":61},{"text":"Brian: And so this book was written and there was a guy around- there were a number of historians that were there that were interviewed and one of those historians throughout this book that was written about was George Catlin. And so there's this guy that's there and the biggest thing he picked up on was that the people who were of the of the- Earth, that were literally living on the Earth, that were living in planes that everybody feared to cross because they had no idea how to navigate, they had no idea how to do things, and there was this murderous culture of people who did not want them near anything and- including other tribes, like other tribes feared the Comanche, right? Like they were feared. And it- it's a fantastic read.","offset":3070,"duration":49},{"text":"Brian: But the fact of the matter is is I'm able to now connect through reading physiology and then reading about literally \"Hey, George Catlin wrote this book in the six- in 1800s about this,\" holy crap, there it is! What is history? It's literally telling us what's going on with- like- there's- there's lessons to be learned about all this stuff and what people were doing. You think- you think a Comanche Indian who knew how to navigate the land could get on his horse and ride for three or four days straight with no food basically, or limited food supply and water supply, what do you think the physiology of a human being like that is? Like, literally could survive in freezing cold temperatures, navigate land in storms, like where do you think we're at culturally right now? We're worried about squatting a thousand pounds and running a two-hour marathon. I don't think we're anywhere close to what our biological potential is. I think we missed the boat. I think we're confused. I think we think that technology is this great thing that's going to get us into the future and it's not. It's going to just lead us right back to our own biology and going \"Shit, we're mimicking all this technology after stuff we internally are able to do.\" It's why I asked you what- how would- how- how do you control your heart rate and how do you feel that? \"Well, I'd have to be calm for a minute and then I could really pick up on-\". Yeah. Well, guess what? You can feel that at any moment you want. Just got to spend the time to get back to that.","offset":3119,"duration":85}],"startTime":2713},{"title":"Redefining Human Performance","summary":"Brian explains how excessive talking and visual focus affect our autonomic nervous system. He redefines human performance not as physical lifting feats, but as the ability to make better decisions under stress without relying on ego.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I understand. Yeah. It's interesting what you said there about when you spend a whole day talking, right? So I do coaching calls. I coach a sales company in Germany and every time I'm done, let's say it's maybe three hours and I've been talking to these guys, and it's a conversation. It's at least 50-50 between me and them, it's not all me. But once I'm finished, let's say I've done three hours, four hours of- of talking, little bit of water in between, little bit of chill or whatever. After I've done that, I'm absolutely gassed. Like once I'm done, I'm like, \"Hhh, I'm really tired.\" And I wasn't really sure- I thought, well maybe it's because cognitively it's quite demanding, I'm trying to link these things together, it's because I'm really putting myself into the person I'm speaking to or whatever it might be. And your suggestion here is that one of the principal reasons for this is going to be that I'm just inhaling and exhaling quite a bit of air quite a lot.","offset":3204,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian: Well, your- yeah- you're on, right? And so you're getting stimulated, but you're getting a stimulation that you're automatically like you're falling into autopilot on because you're talking, I'm talking, right? So we're- I'm ramping myself up. Not only am I ramping myself up and getting into what I'm doing, I'm getting focused and I'm being engaged with you, but the byproduct of that becomes my breath. My breath is the instant reaction to that. It- it's- it's the first respondent. There's only two- two things we can do in order to regulate or- or stimulate autonomic control consciously. That is our breath and our vision. So I can choose not to look at you right now and I can look at the end of the room and I can go into peripheral vision and I can downshift myself. I can go outside and look at the fucking look at nature, look at trees, right? How many people freak out looking at a sunset? None of 'em. Why? Because it's math. No, it's beautiful. Yeah, beautiful's there, but that's not math. Math is the algorithm that and it's the light waves that enter your eyes and open you up to go \"whomp!\" and it drops you into parasympathetic.","offset":3257,"duration":78},{"text":"Host: It's interesting vision side.","offset":3335,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: We've got so many tools and things going on that we don't know about. I- literally man, I was just at the Cleveland Clinic, I was in open-heart surgery with them with a team there, and they were like, \"What do you think you could help with?\" And it's like simple man. Control your breathing and control your vision when you need to, when you need to make a better decision or something fucking- the shit hits the fan. Like, it's time to do that. That's human performance. That's human performance at its finest in trying to help somebody's life be saved, you know? And like why'd that person get there is another fucking- another story that we could be dovetailing back towards \"Hey, why we move and what we love about human performance.\" But that's human performance for me. Like human performance is literally getting to the core of why you know people doing everyday stuff, right? Like that's human performance. And I think we're eluding ourselves into thinking that we understand something by, you know, like \"What's a 500-pound deadlift do for me?\" These were- these were things I had to ask myself, right? Like this isn- I'm not asking this of you, I'm- I had to ask this of myself. What's a 500-pound deadlift? Because I've had a 500-pound deadlift, right? And it's like I- I was not able to connect the dots on what that meant. That I don't know that that made it better for me to survive. Getting up off the couch or picking shit up off the floor? I- I don't know that that 500 pounds is necessary for that.","offset":3339,"duration":81},{"text":"Brian: Like \"What's running 100 miles doing for me?\" It was a fucking amazing spiritual experience. But what was it doing for me, right? And like where was I at? And so what- you know- do I need to actually run 100 miles? No. But will I? I mean sure, I did a couple times but, you know, like- it's just- like I've done these things and I'm like so what's the point of this? Is this oh, I'm now clinging to this thing thinking it's the thing and- there we go. Now the mind now- now let's look at the ner- let's look at the neuroscience. Let's let's really start looking at the down the up- how everything's compiling and what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. So when I ask people like what do you want? Because they'll come to me. I literally have a call after this from with our mentorship program and I've already had two today. And it's \"What do you want?\" And I'm pretty quick to to understand that they don't know what they want even though they're telling me what they want. And so it's usually like \"Tell me what you want, I'll show you a liar.\"","offset":3420,"duration":62},{"text":"Brian: Because we're just not ready- really ready to let go of all these ideas that we have and it's not that you can't go deadlift a thousand pound or you know whatever you can't squat a thousand deadlift 500 go run 100 miles. Like these are just extreme versions of 'em, right? I don't need to go dive with Great White sharks but I did and I got that experience and it taught me some profound lessons man, profound. But if I'm actually in the moment and understanding what's going on in this very moment and how I'm operating and what I feel, then I'm moving back more towards what that Comanche was doing. And I'm actually getting in tune with the vibration of how everything works and why when I go why- you know, I went on a run earlier. What I'm trying to accomplish with that run and understand about that run. Where is it that on this hill that I'm climbing right now that I have that I feel like I need to make this switch? And how like- how cooked do I feel and where is that at and what can I do in order to improve that so that like, hey, this- this improves my day and it doesn't ruin my day, right?","offset":3482,"duration":61},{"text":"Brian: That's what I'm talk- you know, this is where we start- my reactions to what I'm doing in training, my reactions to what I'm doing throughout my day are the same thing. But I'm just getting people closer to what that actually is. And that's what we've been doing with the Art of Breath is really just you know, like people come in there and like this gal this weekend who showed up at at Rob's seminar, she was like she's a Crossfit Games athlete and you know she identified as a Crossfit Games athlete, I love that. Like I just love somebody comes in \"I'm like a professional athlete, I'm a professional Crossfitter,\" like whoa, okay. Um, I get it. I know where you're at. Um you know and we're doing all this work and stuff and there's a hypoxic set where you do farmer carries with- with kettlebells, right? So like you'll do some burpees and then you go and we have people grab the the kettlebells and then they dump their air and they have to walk as far as they can down and back.","offset":3543,"duration":53},{"text":"Host: Okay, yep, just farmer's walk.","offset":3596,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Yeah yeah yeah. And and so everybody- like this chick just takes off running, man. Like she's trying to win it, you know? And one of our coaches, Danny Yeager, who's phenomenal, um he runs Crossfit Kingfield out in Minnesota and he's like he watches this and then he sees a bunch of guys. So there's a lot of people there in in the warfare community, and so there's a lot of you know dudes and people who are like want to win, right? It's like what are you trying to win? So Danny stopped and he goes \"Hey! If you think we brought you here to actually see how long you could hold your breath while farmer walking kettlebells, you don't understand why you're here. You don't understand what we're doing. What is it you're feeling when you're holding your breath and walking these things? What's- if you're trying to win the farmer carry holding your breath, what is it you're winning here? There is no reward. It's we're here to experience something and understand what this thing can do and teach us. Well, I thought I was going to be able to carry those kettlebells a lot farther, or I thought I was only going to be able to carry 'em a few steps and I went further than I did. Awesome. Now we're starting to get somewhere versus \"Oh, I got to win this.\" Like win what? What are we winning? That's called ego. And and you just removed yourself from understanding all purpose of- of training. All training at the foundation of training is to make better decisions under stress. Carbon dioxide is the metabolic stress messenger of the human body. Done deal.\"","offset":3597,"duration":112}],"startTime":3204},{"title":"Integrating Breathwork and Meditation","summary":"The episode concludes with recommendations on where to find Brian's programs. Brian also offers practical advice on how to effectively sequence breathwork before meditation and prior to sleep.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I love it. I love it. Brian, today's been fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on. Anyone who wants to check out some more of your work, where should they head? We've talked about Art of Breath. How does that relate to the State app? Is the State app a part of that? No.","offset":3709,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian: Does not- separate. No, State app's- a bit differ- um the State app's separate the you know a lot of the stuff with the business is going to change real soon. Um in fact the whole name everything's going to change, we're changing that so it all kind of fit and be seamless so it makes more sense to the world. Um that being said, the Art of Breath is a component of what we teach inside of Power Speed Endurance. It's a performance-based seminar, there's a 101 that we teach around the world but we also have it online. So that can be found on Power Speed Endurance. The State app is you can find each app whether it's Android or iOS on shiftstate.io. Anything about me or or if you want to get in contact with me or or you know whatever can be found on brianmackenzie.com or you can go through Power Speed Endurance.","offset":3725,"duration":50},{"text":"Host: Amazing. I- I have to say it was a listener who recommended that I- I check out the State app and get in touch with yourself and I think I've found the new thing that I'm going to add into my morning and evening routine. I've been looking for what it's going to be. I've stopped doing Rom-Wod for the time being and I do miss some of the breath control, I miss that parasympathetic activation. I'm still doing my meditation on a morning, I'm reading, I'm doing other bits and pieces, Stu McGill's Big Three, but I'm not I'm not feeling myself in the body quite so much with that. It's very- it's very visceral, it's very kind of um transactional that I'm doing it for the for the return on what I know it needs to do to my spine health. Um and I think I think the next- I think the- between now and Christmas it'll be- it'll be me doing that. So I'll report back, I'll keep you updated and I'll let the listeners know how I'm getting on.","offset":3775,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian: Please do. Please do. Yeah. Look at I- I would do the either \"Feel Alert\" or \"Be Present\" protocol if you're- if you're doing your meditation in the morning, do the breathing beforehand. There's a reason why breathing is at the foundation of every meditative practice.","offset":3826,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: That's interesting. So you'd say for a lot of people that are listening, maybe they have a meditative practice in their morning routine, you'd say do the breath work before that and then how- how do you program that in on an evening? Is it right before bed?","offset":3840,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian: If you have an active sitting, yeah. If you have an active sitting meditative practice, just be clear that if you want that brought up to the next level, add breathing before that. If you want it really brought up to the next level, use the State app so that you can fingerprint your- the rhythms that work with you. Like so your app's different- going to be different than mine based on you know how you actually handle carbon dioxide cognitively and how you handle emotional stress. So that can give you a ramp in. I can't tell you how many people who come to me who are like \"I can't meditate, it's just I don't have the patience, I don't have this, I don't have that.\" You're already there, but it's like I show 'em breathing and the fact is is breathing is a controlled breathing is meditation. Literally. Um you'll get there. Just give it some time, right? So use that beforehand. In the evening, anything less than two hours before you go to bed, okay, using the \"Fall Asleep\" protocol. That'll downshift you and change the sleep. You'll you should probably see some increases definitely in deep sleep, but also potentially in the REM cycle.","offset":3851,"duration":72},{"text":"Host: Fantastic. I've also got um my new Whoop band coming as the last one has um has lapsed, so I'll actually be able to track that and see if that's making any difference as well, which'll be- which'll be interesting. But Brian, today's been absolutely awesome. To the people that are listening, you already know what to do. The links to everything that we've spoken about, the State app, shiftstate.io, Power Speed Endurance, and Brian's website will be linked in the show notes below. Go hassle him online if um if you need to get some more info out of him. Um but Brian it's been- it's been fantastic, man. I'm really looking forwards to getting into my breath work.","offset":3923,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: Right on, Chris. Thanks for having me, man.","offset":3954,"duration":15}],"startTime":3709}],"entries":[{"text":"Brian: Today, 500 million years ago, aerobic metabolism sits at the forefront of the most efficient way to use energy. And so, anything outside of aerobic metabolism becomes anaerobic. So, if I don't have that process, that conversion of energy, I'll default very simply, and we should, to this higher stress situation of using energy. So, anaerobic doesn't necessarily become a training process, it's more or less the byproduct of I'm no longer able to handle aerobically what's going on. So, how quickly I can come back to that aerobic is literally how well I can. So, having a very high aerobic capacity means I function higher aerobically. So, when we look at people like a guy smashing the two-hour marathon, what does he look like physiologically? And although there's, like, look, to be totally hon- like, look, I support and I'm very happy for the man and everything, but realistically, if he were in the same setup as they were in 1950, or even 1980, he wouldn't have run a sub-two-hour marathon.","offset":0,"duration":69},{"text":"Host: I'm joined by Brian Mackenzie, the man behind Power Speed Endurance, and today we are talking about something that you will all be familiar with, but are probably doing a little bit wrong: breathing. Brian, welcome to the show.","offset":69,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian: Thanks for having me.","offset":81,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: It's gonna be awesome. I'm really excited to speak about this sort of stuff today. We've been talking about endurance a lot recently. Had Alex Hutchinson, writer of Runner's World on analyzing Eliud Kipchoge's recent performance. We've had Brian Carroll from Power-X-Strength on talking about squatting over a thousand pounds, and all of this is enabled by a lot of different things, but I guess principally, one of those is breath work, right?","offset":82,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, well, physiology, and almost chemistry is regulated through our breath. So, anything and everything- I mean, I- I- I've known Alex for quite some time, we've kind of gone back and forth over the years, he's a great fucking kid, man. I like him a lot. I don't know your other- the other guy, but to squat a thousand pounds is to understand some things.","offset":111,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: He really does. He really does understand some things. I mean, Kelly Starrett, we just released an episode with him today, we've had Dr. Stu McGill on, so, you know, we've had a lot of these guys, and when they talk about this, even, you know, Kelly and- and- and Stu, people that are really, really kind of at the- the top of their game, very well respected in their field, it's rare that I hear someone bring up breath work. Why do you think that is?","offset":138,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Kelly- Kelly didn't. Kelly didn't, no. We were talking a bit about the Game Changers- we were talking about the Game Changers documentary and veganism, we went off on a rabbit hole down that.","offset":164,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Oh, really? Wow. No, I know Kelly's very much into the breath work at this point. Uh, I mean, I introduced it to him, so, you know, and I know he- he uses it inside of his- 101s and 102 courses now, so, you know, from his work. But, you know, at any rate, Kelly's been a very close comrade of mine for a very long time. Um, so we've kind of grown up in the industry together, but, you know, the- it's interesting how I stumbled onto the breath work and why, even though I was introduced to it quite some time ago, and it just didn't take. And I understand why it didn't take, um, because it was never explained in a way that made sense to, especially, a guy who was participating in strength and conditioning was all about performance.","offset":172,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, I understand. So, I- I- I entered into this world of yoga many years ago and had a yoga practice because I was a triathlete who was getting tight. And when you get tight, you need to loosen up. And so I went to yoga and I ended up enjoying yoga real- like a ton. And I chased around a yogi in Ashtanga um, that was really good at what she was doing. But I just never paid attention to the fact that we were in- we were utilizing a breath practice at the foundation of this practice. Like we were controlling our breathing, we were told to control our breathing, we were told to control our breathing in specific patterns. You know, this went on and on, and I was like, you know, I just remember it blowing over to a large degree.","offset":223,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian: And that in and of itself is kind of how we all behave to a large degree, and I'm- I'll connect all this through this talk so that it makes sense for everybody else. Um, you know, but I largely just paid attention to the fact that I needed to get more flexible or more mobile at the time. And then I drifted away from yoga for a little bit, really got hardcore into endurance training, obviously wrote a couple books on that and came to a pretty good understanding of some ways to tweak things for people who are busy um, and who were injured. Um, you know, and that that was a big part of my career for about 10 or 12 years. And then somebody handed me a training mask and I laughed, and I was like, \"This doesn't change altitude. I know how pressure works. I've actually worked on altitude training for quite some time and this can't change pressure.\" So, you know, but nonetheless, you know, when you you you make fun of something and if you're in you know, done enough work in your life to understand that you haven't if you're making fun of things or you're crit- criticizing things that you've never used, that's called ignorance.","offset":276,"duration":75},{"text":"Brian: And I didn't want to remain ignorant to something, so I put the damn thing on. And I instantly went from like I'm seated now to I sat up and I engaged my diaphragm and I felt my ribs expand out and, like, my back light up, and like I was like, \"Whoa!\" Like, you know, it was it was just- I tend to feel a lot. And because of my background in teaching movement and getting people fixed, or helping people to fix themselves, I um, you know, I I was just like, \"Whoa, here- whoa! What happened? Like maybe we've got something that I could put on my athletes when they're warming up so that we can get 'em moving properly and using their you know, their core correctly, organizing their spine in a way that it should be, because, oh shit, like it just so happens that we organize the spine based on our diaphragm. We have to. At the- at the root of who we are and what we do is a system that is dependent upon one thing, and that is life. And that life is predicated on a deal that was made 500 million years ago in order to use aerobic metabolism.","offset":351,"duration":74},{"text":"Brian: So, suffocation sits at the heart of that. So we could remove our amygdala, our panic- our freak out- our, not our panic center, our fear center, and you will still have chemoreceptors that will set you off in a panic when carbon dioxide levels raise. So, if I'm not organized correctly around my spine, I don't use my diaphragm correctly, so I default into poor breathing patterns. So, this is a rabbit hole of movement that really made more sense to something about organization of the spine, right? And there's a- there's a lot of minutia around the spine and organization and core stability and everything we want to do, but by and large we have figured out and theorized that the only reason you need to organize that spine correctly is to actually take a breath and understand that breath. Because the lungs don't do that work on their own. The diaphragm is the primary in that and then we follow up through the intercostals and several other muscles that end up getting involved. But poor breathing habits elicit poor responses including that of the sympathetic nervous system, or I default into some poor breathing patterns that have me using my anaerobic system more than necessary.","offset":425,"duration":71},{"text":"Host: And is that in and out of exercise?","offset":496,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Yes, that is without exercise, my friend.","offset":498,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Wow.","offset":500,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: You are constantly using anaerobic systems and aerobic systems at all times. We all- we're like- this is- we know this. What we started seeing was like look man, we took a look back, so this started with a training mask and it inevitably became like \"Oh shit, you've got your own training mask on your face, it's called a nose.\" And holy crap, it like it has this filter system and it's got these- this humidification system, it's got- oh my gosh, this thing, mucus, oh, it releases like immune cells. Like, um, so it helps my immune system function better. I spinning the air differently, it forces my diaphragm to actually pull more because it's- it's not allowing for fast air to happen. It doesn't mean we can't breathe through our mouth or shouldn't, it's just when is it necessary? And we can get into that in a bit if you want. But, you know, it- it's interesting we we started understanding we started looking at the physiology behind all this stuff and the framework behind physiology, and we've missed some big, big things.","offset":501,"duration":71},{"text":"Brian: And it- it's all there, it's just the way we've taught it and the way we've looked at it has not been real um, I would say it- it's not a very creative process, thus why it's eluded us. And even in the world of yoga today they've missed it, and they've misunderstood what it is that pranayama actually means. And pranayama is a word that is basically- it's a Sanskrit word that's probably about 5,000 years old, and there's other languages that use these very similar terminology, including um, Hebrew, um, that it means \"energy control\" at its root. It also means \"breath control.\" Odd that they're the same. Odd that we use a cardiometabolic device in order to measure our breath, which tells us what's happening from a cellular level. So, through cellular respiration, we understand the only way we can we measure that is through the gas exchange of what's going on here.","offset":572,"duration":58},{"text":"Brian: So, we said let's look at this realistically and see what happens. And so we started measuring things, and we were measuring things in many different ways including just a simple breath practice um, or hey, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to walk my dog. And Rob Wilson, who's my counterpart in the Art of Breath, who's our lead on education- he's our Director of Education, um, went for a walk with his dogs with his mouth open. And then he came back, reset his device, and we have portable metabolic carts, and he shut his mouth and went for a walk with his dogs, the exact same route. Turns out those are two different and totally, totally different metabolic profiles. Weird. And- and it's not weird. This has been said for thousands of years. We're not actually bringing- we're not actually saying things that, you know, are that crazy, but unfortunately they are crazy in our world because there's so many really, really, really smart scientific people who we look to who've missed the boat on a lot of this stuff, and the simplicity of it.","offset":630,"duration":72},{"text":"Brian: And it's not that they're dumb or that they've you what- whatever, it's just we weren't really looking at this. And so we started really going after not only the movement and and and how the mechanics work around this, but then the physiology, right? Um, and then starting to see that, oh wow, it's all chemistry in the body is regulated through our breath. All of it. So how we shift from alkaline to acidic is literally governed through how I breathe, and how I absorb oxygen is dependent upon how well my body actually plays with this molecule this- this thing called carbon dioxide. In the body in the blood it's carbonic acid, and then as we exhale as it gas exchange it becomes carbon dioxide. But I am largely dependent upon how well I actually react to that and that can, you know, that has other facets to it, I'll go here in a second. But my relationship to carbon dioxide is actually how well I play with oxygen and how well I'm efficient- how efficient I am at using oxygen.","offset":702,"duration":64},{"text":"Brian: So, I may be a freediver who can actually sit here and do breath work and be very, very, very oxygen efficient because I can hold my breath for long periods of time, which also requires an ex- a very high level of CO2 tolerance. This is static CO2 tolerance. This is non-working CO2 tolerance. When we look at training or we look at human performance- and I use quotes because performance I think is- we're about to kind of shift a paradigm on what human performance is. Um, but the idea that if I work- like, when I start to work out, that shifts. There's a different response, or there's a- there's a very different play that happens within CO2 tolerance. And so I've been I've been able to observe and take people who are freedivers who are highly specialized, or big-wave surfers who are also, you know, freedivers in essence to some degree, but they're highly specialized.","offset":766,"duration":65},{"text":"Brian: And when we apply work to them, we see a very different story happen. So we see the specialist kind of come apart, right? Meaning, there's a very different- like that CO2 tolerance that was really high when I'm static and not a lot of stressors going on, or a big wave- some things like that- I'm very accustomed to. When I start working out, my respiration rate goes up considerably higher than it would with somebody, let's say, let's call it, you know, Eliud, right? His respiration rate isn't going to go up so high, right? But the interesting thing here is I would bet if Eliud's never really participated in any sort of static breathing or carbon dioxide tolerance training, he's probably shit statically. Right? And so there's this weird world that we started to see.","offset":831,"duration":46},{"text":"Brian: Now, my fascination is in connection with the brain and- so the neurobiology of it and the physiology. I'm- I- I'm now considering what physiology is more or less our mind. Our abili- that's what our mind is, and our ability to connect to the mind and understand the feelings and the processes and the things that are going on. And so the brain is where the circuitry and- and the information is being sent out. The brain works perfectly fine as long as we're connected to the physiology and understand the physiology. If we don't understand the physiology, the brain will get away from us and start overthinking, right? And so as kids, when we come into this world, we have this thing where we're attached to a parent and we learn- this is- it's unavoidable, right? And and so from a neurobiological perspective, at the top layer, the most evolved part of the brain is our neocortex, and this is where the stories- this is where some of the emotional things, like, start to trigger.","offset":877,"duration":65},{"text":"Brian: But this is where the storytelling, motor control- a lot of- there's a lot of dedicated area to motor control in the brain, um, to where we can do different tasks. Like I can talk or- like I can talk and drink water at the same time, or think and drink water. You know what I mean? I mean, just simple basic shit that we go throughout our day that some of us confuse ourselves in thinking it's multitasking, of which it's not. Um, so that's the storytelling side of things. Below that becomes the limbic system. This is where emotions are now concrete and set up in the system, and where I will have a reaction emotionally to something, and then the storytelling gets played into there, right? And so it can get exacerbated. Then down below that, we have the brain stem where the- or we could call it the reptilian brain, the oldest part of the brain. And this is where the kind of evolution of everything takes place. Oh, it just so happens that our respiration centers are set up in that brain stem. So, meaning, they are on autopilot with my system, and they can respond to every emotion and every thought that I have.","offset":942,"duration":60},{"text":"Brian: It also can respond to the work that I have because I have dedicated chemoreceptors set up in the carotid and the aortic valves which are headed out to the periphery. So that means we're on a prediction system that carbon dioxide levels that are set up in my brain stem react to a prediction of what's occurring in the system through chemoreceptors and baroreceptors that are in my arteries, and it's triggering me to breathe. So my heart rate responds to that, right? So the heart rate's late to the game. And so, you know, there's a whole plethora of things in there, but how I decide to grow up and how I go through my experiences in life inevitably have a Rolodex of things on how I actually respond to breath. So, when I actually am working out, I can tell with many people where the potential trauma or problems can set up, or we can see metabolic issues, even from somebody who doesn't work out as they sit and are doing things.","offset":1002,"duration":71},{"text":"Host: I get you. Yeah. Um, one thing that's just come to me there as you were talking. Do you think it's strange that we don't have control over our heartbeat as humans, as evolved creatures?","offset":1073,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian: Well, the only way you're going to control your heart rate is how?","offset":1083,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Output? Movement?","offset":1088,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Nope.","offset":1089,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Breath?","offset":1091,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: You got it. So, if I just said, \"Hey, Chris, check it out. Control your heart rate for me right now.\" And if we put you on a heart rate monitor, because that's what you- we- most people would do, they go \"Alright, let me get on a heart rate monitor.\" Like, no no no no no. Can you feel your heartbeat right now without doing anything? Can you feel it?","offset":1092,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: A tiny bit- I'd have to be very tuned into my body.","offset":1116,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took me about- it- about three years ago I was able to like I can just sit there and I could pick it up anywhere in my body I really want to. Whether I want to do it in a toe or a finger or my neck or whatever, right? But it's like, alright, how do I lower that? And I literally will go [breathes in deeply and exhales slowly] and my heart rate will start to drop by controlling my breathing.","offset":1118,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: I understand. I think that obviously shows that the heart rate is um, at the mercy of the breath to a large degree. I was just thinking about whether it's- I can control my breath. I can consciously hold it, breathe quicker, breathe slower. But that's not something that we have with our digestive system, that's not something that we have with our heart. You know, that- that- it would appear that from our- the- the things that are inside of us, the lungs are kind of the only thing that we have that kind of control over. Is that fair to say, or am I missing something there?","offset":1143,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: Your- your breath is- so, check this out. This and this might flip your lid.","offset":1174,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: I'm ready.","offset":1182,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Your- your breath controls all of that.","offset":1183,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay. Rest and digest is controlled by the breath.","offset":1186,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: BKS Iyengar has a quote. He is responsible for bringing yoga to the Western world. He's one of the last great yogis. What- now, he also taught things in a way that was fairly brutal. Um, it would not have gone by real well today. Um, nonetheless, I- I'm of that school. Like, I- I like that- I don't need to be coddled. I- I- I want work, and I want real work. Um, nonetheless, the mind is the king of the senses, but the breath is the king of the mind.","offset":1190,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: Hmm. I like that.","offset":1231,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Okay? So, that was his. It's not mine. My breathing affects how I digest things. How so? Well, my diaphragm pushes down into my organs. I have regulation of my para- I- I- I have regulation of my sympathetic activity due to how I control my breathing. The inhale is known as the sympathetic and for a long time people have said the exhale is known as parasympathetic. Well, it's not parasympathetic. It's inhibition of sympathetic.","offset":1233,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: That's interesting, because that's that's where HRV, a lot of HRV stuff gets um, wrist monitors and stuff would come from, right? It's the variation within heartbeats.","offset":1268,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian: Yes. Yes, yeah. And so the con- we- started figuring out a long time ago that you could manipulate heart rate variability through breath control. Easy. So you could change a profile of an athlete who who might not have the score or the readiness state that we want, right? And we'd apply breath work to that person and we could manipulate and then they'd have a green light.","offset":1279,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: What's readiness state? What- what's the- uh, characteristics that contribute to that?","offset":1307,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian: You fit into a specific profile of- so, like, think of a spectrum, like think- think of an arc, right? Um, of sympathetic and parasympathetic, right? There's a specific arc with para- inside parasympathetic and slightly into sympathetic that you can be in order to be ready to train at let's call it 80% and above, right? So we would have- if an athlete fell too parasympathetic, that meant that they were literally, you know, you're dissociative, you're shutting down type of thing, you need more upregulatory things like cold plunge, like some, you know, things to kind of bring you up out of that. Um, but lo- from the- and there's there's a lot more to that. But from a more sympathetic side, this is where most of us tend to fall, is where we just aren't coming down enough. We're not coming out of that high sympathetic activity. That's by and large most of the people I deal with and I see. This is the people who are probably listening to here.","offset":1312,"duration":66},{"text":"Host: The overtrainers, the people that are caffeinated, overworked.","offset":1378,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: Yeah. I like coffee, I like to work out hard, I like to uh work hard, I'm very passionate about what I do, I'm type A, you know, maybe not so type A, but I do like to train hard and do things hard and do all this. And and by and large, what we end up getting with those people is an inability to understand actually what they're training for. Like they, you know, and this is why breathing's so important is because I can actually get you to understand a lot more through that process of training and understanding your breath. It's also why we created a gear system around training and how you can actually manipulate the one variable that is actually responsible for the rest of the variables that you're training for.","offset":1382,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: Hmm. Yeah, that is that is right. And it- it does make sense that you have this direct control over one of the internal processes that's going on. We have a, I suppose, a quite diluted control over the thoughts that go through our mind, but I have a lot better control over my breath than I do the thoughts in my mind, and that's after three years of pretty consistent meditation. So, I think I think focusing on the breath seems like a good place to start. So if we were to do a uh breath MOT, Brian, where would you- where would you start? If you lay someone down, you're gonna look under the hood, you're gonna look at the way that they breathe, either in or out of- of a training situation. Where do you start? Is it the cycle? Is it the pace? Is it-","offset":1426,"duration":39},{"text":"Brian: I start with a CO2 tolerance test. I get a CO2 tolerance test down on 'em, a max exhale test. That tells me literally what's going- like, I mean- look, so my- Rob who I work with, he's in Virginia Beach, which is lar- the largest hub of um special forces, so special warfare in the world. Um, it's where they house seal te- Dev Group, Seal Team Six, um, you know, there's another team over there too, but there's a lot of high-level dudes over there.","offset":1465,"duration":28},{"text":"Host: A lot of badasses.","offset":1493,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, but these dudes like to train a certain way too, right? And so, you know, like you get these guys and and they've got problems going on and it's like, \"Alright, you know,\" Rob got called in yesterday for- or no, this morning. We were on the phone this morning and it was his afternoon and he um- it was like, \"Yeah, I- I couldn't finish training, I got called in to go over to this uh- this place to go meet this guy who seems to be a pr- pretty problematic and he's got a lot of issues and he can't recover, he's got these injuries going on and blah, blah, blah,\" just a whole host of shit. And he's a team guy. And um, you know, he- Rob went over and he's like, \"Guess what his CO2 tolerance level was.\" And I was like, \"Under 20 seconds.\" And he said, \"17 seconds.\" And I was like, \"Yep. Get it.\" And uh, you know, he is cooked.","offset":1495,"duration":57},{"text":"Brian: And most of us are cooked. If I've got somebody who's training like that, if I've got an operator, especially an operator, who's got anything under a minute of a CO2 tolerance test, I've got somebody who's reactive, I've got somebody who- their system is reactive. They might not be emotionally reactive, but their suppression of things- I know that. The tissue isn't responding well, meaning they're tight, they've probably got painful tissue. Like, these things start to like compound, right? And they're all signs- like- so, so carbon dioxide is the metabolic stress messenger of the body, of the system. We don't even need an amygdala, man. You know, so it tells me what's going on with the person. So if- like when I have too much going on upstairs, I push that CO2 tolerance down, right? If I'm overtrained, if I've been training too much and I haven't let my body recover enough, I'm pushing that CO2 tolerance level down. When I think, when I do too much, I'm pushing that CO2 tolerance level down. Meaning, when CO2 raises, it doesn't have to raise as much in order for me to react to it- respond to it- and the first respondent of that is your breath because I have to offload that CO2 in order to feel better. So my aerobic efficiency, capacity, threshold, whatever, switches based on how much- how- how well I tolerate CO2.","offset":1552,"duration":94},{"text":"Brian: It's also telling me what basically is going to be happening cognitively. So if I get a person, the first thing I'm doing with them most likely is a CO2 tolerance test to tell me exactly where they're at. It's a threefold test. So, I- we- you sit down for a couple minutes or you lay down for a couple minutes and you just do some slow controlled breathing that you're comfortable with. Not fast, you can't hyperventilate. Then we go into a four-breath pattern to where we breathe up for like three- three or four seconds and then you relax, let it go for about five to seven, you know, five seconds or so. So it's a little bit longer of an exhale, but let's relax, let it go. Then inhale. Fourth breath you pull it in, you start the timer the moment it hits the top of the breath and you start exhaling as long and as slow as you possibly can. So you have to control it.","offset":1646,"duration":50},{"text":"Brian: So this- there's a three-part test in that it tells me how much control you have of your diaphragm on the negative, how well I have control of that, so there's the mechanical aspect of it, right? Then from a physiological perspective, it tells me how well you how- how well your physiology is responding to carbon dioxide, so how aerobically efficient you're going to be just calm. Okay? Remember the dog- walking the dog story? How- how well do you respond in a very simple fashion to carbon dioxide? Cognitively, so from a state perspective and arousal state perspective, how what you- how you react to carbon dioxide. The panic switch. So when you're going to be reactive, how you're going to be reactive. Anybody below 20 seconds and we have a very reactive volatile environment that we need to actually start working to clean up.","offset":1696,"duration":58},{"text":"Brian: And that's usually done fairly quickly with most people if and only if they're willing to actually back off a bit and learn. That allows for a gap to start to occur, an improvement to start to occur in the CO2 tolerance. So then we start to administer some breathing protocols: \"Hey, let's figure out-\" and this is why we built the State app was so that we could actually get people some protocols to use to actually work on breath control to increase uh their CO2 tolerance, but also allow them to kind of get into this more focused or calm, clear state um or downshift them prior to after training or prior to bed. That was the whole point of that. And so we'll set protocols up for people based on where they need the most help.","offset":1754,"duration":54},{"text":"Host: How much of the breath control that we're talking about there is simple ability to avoid discomfort? Because someone who is in a good place, who might feel like \"I can control this gasp reflex for longer,\" that'll contribute a little bit, but as you've mentioned as well, the CO2, this CO2 tolerance appears to be like the master of this. Is that right?","offset":1808,"duration":25},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, so what's the question? Am I rephrasing? Or- or- you're bringing that back again?","offset":1833,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So, how much can be trained in terms of someone's ability to breathe that is um separate to the way that their physiology is put together at that time? So, is there someone who's very good at controlling their breath but still might be in this-","offset":1837,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that- that's- that's the interesting thing. And this- why- this is where my work really diverted because I was running around with guys like Wim Hof- I was literally pretty close with Wim Hof. Um, and there's nothing- like Wim's got a great thing, he's doing great work, um, you know, uh there's other- like I've gone and participated and learned about Tumo, um many of the you know yoga practices, etc, etc. Holotropic, um, like there's Buteyko, um, like there's a lot of methods out there, right? And unfortunately each and one of each and every one of these methods is making claims that it doesn't do in some fashion. In some fashions they do, in other fashions- and this is the problem with you know getting caught up in and understanding our attachments to things and you know thinking that you know we've got an answer, and the answer is you. You're the answer, you're the only answer there is. It's not your breathing, your breathing's not an answer either. It's just an indicator of something, right?","offset":1851,"duration":59},{"text":"Brian: And so our ability biologically is- is not even close to being tapped. And I I think that be true even with something like, you know, what happened with Eliud. But going back to this is- I started seeing that not everybody reacts to the same protocols in the same way. Hmm. And so it became a there is not a one-size-fit-all fits all. There's a- there's a more or less kind of a fingerprint to some degree. And although we can bucket people and categorize them in specific ways or you know things that are going on, like \"Hey, this guy is angry about stuff and that guy's angry about stuff and she's angry about stuff and you know she's more emotional and he's more emotional about things,\" like- like meaning, depending on how you emotionally handle things, there are going to be certain patterns that are going to set certain th- things off and connect you to certain things.","offset":1910,"duration":56},{"text":"Brian: So, we had to I had to start- I was literally running around fingerprinting people with breath breath protocols because not everybody was responding the same way, and that wasn't a very you know viable thing for helping people. I was sure I was helping specific people, but I was burning myself out and there was no way I was ever going to be able to do this by myself. So, build an app and build an algorithm that work with that and we understood how to do that. So, we we literally customize things to people, but then it's like, okay well a lot of these people like to engage in performance, and they should because you should have a movement practice. Any human being that does not have a movement practice is not being a human being. Um, we we are designed to move. Now, getting neurotic about that to the degree that like I have to be this specific thing or whatever, that that's where it gets crazy.","offset":1966,"duration":50},{"text":"Brian: But nonetheless, applying this inside of movement, the framework of movement, becomes the next catalyst in how we do things. And the base layer of that is, hey, for the first few weeks we're going to just be nasal breathing. You can't go anything past nasal breathing. And for most people that's such a kick in the balls that it's like \"I don't want to do- like my ego's not ready for that check.\" And, you know, you take a powerlifter that squats a thousand pounds, I can tell you right now if they've not done any breath work, their CO2 tolerance is shit. That's a massive, massive carbon footprint. You're carrying so much lean muscle, so much muscle, but you don't do you know most of these people don't do enough of the kind of aerobic efficiency work and and that's a scary word to guys like that and and gals because they think they're scared of aerob- and it's like that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the thing that actually makes you survive.","offset":2016,"duration":57},{"text":"Brian: Like, aerobic metabolism is what makes you survive. So when you're resting, you should be high level aerobic. And yet you see these guys and gals on oxygen tanks and like breathing like [panting heavily] and- that's not necessary. It's not. And and it's not healthy. It's an indication-","offset":2073,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: What's that due to?","offset":2093,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: Por- poor CO2 tolerance.","offset":2095,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay. And that is exacerbated by people who are high mass, high muscle mass, heavy weight.","offset":2097,"duration":8},{"text":"Brian: Huge- look look- how what's the demand for oxygen with more muscle mass? It's up. Higher. So I need more oxygen in order because the mi- like look or- like- you know, so I've got all this tissue. Well, when I don't have enough oxygen or I'm not efficient enough [panting heavily], about four five breaths in, you're going to start dipping that needle more towards those anaer- like more towards the- the demand for the tissue's demand for more glucose, more glycogen. Okay? The nervous system and brain are- are stuck with glucose and glycogen. There's no- there's no if and but- and buts about that, right?","offset":2105,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian: But fat is what the muscles like can use. So the more fat we're using with the tissue, the better, right? And so the better we get the mitochondria functioning, the better off we are. And there's no reason why an NFL lineman and a gymnast or an endurance athlete can't all be aerobically efficient. It's just different thresholds at which point- like- sure, the lineman's going to be much more of an anaerobic athlete. Like much more high level, you know, spr- sprinter type explosive, you know, and so's the gymnast to some degree is, you know, pulling it back a little bit more. And then we got the endurance athlete where you're like, you know, all slow twitch, right? And it's all the same thing in terms of efficiency aerobically. So if I've got an- if I've got an endurance athlete who's going out on an- high level aerobic ride, but they got to open their mouth, I can tell you right now they're not as aerobic as they could be. They might be somewhat aerobic, but they are not as aerobic as they could be and they are not utilizing the system in a way that they could. This- this is literally factual things we have tested that are now going into re- that- that have raised some eyebrows enough to go, \"Wow, we didn't really look at it like this. We should really be testing this.\" So, this is what's happening.","offset":2148,"duration":79},{"text":"Host: I get it. So, let's take it from the top with regards to Brian's advice for good breath. Where do we begin with that? What are the- what are the principles for good breath?","offset":2227,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian: Like the State app was created for this. Like look, start in the- do one- one breath protocol exercise in the morning, do one in the evening for sleep. Play with that for a few weeks, see where it improves what you feel, how- what you like, what you don't. If you want to play with more, go for it, right? That's probably going to be in the vicinity of five minutes each, right? That's not hard for people who like to train.","offset":2239,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: Morning and evening.","offset":2266,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Morning and evening, right? Simple. If you want to do all four, go for it. Do it. Like, you're- you're getting an A+ now. Um, the- the second part of this is if you're not going to the world championships or you're not competing for, you know, an Olympic medal or you're not like going to an A-priority race within the next two months, you do- like- there's no reason why you can't go dedicate three to four weeks to strictly nasal only breathing and take enough step back to actually get your physiology rewired.","offset":2267,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: Across all- across all training methodology? Whether you're-","offset":2305,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian: Across all training methodology. I don't care if you're an MMA athlete, powerlifter, Crossfitter, whatever. I've done it with the Crossfit athletes. I did it with Tia. Like, I've done it with like I've- done it with several fucking athletes that people would never consider would do- would be able to do something like this. And it rearranged what was going on and gave them an ability to do things that they didn't think they could- they could manage to do. And so it just empowered them in a level. Yeah. Yeah.","offset":2308,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: What- I mean, how long does it take to create adaptation to something?","offset":2342,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: Right around three weeks.","offset":2346,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: I like it. I like that. Um, of course, everyone who is listening, the State app will be linked in the show notes below. Brian's app, which I'm pretty certain- is this the first iteration or is it on to kind of like a 1.5 now?","offset":2349,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: What's- the app?","offset":2363,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Yes.","offset":2365,"duration":0},{"text":"Brian: Uh, this is the first ver- there's been a couple updates on it. Yeah. Yeah. But this is the first version of it. We're- there's- there's a lot more that's going to come into the pipeline of- once we get through the first investor stuff that we're going through. Uh, there will be some serious, serious things that are coming down that pipeline. Um, you know, I mean, it's already a- it's been way more successful than we ever thought it was going to be. Um, but we also know like- there's- there's a lot more that we do than just doing some simple breath protocols. Like there's high-level things you can do in order to change your physiology that could, you know, that are game-changing things.","offset":2365,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Hmm. So what happens when you breathe through your nose? Tell me. Someone's training they're just breathing through their nose. What's happening? Why- we've talked about the- the different workout of the walk with the dog with the nose open and closed. What- how's that characterized?","offset":2412,"duration":14},{"text":"Brian: It's- it's your biological way of staying aerobic. 500 million years ago, cells single-cell organisms figured out how to become multicellular organisms. They said, \"Hey, let's you and I communicate like you and I are right now. Let's talk about some things. Let's share some information so that we can pass this shit on and p- see that oxygen-rich environment now? It used to be hostile. It used to be mostly carbon.\" Like and it was we had to be mostly anaerobic and we changed energy otherwise. And this is where like we're headed right now is this is all about energy. There's nothing else. There's nothing other other than energy. All energy that's ever existed has existed. It's how we're con- the conversion of energy is happening. We don't b- it's not we burn- we don't burn calories. Okay? That- that's us- we're converting calories. We're literally taking energy converting that energy and then putting energy back out. Like it's literally this cycle of and we forget about all this thing. And so that energy deal got made when cells learned to communicate and said \"Hey, let's take this oxygen and let's use this,\" and it's much more complex than this but this is just the story that I like you know like- but it's like, \"Hey, 500 million years ago multicellular organisms figured out how to use oxygen after algae and algae literally figured out how to convert sunlight into energy itself and the byproduct of that was oxygen.\" So the Earth became engulfed in this algae, all of a sudden there's all this oxygen in the environment. Then cells were like, \"Yo, there's a- got to be an efficient process to this.\" And here's that process.","offset":2426,"duration":93},{"text":"Brian: Today, 500 million years ago, aerobic metabolism sits at the forefront of the most efficient way to use energy. And so anything outside of aerobic metabolism becomes anaerobic. So if I don't have that process that conversion of energy I'll default very simply and we should to this higher stress situation of using energy. So anaerobic doesn't necessarily become a training process, it's more or less the byproduct of I'm no longer able to handle aerobically what's going on. So how quickly I can come back to that aerobic is literally how well I can. So having a very high aerobic capacity means I function higher aerobically. So when we look at people like a guy smashing the two-hour marathon, what does he look like physiologically? And although there's like look to be total like look I support and I'm very happy for the man and everything but realistically if he were in the same setup as they were in 1950 or even 1980 he wouldn't have run a sub-two-hour marathon. That that wouldn't have- it's not the same marathon. It's a different marathon even though the distances are the same. The shoes, the pacers, the- the- all of these things exist, but I don't deny the fact that this man's physiology is off the hook and the only reason I really know that is not only have I studied how he moves, but I've watched how he breathes.","offset":2519,"duration":108},{"text":"Host: What's your analysis? What's your analysis of his-?","offset":2627,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian: He primarily breathes through his nose.","offset":2629,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":2632,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Most of his marathon is done nose-only breathing. You can find pictures all over the internet with salt marks that come down his nose, and you'll see when he's running that most of the pictures are of him with his mouth shut. Hmm. I did notice that. So I've watched video. Yeah. Yeah, I've- I've- I've videoed the video so that I could go and slow it down and look at it and watch it, and you know there it is. And, you know, I mean he comes from African culture, right? And what what is of the African nose? Like they've got larger nostrils. Well, they've dev- like genetically they are set up to do something. Like if you've ever watched a horse race- so I watched an- I watch animals like like- it's a like big passion like I'm almost neurotic about it. You know, you watch animals who don't sweat and they don't actually the only time they're mouth breathing is when they're overheating. Okay? You watch animals who do sweat, a horse, a racing horse, they will not breathe out of their mouth. They just have a bit in their mouth. They breathe through their nostrils. They literally will not breathe out of their mouth.","offset":2633,"duration":76},{"text":"Host: Why do we then?","offset":2709,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: Uh, you know, it's interesting, we have um done real well at progressing ourselves culturally through comfort and convenience. And in that process we've more or less stressed ourselves more than we actually needed to. So by that I mean this. Uh, there was a book written in 1867 I believe, I forget the date, um but George Catlin wrote a book called \"Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life.\" And he wrote this book as a historian who was a lawyer from England who came over to the State- which was basically North America and South America at the time- studied about a million and a half indigenous cultures and civilized world. He was uh the biggest thing he picked up on was the fact that in- in indigenous culture, they did not breathe through their mouth, rarely. And- and when they- when they spoke, they spoke with intent. They did not speak too much. They meant what they said, they said what they meant. When they slept, they slept with their mouths shut, when they hunted, they hunted with their mouths shut. They did everything they could, including when children came off of the nipple, mothers would shut the mouth of the child for fear of the black mouth. Because not only was the white eye called the white eye or round eye, he was called the black mouth. And the reason he was called the black mouth was because his mouth looked disgusting.","offset":2713,"duration":108},{"text":"Brian: And why would that be? Well, look at what we started doing cultu- look at what we- were starting to do. I mean, we were drinking more alcohol, we were- sugar started to become- agriculture started to kick in, all of these things of convenience started to happen, right? And here's a culture of people who pay attention to nature. What is nature? Physiology. That is literally one of the definitions of- of physiology is nature, origin. And thus paying attention to the feelings of nature and what's going on. So what happens when I feel when I breathe through my mouth? Right? Well, I get ramped up, I turn on, I speak. If I go speak somewhere and I talk just for an hour, I'm on, like I feel like I'm on. If I speak for an entire day, I'm exhausted. I don't go work out, I try not to go to dinner with people afterwards. Why am I so exhausted? I'm blowing off a ton of carbon dioxide, I'm more sympathetic dominant, I'm actually using less of the fat so I'm- I'm not as aerobic as I could be, even though I am still slightly aerobic, I'm not as aerobic as I could be, right? So it's learning those waves, they felt that shit, man. They felt it.","offset":2821,"duration":70},{"text":"Brian: We don't feel. We have- we have these things in front of us and we're getting stimulated and we've got all these kids that are going batshit crazy because they don't have recess anymore, they're pulled from play, they're told what to do, they're told how they're going to learn, then they're given infinite possibilities on a machine to play games and keep them occupied because Mom and Dad don't want to deal with 'em. And then they've got anxiety because of this. They don't have anxiety. They've got proper stimulation from being overstimulated. They've got physiology that's run amok and they don't understand it, and this has been by and large what's going on with us even those of us that like to train a lot. Like I mean, I'm on I'm talking to you, I'm on, I need to sh- when I'm done here, I mean I'm feeling this. I feel it. So I've gotten to the point where I feel all this stuff and I'm paying attention. If my mouth opens when I'm asleep at night, I wake up.","offset":2891,"duration":55},{"text":"Host: Why? Why would you wake up if your mouth opens, based on everything you've just gone over?","offset":2946,"duration":9},{"text":"Brian: Because you become more stressed. Bingo. I'm now slipping more into sympathetic and I'm turning myself on. Hmm. Okay. I understand. How many of us are trying to sleep in this high sympathetic activity state, right? And I'm also not as aerobic, and then oh shit, I've got sleep apnea so now I'm holding my breath in an awkward fashion and [gasps and exhales heavily] like, I've got all- like weird. Like, what are you paying atten- are- like, you need medication and a fucking- you need a mask to wear at night? I've got friends who do this and they refuse to do breath work and I'm like, \"Dude, it's your choice.\" Um, I've got more DMs and P- I don't even talk about this I don't write about this stuff publicly. Like I don't go out and go, \"I'm going to solve your problems.\" No. Here, start with some breathing protocols, start rearranging your training, then start feeling what's going on in your body.","offset":2955,"duration":54},{"text":"Brian: You're going to default to places that you can. Is it weird that George Catlin was also in a book that I've read and the- I'm the only person who's caught this so far, right? Only because I've read this other book. It's a book called \"Empire of the Summer Moon\" and it is about the Comanche Indians who are arguably the- the most war-driven tribe of people that have almost existed. They- they're in comparison to the Mongols in like- uh lot of the stuff that happened with 'em, but they were very, very gnarly. They were so gnarly that had the Colt revolver not ended up in the hands of a few young white boys from Texas called Texas Rangers, they would have- this world- this country would be a very different place right now. They knew how to fight off of horseback in a way that no other culture had understood and they couldn't combat it. So shooting a rifle with one shot was no good, right?","offset":3009,"duration":61},{"text":"Brian: And so this book was written and there was a guy around- there were a number of historians that were there that were interviewed and one of those historians throughout this book that was written about was George Catlin. And so there's this guy that's there and the biggest thing he picked up on was that the people who were of the of the- Earth, that were literally living on the Earth, that were living in planes that everybody feared to cross because they had no idea how to navigate, they had no idea how to do things, and there was this murderous culture of people who did not want them near anything and- including other tribes, like other tribes feared the Comanche, right? Like they were feared. And it- it's a fantastic read.","offset":3070,"duration":49},{"text":"Brian: But the fact of the matter is is I'm able to now connect through reading physiology and then reading about literally \"Hey, George Catlin wrote this book in the six- in 1800s about this,\" holy crap, there it is! What is history? It's literally telling us what's going on with- like- there's- there's lessons to be learned about all this stuff and what people were doing. You think- you think a Comanche Indian who knew how to navigate the land could get on his horse and ride for three or four days straight with no food basically, or limited food supply and water supply, what do you think the physiology of a human being like that is? Like, literally could survive in freezing cold temperatures, navigate land in storms, like where do you think we're at culturally right now? We're worried about squatting a thousand pounds and running a two-hour marathon. I don't think we're anywhere close to what our biological potential is. I think we missed the boat. I think we're confused. I think we think that technology is this great thing that's going to get us into the future and it's not. It's going to just lead us right back to our own biology and going \"Shit, we're mimicking all this technology after stuff we internally are able to do.\" It's why I asked you what- how would- how- how do you control your heart rate and how do you feel that? \"Well, I'd have to be calm for a minute and then I could really pick up on-\". Yeah. Well, guess what? You can feel that at any moment you want. Just got to spend the time to get back to that.","offset":3119,"duration":85},{"text":"Host: I understand. Yeah. It's interesting what you said there about when you spend a whole day talking, right? So I do coaching calls. I coach a sales company in Germany and every time I'm done, let's say it's maybe three hours and I've been talking to these guys, and it's a conversation. It's at least 50-50 between me and them, it's not all me. But once I'm finished, let's say I've done three hours, four hours of- of talking, little bit of water in between, little bit of chill or whatever. After I've done that, I'm absolutely gassed. Like once I'm done, I'm like, \"Hhh, I'm really tired.\" And I wasn't really sure- I thought, well maybe it's because cognitively it's quite demanding, I'm trying to link these things together, it's because I'm really putting myself into the person I'm speaking to or whatever it might be. And your suggestion here is that one of the principal reasons for this is going to be that I'm just inhaling and exhaling quite a bit of air quite a lot.","offset":3204,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian: Well, your- yeah- you're on, right? And so you're getting stimulated, but you're getting a stimulation that you're automatically like you're falling into autopilot on because you're talking, I'm talking, right? So we're- I'm ramping myself up. Not only am I ramping myself up and getting into what I'm doing, I'm getting focused and I'm being engaged with you, but the byproduct of that becomes my breath. My breath is the instant reaction to that. It- it's- it's the first respondent. There's only two- two things we can do in order to regulate or- or stimulate autonomic control consciously. That is our breath and our vision. So I can choose not to look at you right now and I can look at the end of the room and I can go into peripheral vision and I can downshift myself. I can go outside and look at the fucking look at nature, look at trees, right? How many people freak out looking at a sunset? None of 'em. Why? Because it's math. No, it's beautiful. Yeah, beautiful's there, but that's not math. Math is the algorithm that and it's the light waves that enter your eyes and open you up to go \"whomp!\" and it drops you into parasympathetic.","offset":3257,"duration":78},{"text":"Host: It's interesting vision side.","offset":3335,"duration":4},{"text":"Brian: We've got so many tools and things going on that we don't know about. I- literally man, I was just at the Cleveland Clinic, I was in open-heart surgery with them with a team there, and they were like, \"What do you think you could help with?\" And it's like simple man. Control your breathing and control your vision when you need to, when you need to make a better decision or something fucking- the shit hits the fan. Like, it's time to do that. That's human performance. That's human performance at its finest in trying to help somebody's life be saved, you know? And like why'd that person get there is another fucking- another story that we could be dovetailing back towards \"Hey, why we move and what we love about human performance.\" But that's human performance for me. Like human performance is literally getting to the core of why you know people doing everyday stuff, right? Like that's human performance. And I think we're eluding ourselves into thinking that we understand something by, you know, like \"What's a 500-pound deadlift do for me?\" These were- these were things I had to ask myself, right? Like this isn- I'm not asking this of you, I'm- I had to ask this of myself. What's a 500-pound deadlift? Because I've had a 500-pound deadlift, right? And it's like I- I was not able to connect the dots on what that meant. That I don't know that that made it better for me to survive. Getting up off the couch or picking shit up off the floor? I- I don't know that that 500 pounds is necessary for that.","offset":3339,"duration":81},{"text":"Brian: Like \"What's running 100 miles doing for me?\" It was a fucking amazing spiritual experience. But what was it doing for me, right? And like where was I at? And so what- you know- do I need to actually run 100 miles? No. But will I? I mean sure, I did a couple times but, you know, like- it's just- like I've done these things and I'm like so what's the point of this? Is this oh, I'm now clinging to this thing thinking it's the thing and- there we go. Now the mind now- now let's look at the ner- let's look at the neuroscience. Let's let's really start looking at the down the up- how everything's compiling and what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. So when I ask people like what do you want? Because they'll come to me. I literally have a call after this from with our mentorship program and I've already had two today. And it's \"What do you want?\" And I'm pretty quick to to understand that they don't know what they want even though they're telling me what they want. And so it's usually like \"Tell me what you want, I'll show you a liar.\"","offset":3420,"duration":62},{"text":"Brian: Because we're just not ready- really ready to let go of all these ideas that we have and it's not that you can't go deadlift a thousand pound or you know whatever you can't squat a thousand deadlift 500 go run 100 miles. Like these are just extreme versions of 'em, right? I don't need to go dive with Great White sharks but I did and I got that experience and it taught me some profound lessons man, profound. But if I'm actually in the moment and understanding what's going on in this very moment and how I'm operating and what I feel, then I'm moving back more towards what that Comanche was doing. And I'm actually getting in tune with the vibration of how everything works and why when I go why- you know, I went on a run earlier. What I'm trying to accomplish with that run and understand about that run. Where is it that on this hill that I'm climbing right now that I have that I feel like I need to make this switch? And how like- how cooked do I feel and where is that at and what can I do in order to improve that so that like, hey, this- this improves my day and it doesn't ruin my day, right?","offset":3482,"duration":61},{"text":"Brian: That's what I'm talk- you know, this is where we start- my reactions to what I'm doing in training, my reactions to what I'm doing throughout my day are the same thing. But I'm just getting people closer to what that actually is. And that's what we've been doing with the Art of Breath is really just you know, like people come in there and like this gal this weekend who showed up at at Rob's seminar, she was like she's a Crossfit Games athlete and you know she identified as a Crossfit Games athlete, I love that. Like I just love somebody comes in \"I'm like a professional athlete, I'm a professional Crossfitter,\" like whoa, okay. Um, I get it. I know where you're at. Um you know and we're doing all this work and stuff and there's a hypoxic set where you do farmer carries with- with kettlebells, right? So like you'll do some burpees and then you go and we have people grab the the kettlebells and then they dump their air and they have to walk as far as they can down and back.","offset":3543,"duration":53},{"text":"Host: Okay, yep, just farmer's walk.","offset":3596,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian: Yeah yeah yeah. And and so everybody- like this chick just takes off running, man. Like she's trying to win it, you know? And one of our coaches, Danny Yeager, who's phenomenal, um he runs Crossfit Kingfield out in Minnesota and he's like he watches this and then he sees a bunch of guys. So there's a lot of people there in in the warfare community, and so there's a lot of you know dudes and people who are like want to win, right? It's like what are you trying to win? So Danny stopped and he goes \"Hey! If you think we brought you here to actually see how long you could hold your breath while farmer walking kettlebells, you don't understand why you're here. You don't understand what we're doing. What is it you're feeling when you're holding your breath and walking these things? What's- if you're trying to win the farmer carry holding your breath, what is it you're winning here? There is no reward. It's we're here to experience something and understand what this thing can do and teach us. Well, I thought I was going to be able to carry those kettlebells a lot farther, or I thought I was only going to be able to carry 'em a few steps and I went further than I did. Awesome. Now we're starting to get somewhere versus \"Oh, I got to win this.\" Like win what? What are we winning? That's called ego. And and you just removed yourself from understanding all purpose of- of training. All training at the foundation of training is to make better decisions under stress. Carbon dioxide is the metabolic stress messenger of the human body. Done deal.\"","offset":3597,"duration":112},{"text":"Host: I love it. I love it. Brian, today's been fantastic. I really appreciate you coming on. Anyone who wants to check out some more of your work, where should they head? We've talked about Art of Breath. How does that relate to the State app? Is the State app a part of that? No.","offset":3709,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian: Does not- separate. No, State app's- a bit differ- um the State app's separate the you know a lot of the stuff with the business is going to change real soon. Um in fact the whole name everything's going to change, we're changing that so it all kind of fit and be seamless so it makes more sense to the world. Um that being said, the Art of Breath is a component of what we teach inside of Power Speed Endurance. It's a performance-based seminar, there's a 101 that we teach around the world but we also have it online. So that can be found on Power Speed Endurance. The State app is you can find each app whether it's Android or iOS on shiftstate.io. Anything about me or or if you want to get in contact with me or or you know whatever can be found on brianmackenzie.com or you can go through Power Speed Endurance.","offset":3725,"duration":50},{"text":"Host: Amazing. I- I have to say it was a listener who recommended that I- I check out the State app and get in touch with yourself and I think I've found the new thing that I'm going to add into my morning and evening routine. I've been looking for what it's going to be. I've stopped doing Rom-Wod for the time being and I do miss some of the breath control, I miss that parasympathetic activation. I'm still doing my meditation on a morning, I'm reading, I'm doing other bits and pieces, Stu McGill's Big Three, but I'm not I'm not feeling myself in the body quite so much with that. It's very- it's very visceral, it's very kind of um transactional that I'm doing it for the for the return on what I know it needs to do to my spine health. Um and I think I think the next- I think the- between now and Christmas it'll be- it'll be me doing that. So I'll report back, I'll keep you updated and I'll let the listeners know how I'm getting on.","offset":3775,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian: Please do. Please do. Yeah. Look at I- I would do the either \"Feel Alert\" or \"Be Present\" protocol if you're- if you're doing your meditation in the morning, do the breathing beforehand. There's a reason why breathing is at the foundation of every meditative practice.","offset":3826,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: That's interesting. So you'd say for a lot of people that are listening, maybe they have a meditative practice in their morning routine, you'd say do the breath work before that and then how- how do you program that in on an evening? Is it right before bed?","offset":3840,"duration":11},{"text":"Brian: If you have an active sitting, yeah. If you have an active sitting meditative practice, just be clear that if you want that brought up to the next level, add breathing before that. If you want it really brought up to the next level, use the State app so that you can fingerprint your- the rhythms that work with you. Like so your app's different- going to be different than mine based on you know how you actually handle carbon dioxide cognitively and how you handle emotional stress. So that can give you a ramp in. I can't tell you how many people who come to me who are like \"I can't meditate, it's just I don't have the patience, I don't have this, I don't have that.\" You're already there, but it's like I show 'em breathing and the fact is is breathing is a controlled breathing is meditation. Literally. Um you'll get there. Just give it some time, right? So use that beforehand. In the evening, anything less than two hours before you go to bed, okay, using the \"Fall Asleep\" protocol. That'll downshift you and change the sleep. You'll you should probably see some increases definitely in deep sleep, but also potentially in the REM cycle.","offset":3851,"duration":72},{"text":"Host: Fantastic. I've also got um my new Whoop band coming as the last one has um has lapsed, so I'll actually be able to track that and see if that's making any difference as well, which'll be- which'll be interesting. But Brian, today's been absolutely awesome. To the people that are listening, you already know what to do. The links to everything that we've spoken about, the State app, shiftstate.io, Power Speed Endurance, and Brian's website will be linked in the show notes below. Go hassle him online if um if you need to get some more info out of him. Um but Brian it's been- it's been fantastic, man. I'm really looking forwards to getting into my breath work.","offset":3923,"duration":31},{"text":"Brian: Right on, Chris. Thanks for having me, man.","offset":3954,"duration":15}],"logs":[{"elapsed":"0.0","message":"Downloading audio from YouTube...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"0.0","message":"Trying download with browser cookies (ad-free)...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"11.0","message":"⚠ Cookie download failed: WARNING: [youtube] [jsc] JS Challenge Provider \"deno\" returned an invalid response:         response = JsChallengeProviderResponse(request=JsChallengeRequest(type=<JsChallengeType.N: 'n'>, input=NChal","detail":null},{"elapsed":"11.0","message":"Retrying without cookies...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"368.8","message":"⚠ Downloaded without cookies — audio may contain ads","detail":null},{"elapsed":"368.8","message":"Audio downloaded (32.9 MB) in 368.8s","detail":"File size: 32.9 MB"},{"elapsed":"368.8","message":"Video title: How To Breathe Properly | Brian Mackenzie | Modern Wisdom Podcast 121","detail":null},{"elapsed":"368.8","message":"Audio duration: 1:06:12 (66.2 min)","detail":null},{"elapsed":"368.8","message":"Uploading audio to Gemini File API...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"404.2","message":"Audio uploaded in 35.4s","detail":"File ref: files/zirumnb8z7qy"},{"elapsed":"404.2","message":"Audio processed in 0.0s. 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