recap/history/1773858934218--dgsZ0O-lZQ.json

{"id":"1773858934218--dgsZ0O-lZQ","videoId":"-dgsZ0O-lZQ","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dgsZ0O-lZQ","title":"How to Breathe Better for Peak Performance | Brian MacKenzie | Align Podcast #527","type":"youtube","topicCount":10,"segmentCount":129,"createdAt":"2026-03-18T18:35:34.218Z","uploadDate":"20250123","chunks":[{"title":"Oxygen and CO2 Synergy","summary":"Brian explains that CO2 is essential for regulating pH and offloading oxygen to the cells via the Bohr effect. They discuss how CO2 has been historically villainized, despite oxygen being a destructive, oxidizing molecule without it.","entries":[{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Oxygen is a useless, destructive molecule without CO2. Most people are getting lost and stuck to a methodology versus understanding respiratory physiology and physiology in general. When you can hold your breath for a significant amount of time, what you’re doing is training your mitochondria to use less oxygen for more ATP. It’s not about the inhale, it’s about the exhale, which is something most people are never thinking about. Breathing’s the tool to kind of get you out of where you don't like what you’re feeling.","offset":0,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: Why is it that breathing affects one's state of consciousness so deeply and quickly and with such great efficiency and consistency?","offset":36,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Well, a number of reasons but, you know, one of the main being the fact that, you know, we're largely controlling carbon dioxide with breathing. Although, you know, you're bringing in oxygen as well and that's important, you know, 80 percent of that oxygen is roughly offloaded at rest. So when we're not working, when we're not doing something, a lot of that oxygen is not necessary. That being said, the CO2 actually is, and that is the, you know, one of the big drivers of things, but from a biochemical standpoint, CO2 regulates pH.","offset":48,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So that is essentially what's really the big player in regulating pH real time. Yes, the kidneys play a role in that and there’s a lot of other processes, but the major player with breathing is that it's a respondent to pH and if I change that pH, things start to change, the dynamics start to change, right? And as CO2 goes up, more oxygen comes off, comes out and is usable.","offset":88,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: From hemoglobin, from red blood cells. It liberates them.","offset":112,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: It liberates that. So then you've got, you know, if you've got functional mitochondria, you then get that oxygen down to the electron transport chain and you're now pumping that out. The better you get at this, and you know, as I used earlier as his, you know, opening protocol, when you get to his level of breath hold, you know, you don't even necessarily need to be at his level, but the reality is is that when you get to, you know, when you can hold your breath for a significant amount of time, what you're doing is training your mitochondria to use less oxygen for more ATP.","offset":117,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: This was done in a, they looked at this at a study done, I think it was in Sweden, but it's called the Tortoise and the Hare. And uh, in the lab, these guys had a professional triathlete, an elite triathlete, and an elite freediver who were both in the lab at the same time who were PhD students, I guess, or master's students, and they decided to take a look at the differences in them and how they used oxygen. And of course the triathlete being elite, used it real well from a VO2 standpoint and all of these things, he had a much larger aerobic threshold than the actual freediver.","offset":150,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: However, once they came into this conclusion about the less oxygen for more ATP, they were like, oh, well there's the other side of aerobic we haven't been looking at. So there's high benefit in in being able to hold one's breath, but you don't necessarily need to become a freediver or breath hold expert in order to get these benefits. Uh, you know, most people are overbreathing, which is you're just off- you’re just offloading CO2, um, as a result of that overbreathing even a slight bit, and that means you're just not getting as much of that oxygen off that hemoglobin.","offset":190,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: And what is- CO2 has largely been villainized historically for most basic people.","offset":225,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: As a waste, as a waste product.","offset":232,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: And- and yeah, oxygen good, CO2 bad, get the CO2 out, get the oxygen in. That’s obviously wildly incorrect and excessively basic and just...","offset":235,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: In facts, actually it’s kind of reversed.","offset":242,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":246,"duration":0},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So oxygen is a useless, destructive molecule without CO2.","offset":246,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Right.","offset":252,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No, literally. Like, it we’re- we're literally getting oxidized from the inside. Free radicals, like, have you heard of it? Oxidation? Like your car, you know, you go look at a car that’s being oxidized, that’s oxygen.","offset":253,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: And that’s a part of like hyperbaric chambers, it’s you’re pushing oxygen deeper which is actually creating a hormetic stressor. That’s like a part of mobilization of stem cells and such, you’re actually challenging your body.","offset":266,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Correct. Oxygen is important because of aerobic cellular respiration in that oxygen's role is to regulate metabolism, right? Where CO2 is there to regulate biochemically pH, right? And so they- they work together, but, you know, as- as you explained, you know, lots of people like to go in hyperbaric chambers and they don't actually understand why they're going in there. They're actually creating a very stressful response that they rebound from and a hormetic effect that inevitably has a very positive response after about 20 sessions can turn some things on and get some things boosted as a result, but make no mistake, you are stressing the hell out of your system as you're doing it.","offset":276,"duration":48}],"startTime":0},{"title":"Calming Benefits of Nasal Breathing","summary":"Brian outlines the physiological benefits of maintaining higher CO2 levels, including vasodilation and a robust parasympathetic response. He explains why the nose is specifically designed to retard airflow and maintain healthy CO2 dosing compared to mouth breathing.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Could you outline some of the benefits you already have a little bit, but go a little bit deeper into some of the benefits of CO2 that people might not recognize or realize, some of the like effects that people experience by having CO2 in their system?","offset":324,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, I mean it- it's a calm- it’s going to create a calming effect back you know, like 60s, 70s probably before even the 60s, but I mean I even remember in the 80s that, you know, people who the rare panic attack that would happen, people were given a paper bag to to breathe re-rebreath into. You’re just basically rebreathing CO2 and that creates a calming effect, right?","offset":339,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Um, because the more CO2 that's in the bloodstream, you're actually starting to vasodilate things, the nervous system’s responding by coming- calming down, becoming more parasympathetically driven. You know, and that's- that's essentially why we were really designed or the respiratory system, the pulmonary system was designed with the nose in mind and not necessarily the mouth for most of breathing, right? That nose has intricate processes set up and one of them is it retards how much air can come out and by that, you're getting the ni- you're getting a good dosing of CO2 whereas as I speak or you speak, you know, arousal starts to shift and that CO2 starts to drop.","offset":361,"duration":47},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So I start to use more glucose, I start to move, you know, I'm moving into a- a more activated state, which is natural. However, if that's what I'm doing all day long, where am I- where are those changes coming in to where I’m not? And that's where the regulation of breathing and and CO2 essentially start to come in where, uh, you know, people who who aren't mouth breathers tend to be a little bit calmer.","offset":408,"duration":23}],"startTime":324},{"title":"The Amygdala, Stress, and CO2 Intolerance","summary":"Discussing the evolutionary and psychological aspects of breathing, Brian references the \"Chimp Model\" of the brain. He explains the intimate connection between the amygdala and CO2 modulation, detailing how emotional reactivity leads to a hot nervous system and CO2 intolerance.","entries":[{"text":"Host: It’s interesting how it seems confusing. I was just doing a podcast with Robert Sapolsky, the \"Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers\" guy, a couple- couple days ago. And that was- I had some questions for him in relation to like what's the evolutionary or adaptive quality of certain things like people, you know, he’s like baboons and certain primates and humans end up having too much time on their hands and then they end up being like evil to each other and destructive to each other. So the questions of like why is that an adaptive quality and strategy and how has that managed to persist in evolution?","offset":431,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: I wonder with breathing, kind of similar type style question, bad breathing and anxiety and maybe a higher proclivity towards reactivity or anger outbursts and things of the sort will end up actually perpetuating more bad breathing, which bad breathing being like maybe mouth breathing or emphasis on the exhalation or faster breathing or excessive dumping of CO2 making you be more stingy with holding on to oxygen and a less efficient mobilizer of oxygen and just generally like puts you in a place of feeling like you’re kind of suffocating within yourself and you kind of literally are. That seems contradictory to me that evolution would- would permit that. Do you know what I’m saying?","offset":471,"duration":37},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No, I- know, because I- I get it and I'll- I'll kind of this is great question. So- or great statement. It's not that I understand what you're saying, however, I've spent so much time in this that I've got a pretty good handle on what I think is the reasoning, you know, and what what happens. Um...","offset":508,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: And did I outline that question appropriately? Was there anything that I said in there that was like that should be cleared up or was that an appropriate way of asking it?","offset":528,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No, no, it was very appro- no, no, very appropriate. I'm just- I'm- I- was tickled that you asked because, uh, you know, it's interesting because I was just speaking with Professor Steve Peters in- do you know who he is?","offset":535,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: No.","offset":547,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So he wrote, \"The Chimp Model\" for, uh, brain I think, and now his newest book is \"The Path Through the Jungle\". Dude, the dude is on a level. Um, he- he lives in, um, he's English, but I have never heard anybody explain he's a psychiatrist by trade, but he explains the neuroscience of everything and this is where why it got so interesting to me is because he started explaining this chimp model of the brain and how we've got two- we’ve got three teams, right?","offset":548,"duration":32},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: And one team is the kind of the it works off an emotional response and then there's a logical reaction that kind of tells a story to validate that emotional response and this is how children grow, this is the child’s mind. And then it has an action next to it, right? And that action feeds team three, which is a program, okay? The second team is the logical brain or the human brain. And so that first team is the chimp model, the second team is the human model where logic is the basis of things, reality is the basis of things, then there's an emotional response then there's an action towards that thing.","offset":580,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Either one of these feeds that system down to team three or the program, okay? So the program wires up based on how you're going, right? And team one, the chimp model's not bad and team two is not good. They're both good, they're both there for a reason, you're there to survive, we're here to survive and we should honor how we've decided to move through the world, how we grew up and how those responses came in, etc., etc.","offset":613,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Anyway, when he got into this stuff, he started talking about that emotional model and the limbic system, because that's what it- where it really functions. And in the limbic system is the amygdala. So we understand that there is this little, you know, almond-shaped thing that is like the fear center of the brain. A good friend of mine did some research where he figured out the he- I think the paper was titled, um, well, forget what it's titled, but it's about what he found with the amygdala is that is it is a modulator of CO2 as well.","offset":643,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So for those of us that are a little bit more less emotionally developed, we tend to become more reactive and when we become more reactive our nervous system's a bit more hot, when our nervous system's hot, you can bet you'll become more CO2 intolerant, so meaning if Aaron got stressed out, which Aaron doesn't get too stressed out, but let's just pretend he did, and I said Aaron hold your breath versus if Aaron were calm, hold your breath.","offset":681,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":711,"duration":0},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: There would be two very different breath holds, CO2 being the main mechanism and driver for why you would need- feel the urge to breathe, right? You understand that pretty intimately. So that modulator gets involved with things especially for those of us that are wired up in certain ways or just are more reactive or talk a lot more or, uh, you know, are mouth breathers by nature, you end up retarding this process and then you become sensitive to its change because the nervous system's running pretty hot as a result.","offset":711,"duration":37},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Because it biochemically speaking you're moving the needle over to say, oh not enough o- not as much oxygen available, no problem, we'll move into more sympathetic survival mode, which provides more glucose, glycolysis, etc. So I just run up here on carbohydrate most of the day and I don't, you know, my mitochondria are not as functional, right, in terms of where I’d be util- and that doesn't just mean we're not using carbohydrate with mitochondria, etc. because we oxidize, right? We're just not oxidizing as much because we don't have that availability.","offset":748,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So the the system has a very easy long-term way of managing that. It just uses more glucose, right? And and it just happens quicker. It's not that we're not using oxygen, it's just you're not using it well. And so that state becomes chronic stress is what we see and that sensitized chronic stress, you could look at most people who deal with chronic stress have some form of chronic anxiety they're also dealing with or depression, which are same same just different modes of how you're operating with it. Without a doubt, we've seen that people are CO2 intolerant or more CO2 intolerant who are anxious.","offset":788,"duration":43},{"text":"Host: Could you say a little bit more about the relationship of the amygdala and the and CO2? Is that like a downstream effect because of upregulation of the amygdala is causing the nervous system and the respiratory system to go into more of like a hyperventilatory state, therefore the downstream effect is off-gassing CO2, or is it more intimately and closely related than that?","offset":831,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, correct. Yeah, it is that downstream side of things. Um, you know, however when I talk about, oh, you know, my run- my nervous system's now running hot, well you're a high-stress individual so now what you're doing is, you know, if we look at like HRV, your HRV's low, so the beats between the heartbeats aren't as far apart and, you know, your chemoreceptors are on alert because you're in a predictive system.","offset":853,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So you've got chemoreceptors off the aortic arch, the carotid arch, the the carotid artery. So you're talking about a predictive system and when you look at the predictive system, you then can get into free energy principle, which is, well yeah, everything's kind of off of a prediction that I've predicted how my day's going to go. I've gotten in a car to go somewhere, I don't predict there's going to be an accident so any sort of thing that gets in the way of that sets me off.","offset":882,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: And if I'm somebody who gets set off really easy, that predictive system is a mess, right? Well, my- those chemoreceptors that are picking things up are now on a hot nervous system. So I'm in a nervous system that's set up on a high sympathetic drive to be on alert and not be able to manage things, so then I'm just more set cued up to be driven into reactive mode where I'm in that limbic system where I'm in that emotional system trying to validate the problems that I have by not looking at where they originated from, which is myself in most cases, 99.9 percent of the time, right? Accidents do happen, however...","offset":908,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: Yeah, that’s that's I think that's like the bridge between the mind-body conversation I think is really interesting and you know, I’m like the if there is some type of internal impression, you know, or trauma unprocessed aspect of yourself or event or experience within your life that could be like a a smoldering ember deep within your subconscious, you know, and you keep on addressing all of the smoke that's arising and you temporarily be like, oh cool I feel better because I did this breathing practice, I’m down-regulated temporarily. Or I did this psychedelic thing or I had sex or I had this dopaminergic response from you know whatever the thing is, I'm like ah I'm temporarily okay.","offset":952,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: But you haven't actually addressed the smoldering part. And then simultaneously, you can use the breathing tools tools in order to down-regulate the system enough to be able to develop clarity to actually do the work to assess the smoldering ember. Does that make sense? And then so just how do we- how do we do that? Because I think that's what we're trying to do.","offset":989,"duration":21}],"startTime":431},{"title":"Overcoming Victim Mentality","summary":"Brian and the host emphasize that breathing exercises alone cannot fix underlying psychological traumas. They discuss the necessity of shifting away from a victim mindset to genuinely address the root causes of stress rather than remaining in stasis.","entries":[{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, you know, I- I think fundamentally people have to start to look I mean here's what I've done and the people that I've worked with do, you know, a lot of them, um, is if you're not willing to look at your experiences a bit differently, meaning, yeah maybe that wasn't exactly how it went or maybe there's another way to look at this, you know, um, then you're you're pretty fucked, excuse my language.","offset":1010,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Yeah, you’re just if you’re not- if you’re not willing to take yourself out of like a victim kind of mindset I think everything else is just like stasis.","offset":1039,"duration":6},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, you're like if you're just so cued up that you had this torturous childhood that, you know, maybe you did, however hate to be the bearer of bad news but you are a survivor, you are here now and you are listening and if you're listening to this you're on the internet, you're on something and you're living a pretty decent life. So you you can do it, I promise you. Um, I'm a bit more direct than most people with this stuff because I'm not a therapist and I'm like hey you're either going to address this or you're not and if you're not going to really start to address this and you continue down this path, the work we're doing isn't going to work.","offset":1045,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Because you cannot just apply breathing methods and hope you're going all the pain's going to go away. You're just become you're just using you're just using another addiction for something, just filling a void that isn't, you know, fillable.","offset":1083,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: What would be the because I think there are mechanical levers that a person could start to pull?","offset":1099,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Oh- 100 percent. Here's how I look at it. It's like hey, let's let's go over to that model like Steve Peters created. Let's let's just say I'm in this emotional state where I don't he created this model's brilliant, it's like if you don't like how you feel, if you don't like how you behaved or you don't like what you think, guess where you're at. You're inside that chimp. Okay? So if you've got anything going on there, that is the perfect opportunity to introduce some breathing of some sort to bring you down to a level to be able to calm down enough to say to yourself what is the truth or what is the reality about what it is I'm feeling right now.","offset":1104,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Is this person who cut me off in in traffic, were they out to get me or maybe they're just in a rush and I can let this go. I don't know, whatever your f- whatever you're dealing with, right? Like, you know, the deal that you were supposedly going to close for millions of dollars or, you know, the job you were going to get, I understand that that was, you know, that's difficult. But are you capable of lacing up your shoes tomorrow and going after something else and finding something else creative in your life in order to yeah, because you've made it this far. So yes you are.","offset":1147,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So if you can really look at that and go oh okay, but breathing’s the tool to kind of get you out of where you don't like what you're feeling and you know in that with what you said earlier it's like you know you got this victim side if you're ever the victim you're in the mod- you’re- you’re on the wrong side of the tracks, trust me.","offset":1175,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: I think you’re just in stasis. I think it’s I think victim and stasis are synonymous. It's fine, but just know that you will not grow from there. It's fine, just know that you're in a pause state for as long as you choose to be in that victim space. And it’s fine, be there for 20 years. It’s fine, just stay- stay put.","offset":1198,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, no big deal. It’s just nothing will change.","offset":1213,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":1216,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So and- and I’m really good with my life and I’ve, you know, we just won't be close. We won't be having many conversations. Awesome.","offset":1217,"duration":9}],"startTime":1010},{"title":"Breathing Mechanics and the Pelvic Floor","summary":"The conversation shifts to the mechanical aspects of breathing, highlighting the diaphragm as the epicenter of the core. They detail the importance of horizontal rib expansion and the functional, synchronized relationship between the diaphragm and the pelvic floor.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Um yeah. So breathing something that I'm curious from your perspective and experience with in relation to breathing and mechanics, I feel like mechanics is something that's not spoken about that much. It's a lot about breathing practices and do a 5-7-8 or do a box breathing or do a Wim Hof or do a holotropic or do a this and there's I don't hear very much other than like postural restoration institute which is super complex and hard for any even super smart person to understand.","offset":1226,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Um, you know, so within these conversations are there some aspects of the physical meat suit that you would recommend people be able to start to work on within themselves to be like oh actually just like you need to shift some things mechanically within your shoulders or your diaphragm or your pelvic floor or your tongue or your you know nasal passages, whatever. How do we start from from the mechanics of the physical body to be able to naturally breathe better?","offset":1256,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: The the easiest way to do it without having me or you there for somebody is to really go you know go somewhere on YouTube and start to find you know look for some core exercises or go look at somebody like a Starrett who's going over movement principles. And like for for for complex movements like a squat or a hang or like a press, right? Like you're overhead with a press. Like here's something for people like you go and press overhead just take a 45-pound dumbbell or a- a bar, dumbbells are going to be far more challenging, right?","offset":1286,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: But take a- take a bar and go overhead. Shut your mouth and go end to end nose-only breathing, right? You're going to start to figure out how how non-integrated your core actually is because or how much your diaphragm actually should is is integrated into the core complex. In fact, I'm of the mindset it is the epicenter of the core complex because the moment that diaphragm's out of place, the breathing gets very difficult, right? Maybe you don't start with a press overhead, maybe you go online, find some videos or some tutorials from some experts on movement standards for some complex movements, go get into those those positions, shut your mouth. Can you go end to end from your nose for 5 to 10 breaths and just hold that?","offset":1319,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: That will tell you how you're set up with that diaphragm real quick and the intercostals per se. I don't want to leave the intercostals out because the intercostals and the diaphragm work together. It's not a separate thing, those two muscle groups work together um, to move that cage open. From there, it becomes secondary where you're talking about things, you know, pecs that come off, the neck muscles, etc., then things start to grab. You want to make sure that those those secondary muscles aren't first things to grab when you're doing these things.","offset":1370,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: If they are the first things to when I breathe then we definitely want to address this and this is where it's like get into those positions and try that. You know, I go to the extremes of getting people with some resistance breathing devices that are fairly cheap and easy to get, um, to where we really train, you know, the strength of these things um, to challenge people. But we don't do a a ton of it. We do some of it as some auxiliary work and then it's like I move more into like breathing gear work with, you know, warm-up and and designed cardio or aerobic work that we implement the breathing gears into.","offset":1410,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: Um what would be the- I mean this might be kind of a a variable question, but what would be the ideal sequence of breathing through you know the ribcage and the torso and the whole chest cavity? If you were to start a breath, an inhalation from full evacuation, what should that look like? What are cues that we could be feeling into and how would that- how would that look in an ideal world?","offset":1448,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: If this is the bottom of your ribcage, right, your ribs, this thing goes out like that. Most people are taught or hear their belly should move. You should feel the air into your back first. That doesn't mean the belly doesn't move, but we're talking the upper belly, not the lower belly. If the lower belly is what is coming out, you're dealing with pelvic dysfunction, pelvic floor dysfunction most likely.","offset":1474,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So I've run into a number of yogis who've practiced for years and taught that whole belly thing and literal- you know and and they're quite they have quite dysfunctional breathing patterns because they can't breathe into the ribcage. They're actually just breathing down, they're not expanding the cage, right? We want expansion horizontal and then that's where the vertical occurs, right?","offset":1512,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So it horizontally initiates and if I just put if I just sit if I just sit up with on my sit bones vertically in a chair with my back my back's not on and I put my hands around my lower ribs, I just want to organize down a little bit and then I and I feel those ribs move immediately out and into my back and then my belly ends up filling, right? That's the the upper part of my belly. So that's that's essentially where that happens and then from there it then becomes shoulders and and all that. But we're not you don't need to really train those secondary muscles, those are short-term muscles that are very glycolytic in nature, so those are those are for last resort type things.","offset":1538,"duration":50},{"text":"Host: And the the most common tendency for people would be for the ribs to have a tendency to flare and kind of be stuck in like external rotation. And to be able to come down and drop down towards the pelvis and drop into internal rotation on the exhalation is going to be very healing for creating support and stability for that respiratory diaphragm pelvic floor relationship slash the whole everything.","offset":1588,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Correct. Yeah, I mean that pelvic floor is so important and I think so many people miss that to where it's like, you know, if you're if you're really working on some breath control and core work, you should be pulling up. Like you should be you should be like it's like you're stopping yourself like you've got to go the bathroom real bad and you're pulling up and trying to stop that. That should be engaged as you're breathing, especially on that exhale.","offset":1610,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Now, that shouldn't be something you're walking around all day thinking about, right? Because if you've done the work, those muscles naturally should remain engaged then when they should be.","offset":1638,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: It’s kind of like healthy healthy tone, not be excessively flaccid or hypertone either. Be like dynamic. It’s interesting the idea of so the, you know, your whole body's a closed hydraulic system and so if you think of the diaphragm descending to expand open, create a vacuum in the lungs to pull air in, the pelvic floor needs to also be able to expand and relax. And so going through that that relationship of as I inhale, there needs to be an opening through my abdomen and my lower back and my pelvic floor to be able to actually allow the space for my diaphragm to function. Like there could be dysfunction because of inhibition or rigidity within my pelvis, which is interesting I think to start to bring- it’s like oh I need to breathe into my cock. Cool. I didn’t think about that.","offset":1654,"duration":55},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. Most people aren’t engaged down there in the wrong way. It’s just it is what it is, but I mean that's part of it. So mechanically speaking, you know, you kind of want to dial that in a little bit every day or, you know, whenever you go train, like that's just kind of like starting, you know, with some stuff, like do a few exercises that revolve around that. Once you get it dialed, that stuff can get a little bit more extreme. Like I I do I'll do some hard some hardcore like kind of neck training stuff that involves the whole core, but like I've got a resistance breathing device in and I'm going end to end with that for a couple of sets to get that strengthened but also to get it activated so that when like I go squat or deadlift, I’m not doing that shit, I’m just squatting and deadlifting because it’s now integrated and it’s a part of the process.","offset":1709,"duration":52}],"startTime":1226},{"title":"Training with Resistance Devices","summary":"Brian recommends using inexpensive resistance breathing devices to strength-train primary respiratory muscles. They discuss how to incorporate this training into warm-ups and emphasize the need for proper rib alignment and horizontal expansion during practice.","entries":[{"text":"Host: What resistance breathing devices would you recommend for someone? Is a straw enough or like what should...","offset":1761,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: I I would just get um, I mean I can here I can tell you and it's actually really cheap, very cheap, I mean I send this to everybody...","offset":1766,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: It’s like one of those little like snorkel snorkel mouse things with a little little turny doodad valve on it.","offset":1774,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Correct. Yeah, I have one of those too, I like it.","offset":1781,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: It gets all slobbery though, that’s the only thing I don’t like about it.","offset":1783,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: It does, but like it's yours, man. Like you wash it out with water every time. Portable respiratory muscle trainer on Amazon.","offset":1785,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Yeah, that’s the same thing I think, it’s like 13 bucks or something like that.","offset":1796,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. Yeah and so- I buy like 20 of them at a time and then I just give them to clients as they come in and stuff.","offset":1799,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: Yeah those tools are great because it it creates feedback and resistance to be able to actually have to really actively engage those muscles, the respiratory muscles. And you'll see people's neck start to grab and you're like dude, no, no, no.","offset":1808,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: So I have a question for you with that. With using the respiratory tool like that, would it be is it okay that you are now practicing mouth breathing for one thing, um, and is it more efficacious or does it matter to emphasize the exhalation or the inhalation if you're using resistance for your breath?","offset":1820,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So in- in with respects to this is causing more resistance than what the nose does. So that's why I'm actually using it, it's strength training. So I'm actually doing some strength training I'm looking at it like lifting weights for the primary breathing muscles um, and getting the core integrated into that. Um, that is all we're doing with that. I will sometimes include it into cardio warm-ups where we go resistance breathing device, you go end to end one- one to three breaths at the top of every minute and then you go right back into nose breathing and the nose breathing feels like mouth breathing.","offset":1842,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So it's a very easy, well-orchestrated path to kind of not only getting warmed up and getting the pulmonary system integrated with everything, but I'm getting my breathing really ready to go for whatever sort of intense work I might be doing, which is something most people are never thinking about or doing.","offset":1885,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: And something probably for people to think about if they are using a a resistance tool like that or just using the natural resistance of just, you know, breathing in general, uh, would be paying attention to the alignment of your ribs and your pelvis and all of that. Because it's kind of like if you're doing, you know, kegel exercises but you're practicing clenching your- your kegels um from a a quote unquote like dysfunctional position, you're just um downloading or pressing save on a dysfunctional file. And so if you're doing these resistance exercises, it would probably also be wise to be paying attention to orientation of the ribs and all the other different parts. Is there any specific cues you would provide for a client or yourself as far as rib orientation or body orientation when they're going through a a resistance breathing exercise?","offset":1911,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: They they will typically because my clients are typically all over the work- they're all over the place. So I'll they'll get videos of how to do a specific exercise then they're actually given, hey, I want you to go end to end three breaths with this device in that position. And they supply me with the feedback on that type of stuff. So hey, was that how hard you know, what was going on? Um, if somebody comes to see me and I work with them, I'm actually my hands are on them and I'm showing them exactly what's going on, um, you know, but for- you know I don't I try to keep it as dumbed down basic as possible meaning I don't try and talk over their head about mechanics, I try and just go no let's see this position, now show me your breathing. And they like fill up. And they're like holy crap, you know, and it's like yeah, you couldn't fill up before.","offset":1964,"duration":57},{"text":"Host: I like the I don’t know if this is Belisa Vranich’s language or not, but I got it from her of like the horizontal versus vertical breathing.","offset":2021,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yes, that is- yeah. That yeah, that is Belisa's. She’s...","offset":2028,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: And so something like really simple would just be like allow your ribs to kind of descend a little bit, like relax, like relax in yourself and then bring your hands on the sides of the ribs and feel that breath starting to move horizontally. And then you could also put your hands in your lower back, which I don't know if Belisa recommends this as well, but I do. Um and feel that breath going into your back and that’s going to naturally place the ribs into a more natural healthy kind of like cylindrical orientation to be able to create better pressure and then maybe stack the the breathing on top of that. I think would be maybe a potential you know horizontal breathing with that. Yeah. And then with with and then with something that's very common with people is nasal restrictions. Do you have any recommendation for that? So we- so we've got resistance, we're starting to turn on the respiratory muscles, we're starting to align and organize the diaphragm and all that stuff, but we still are bunched up and we actually can't get breath through the nose.","offset":2033,"duration":56}],"startTime":1761},{"title":"Fixing Nasal Restrictions","summary":"To fix nasal restrictions, Brian suggests a month of strict, low-respiration nose breathing to force adaptation without using mouth tape. However, he warns against the exclusive nose-breathing trend, noting that mouth breathing becomes physiologically necessary at higher cardiovascular intensities.","entries":[{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, I uh go spend one month focused on not going outside of a gear one, which is you know an equal in and out nose-only breathing where it's greater than 4 seconds in length, so like a two in two out, two seconds out, two seconds in, two seconds out. So your breath rate your respiration rate is below 20 breaths per minute, right? Go only do that for a month no matter what. So toggle down the intensity of whatever you're doing if it pushes you beyond that, right? Do that for a month, then if your nose is still an issue, go see an ENT and get that thing- thing cleaned out.","offset":2089,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Why a month? What happens during that time frame? and would you recommend mouth taping during that time frame for any activities at all?","offset":2136,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No. I don't like mouth taping because it just- it kind of- it changes the the level of commitment. It's like oh I'm just going to put this tape on so I don't open my mouth. No, you- you really should be learning to kind of wire that up mind and body a bit. Um the big thing is adaptation. What sort of- like for if you look at my nose...","offset":2146,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: You got- you got a little lopsided there, bro.","offset":2173,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, I'm very lopsided.","offset":2176,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: I think mine’s lopsided too.","offset":2178,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah you’re not too bad. Regardless, I can operate in a gear one up to about 140 heart rate, which is just touching zone four for if we're talking about cardiovascular, right? Like so like that and beyond that I then switch into a gear four which is easy mouth breathing because that's where that should happen because now we have a whole community of people who bought into this nose breathing thing and thinking that it's the be all end all. It is not. I've- I've tested a lot of people, they retard things in the opposite direction because now you're not getting enough oxygen when you go above moderate efforts of exercise.","offset":2179,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So now you're not actually onboarding enough oxygen for use. So ventilation goes up, right? So depth and rate change for very good reason. But easy mouth breathing gear four is just and because you've been rewiring things for a month, when you do switch out when you do go up to that you now are primed and designed to really be using those primary breathing muscles still.","offset":2232,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: You don't need to bring on where most people who have not done any sort of training with these with their with their breathing muscles are tend to have I mean I can- the amount of runners I watch and see that are just like breathing here, stiff upper, you know, their neck is stiff, all of it. They don't they only have access to the upper chest for breathing. They're missing huge huge opportunity and the huge opportunity from what I've been seeing with testing, I mean I I see between 20 and 60 percent changes in VO2 Max with most of the people that come to me. And I have seen some elite athletes.","offset":2259,"duration":46}],"startTime":2089},{"title":"The Gear System of Breathing","summary":"Brian outlines his five-gear system for breathing, ranging from slow nasal breathing (Gear 1) to heavy mouth breathing (Gear 5). He explains how tidal volume changes with intensity and how alveolar sacs are most sensitive at the end ranges of respiration.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Could you outline the gear system of breathing quickly? Because I think it's a a great model for people to to have.","offset":2305,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. Gear one is easily is is easy nasal breathing, but it's also, you know, it's controlled, it's it's greater than 4 seconds in length, right? So two like just think of it as two in two out. Gear two is power nose breathing. Gear two is very limited because we will skip gear three, which is transitional, that's usually transitional gearing down, but I'll sometimes use that to train people just for some just training purposes.","offset":2312,"duration":35},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: However, it's a gear it's a transitional gear for gearing down, so so don't think of gear three right now. We go gear two, gear four, which is... into gear five... So anything above roughly a 30 respiration rate with mouth breathing is gear five. Gear four is between 20 and 30 breaths a minute. Um, gear three comes in when I go from working hard into I now shut it off and now I'm... nose in, mouth out. And you will see recovery happen pretty quickly by doing that and you could also reverse that but then you move that air with that transitional gear and as soon as you feel a change then you drop into a gear one.","offset":2347,"duration":70},{"text":"Host: And how does that work that when you are in say gear five because you are in higher respiratory demand, being in that gear too much or just breathing that way in general or mouth breathing, you're off-gassing more CO2 and alla Bohr Effect, you're increasing alkalinity, decreasing acidity and you are causing your hemoglobin to become change shape and become more stingy with the release of oxygen while simultaneously you need more oxygen in that moment.","offset":2417,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: You you can overbreathe at moderate to lower to low-high intensity efforts, meaning like heart rate zone four and below, you can overbreathe in. Like heart rate zone you're 90 percent and above, you really can't overbreathe, although there are compensations that I've seen and picked up on where people are breathing at like a 60 respiration rate but they're at like 70 percent tidal volume. So you're in an obvious compensation at that point where you can't hit tidal volume, you know, because you're so stressed.","offset":2450,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: Can you define tidal volume?","offset":2484,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. The depth at which so how much air you can act- how much air you can fill your lungs with. You'll still you will see people hit some tidal volume in like a gear two, gear one, so they'll hit in range, but they're not needing to move that very fast, right? Well, if I'm moving up into a gear five and I can't go all the way in, so that just means I'm going short and short-change breathing, I'm just going... versus... Right? You don't need to necessarily hit end to you know bottom end, but if you can't hit that top end, there's a problem. Your alveolar sacs are most sensitive at end ranges. So you're getting to you're getting best diffusion off of CO2 and O2 at those end ranges.","offset":2486,"duration":46},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: There's a there is a genetic reason for that. If I'm in fight or flight and I'm hauling ass and I'm moving, I got to be able to move air and get real good air.","offset":2532,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: How interesting, your alveolar sacs are more sensitive during end ranges, so full exhalation full inhalation you're going to have more sensitivity within- is that- is that kind of like the the physiological sigh kind of thing where it kind of like lifts them off of themselves from collapse?","offset":2547,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah and yet none of that is necessary if I'm calm. So I can just be but you can't see that I'm breathing, that that's, you know, when you get back to normal breathing, normal breathing should be I can't tell that fool's breathing.","offset":2563,"duration":16}],"startTime":2305},{"title":"Contextual Importance of Exhalations","summary":"Prompted by the host's experience with Laird Hamilton's pool training, Brian discusses the value of a full exhalation. He clarifies that while dumping all your air is crucial for extreme breath-hold scenarios, it isn't always optimal or necessary during standard aerobic exercise.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah. Like the samurai breath or what- what people call it. Um I was doing the I know you have relationship with Laird Hamilton I was doing the the pool training stuff uh out at his place maybe I don't know whatever last summer. And the one of the things that stood out to me as we're dunking up and down uh that he said that has continued to stand out and been something that I've like I've continued to perpetuate with myself is that it's not about the inhale, it's about the exhale. And that was like a download that he got from I don't know who somebody else and that was one of the things like when we come up out of the pool it was like getting a full evacuation to get all of that air out to be able to get replenished with a like a you know a a more robust inhalation or a richer inhalation. Do you think that there's something to that? What are your thoughts of the value of of exhalation?","offset":2579,"duration":56},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: In in certain instance in certain instances, yes, right? In certain instances, yes. I don't think you need to dump all your air all the time. Um in fact, I I mean I'm on a bike or I'm on a you know I'm running and I'm I'm I'm literally research I'm studying the stuff I'm doing, I'm paying attention to where is the change happening. And I've got like a metabolic cart on, right? And I've got and I'm watching tissue saturation. I'm watching this stuff as it's occurring and dumping the air while exercising all the time is not necessarily the best like trying to get rid of that, that's just wasted time. You're going to actually move you're moving air fast, air doesn't just sit while I'm moving air like this, right?","offset":2635,"duration":45},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: But in instances like with Laird in the pool or Laird in big surf, yeah you want to be getting rid of your air before you go to take a full inhale because you're going to need all the fresh air you can get in order to be down for two or three minutes while you're getting rolled, right? Like so in Laird's training to be clear is is genius in that this this maniac discover- figured out how to kind of push those limits of CO2 and pressure and force control of breathing in a pool environment. So I mean it- he's a genius like that. I mean he's an innovator, the guy is an innovator. That's what he does.","offset":2680,"duration":46}],"startTime":2579},{"title":"Avoiding Dogma and Assessing Physiology","summary":"Brian criticizes the breathing industry for focusing on rigid methodologies rather than fundamental mechanics and physiology. He shares his approach to using metabolic assessments to spot limiters in elite athletes and executives, concluding with where listeners can find his coaching.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Are there so we we can wrap up here do you have like a hard out you got to get out of here like...","offset":2726,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah I do I have a yeah I definitely have a hard out in like 5 minutes.","offset":2731,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: All right, cool. Sweet. Um I so in wrapping things up, uh are is there anything that you see standing out in the in the breathing world that you feel is maligned or off that you would like to see rectified or shifted?","offset":2735,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Oh, I stay away from the breathing world. Most of it's hogwash.","offset":2757,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: So what's- what would you say is hogwash in the in the breathing education space?","offset":2767,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Uh I I would say most people are getting lost and stuck to a methodology versus understanding respiratory physiology and physiology in general, you know, and and even mechanics, you know, you went into a deep dive with mechanics here. Most of these methodologies and things don't even touch that, right? Because they don't want to because they've got this cool little toy that can change somebody's state and that's really all anybody's interested in. They'll just keep breathing people and doing this with people without actually, you know, going well you're still doing the same shit.","offset":2772,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Like hey, for me with what I do with clients is I'm looking to kind of help these people who I mean I'm dealing with professional athletes and like executives working at very very high levels, so managing multiple companies things like that where I do a full run down of like how they manage stress, how they respond to s- an exhale assessment CO2, and then how they respond to a metabolic assessment that I'm looking at tissue saturation, oxygen to the brain, etc. I'm looking at all this stuff so that I can go, hey what you're doing throughout the day we need to figure out some off points because you're not managing stress here very well.","offset":2813,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Like I I run people through an assessment that is very um boring to start. They're doing they're doing low-low effort work on a metabolic cart that just goes up a a smidge every five minutes and they're like bored out of their mind and it's everything I need to see because the thing one of the things that changes that really that is that stress thing we started kind of with this is CO2. Is CO2 changes that respiratory drive it changes how things are going on in the body and if I've got somebody we'll just use this as one case because we've talked about it, if I've got somebody who overbreathes a little bit I see that in the tissue. I see that even though the metabolic cart is saying oh he's aerobic right now, or he's utilizing fat. But yet his tissue and his brain are not getting oxygen very well.","offset":2855,"duration":51},{"text":"Host: What would be the metabolic test that that you would suggest someone uh goes through, say from from home? Is there are they going to need fancy gadgets and devices and such or what would be your suggestion?","offset":2906,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: There so there is actually it's gotten better and I'm supposed to get my third version of this one, but I got a buddy of mine at Duke who's really like I swear this version of it is badass. It's called Caliber, it's spelled C-A-L-B... C-A-L-I-B-R-E, so it's English Caliber, Caliber Biometrics. They've got a $400 uh metabolic cart that's pretty badass.","offset":2918,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Okay. I’ll look it up.","offset":2943,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Um, and- and it's a pretty easy to use with their app um, but it'll give you some pretty good numbers. But if you really want the whole shebang, you're going to want either a MOXY or a Train Red Near-Infrared, but you know it takes time to kind of understand what you're do- I’ve kind of pioneered a way to look at this and look at clientele with this stuff that come to me because I mean I can get some of the high- the highest level players in the world in a sport and I can see a limiter that somebody else wasn't picking up because they just did a traditional VO2 Max test which is just like you start at nothing and you go to everything within like eight minutes. And I'm taking like 30 minutes to get to that to a point to where I might have them work really hard for three minutes, right?","offset":2945,"duration":47},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Needless to say, my point here is that most of what I'm seeing if people go and address how they're looking at how they manage their daily life, like the stress of their life, and then they start to implement tools around that in order to bring themselves into reality, breathing has a very potent impact in that, especially when we apply it to exercise and you decide to stop being a reactive, you know, SOB to everything or victimizing yourself to everything, that is where breathing has a very very potent deal. And I've had I've had um an entire C-suite at one point thank me as a client walked out of the room, who was you know the owner of the company, and they literally were like thank you with what for what you're doing this this like over the last three years this dude this dude has changed so much, like he's calmed down in a level to where he's not as reactive and not this tyrant, right?","offset":2992,"duration":60},{"text":"Host: Like he’s- he’s regulated. Um I so I appreciate you saying the thing that you'd want to change is the lack of emphasis on mechanics and a lack of emphasis on principles around respiratory physiology and understanding like how to how to kind of drive the boat as opposed to just having some specific exercises because I created a program that's not out yet but it's all founded on first mechanics and then the principles of down-regulation and up-regulation and then a section on anatomy and physiology of just like what you ought to know to have a visualization of what's happening. So I’ll include that for people listening in the intro- the link for that for like we’ll have like a free trial and all that stuff. And so I'm very glad that that's the exact thing because I'm like I agree. That’s why I made something.","offset":3052,"duration":46},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Exactly. I’m like yeah I’m off- I’m in my own world doing my own thing, I'm like I'm good man I don't want to like the whole breath space it got so I was just like no I'm out, everybody's into their own little methodology of some sort.","offset":3098,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I’m not into methodologies. Principles, learn principles. What do you need to know as far from a principle-based understanding and then from there you can apply the principles on whatever methodology but actually understand the intrinsics of the methodology as opposed to being lost in the methodology. Um, thanks so much man, I really appreciate these conversations. Um where if people want to I know that you do various different things you actually actually work with with coaching clients you have all sorts of things...","offset":3112,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: We we have a membership website people can jump on we're not exactly very active with that. I have some coaches that help run that with for me, but what I do is very personalized, um it requires high high um commitment level uh meaning life and financially for people to invest in. Um it's not a a short-order process, but if people really are interested and think that they want to you know test that, more than welcome to jump in, go to shiftadapt.com and just go through the website, they'll they'll find everything there.","offset":3141,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: Amazing. Cool. Um thanks so much I appreciate you...","offset":3178,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Very easy, uh I I love you dude you are such a cool soul.","offset":3181,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: I love you more I appreciate you man. All right that’s it that’s all thank you for tuning in I’ll see you next week.","offset":3185,"duration":15}],"startTime":2726}],"entries":[{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Oxygen is a useless, destructive molecule without CO2. Most people are getting lost and stuck to a methodology versus understanding respiratory physiology and physiology in general. When you can hold your breath for a significant amount of time, what you’re doing is training your mitochondria to use less oxygen for more ATP. It’s not about the inhale, it’s about the exhale, which is something most people are never thinking about. Breathing’s the tool to kind of get you out of where you don't like what you’re feeling.","offset":0,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: Why is it that breathing affects one's state of consciousness so deeply and quickly and with such great efficiency and consistency?","offset":36,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Well, a number of reasons but, you know, one of the main being the fact that, you know, we're largely controlling carbon dioxide with breathing. Although, you know, you're bringing in oxygen as well and that's important, you know, 80 percent of that oxygen is roughly offloaded at rest. So when we're not working, when we're not doing something, a lot of that oxygen is not necessary. That being said, the CO2 actually is, and that is the, you know, one of the big drivers of things, but from a biochemical standpoint, CO2 regulates pH.","offset":48,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So that is essentially what's really the big player in regulating pH real time. Yes, the kidneys play a role in that and there’s a lot of other processes, but the major player with breathing is that it's a respondent to pH and if I change that pH, things start to change, the dynamics start to change, right? And as CO2 goes up, more oxygen comes off, comes out and is usable.","offset":88,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: From hemoglobin, from red blood cells. It liberates them.","offset":112,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: It liberates that. So then you've got, you know, if you've got functional mitochondria, you then get that oxygen down to the electron transport chain and you're now pumping that out. The better you get at this, and you know, as I used earlier as his, you know, opening protocol, when you get to his level of breath hold, you know, you don't even necessarily need to be at his level, but the reality is is that when you get to, you know, when you can hold your breath for a significant amount of time, what you're doing is training your mitochondria to use less oxygen for more ATP.","offset":117,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: This was done in a, they looked at this at a study done, I think it was in Sweden, but it's called the Tortoise and the Hare. And uh, in the lab, these guys had a professional triathlete, an elite triathlete, and an elite freediver who were both in the lab at the same time who were PhD students, I guess, or master's students, and they decided to take a look at the differences in them and how they used oxygen. And of course the triathlete being elite, used it real well from a VO2 standpoint and all of these things, he had a much larger aerobic threshold than the actual freediver.","offset":150,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: However, once they came into this conclusion about the less oxygen for more ATP, they were like, oh, well there's the other side of aerobic we haven't been looking at. So there's high benefit in in being able to hold one's breath, but you don't necessarily need to become a freediver or breath hold expert in order to get these benefits. Uh, you know, most people are overbreathing, which is you're just off- you’re just offloading CO2, um, as a result of that overbreathing even a slight bit, and that means you're just not getting as much of that oxygen off that hemoglobin.","offset":190,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: And what is- CO2 has largely been villainized historically for most basic people.","offset":225,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: As a waste, as a waste product.","offset":232,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: And- and yeah, oxygen good, CO2 bad, get the CO2 out, get the oxygen in. That’s obviously wildly incorrect and excessively basic and just...","offset":235,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: In facts, actually it’s kind of reversed.","offset":242,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":246,"duration":0},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So oxygen is a useless, destructive molecule without CO2.","offset":246,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Right.","offset":252,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No, literally. Like, it we’re- we're literally getting oxidized from the inside. Free radicals, like, have you heard of it? Oxidation? Like your car, you know, you go look at a car that’s being oxidized, that’s oxygen.","offset":253,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: And that’s a part of like hyperbaric chambers, it’s you’re pushing oxygen deeper which is actually creating a hormetic stressor. That’s like a part of mobilization of stem cells and such, you’re actually challenging your body.","offset":266,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Correct. Oxygen is important because of aerobic cellular respiration in that oxygen's role is to regulate metabolism, right? Where CO2 is there to regulate biochemically pH, right? And so they- they work together, but, you know, as- as you explained, you know, lots of people like to go in hyperbaric chambers and they don't actually understand why they're going in there. They're actually creating a very stressful response that they rebound from and a hormetic effect that inevitably has a very positive response after about 20 sessions can turn some things on and get some things boosted as a result, but make no mistake, you are stressing the hell out of your system as you're doing it.","offset":276,"duration":48},{"text":"Host: Could you outline some of the benefits you already have a little bit, but go a little bit deeper into some of the benefits of CO2 that people might not recognize or realize, some of the like effects that people experience by having CO2 in their system?","offset":324,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, I mean it- it's a calm- it’s going to create a calming effect back you know, like 60s, 70s probably before even the 60s, but I mean I even remember in the 80s that, you know, people who the rare panic attack that would happen, people were given a paper bag to to breathe re-rebreath into. You’re just basically rebreathing CO2 and that creates a calming effect, right?","offset":339,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Um, because the more CO2 that's in the bloodstream, you're actually starting to vasodilate things, the nervous system’s responding by coming- calming down, becoming more parasympathetically driven. You know, and that's- that's essentially why we were really designed or the respiratory system, the pulmonary system was designed with the nose in mind and not necessarily the mouth for most of breathing, right? That nose has intricate processes set up and one of them is it retards how much air can come out and by that, you're getting the ni- you're getting a good dosing of CO2 whereas as I speak or you speak, you know, arousal starts to shift and that CO2 starts to drop.","offset":361,"duration":47},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So I start to use more glucose, I start to move, you know, I'm moving into a- a more activated state, which is natural. However, if that's what I'm doing all day long, where am I- where are those changes coming in to where I’m not? And that's where the regulation of breathing and and CO2 essentially start to come in where, uh, you know, people who who aren't mouth breathers tend to be a little bit calmer.","offset":408,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: It’s interesting how it seems confusing. I was just doing a podcast with Robert Sapolsky, the \"Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers\" guy, a couple- couple days ago. And that was- I had some questions for him in relation to like what's the evolutionary or adaptive quality of certain things like people, you know, he’s like baboons and certain primates and humans end up having too much time on their hands and then they end up being like evil to each other and destructive to each other. So the questions of like why is that an adaptive quality and strategy and how has that managed to persist in evolution?","offset":431,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: I wonder with breathing, kind of similar type style question, bad breathing and anxiety and maybe a higher proclivity towards reactivity or anger outbursts and things of the sort will end up actually perpetuating more bad breathing, which bad breathing being like maybe mouth breathing or emphasis on the exhalation or faster breathing or excessive dumping of CO2 making you be more stingy with holding on to oxygen and a less efficient mobilizer of oxygen and just generally like puts you in a place of feeling like you’re kind of suffocating within yourself and you kind of literally are. That seems contradictory to me that evolution would- would permit that. Do you know what I’m saying?","offset":471,"duration":37},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No, I- know, because I- I get it and I'll- I'll kind of this is great question. So- or great statement. It's not that I understand what you're saying, however, I've spent so much time in this that I've got a pretty good handle on what I think is the reasoning, you know, and what what happens. Um...","offset":508,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: And did I outline that question appropriately? Was there anything that I said in there that was like that should be cleared up or was that an appropriate way of asking it?","offset":528,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No, no, it was very appro- no, no, very appropriate. I'm just- I'm- I- was tickled that you asked because, uh, you know, it's interesting because I was just speaking with Professor Steve Peters in- do you know who he is?","offset":535,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: No.","offset":547,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So he wrote, \"The Chimp Model\" for, uh, brain I think, and now his newest book is \"The Path Through the Jungle\". Dude, the dude is on a level. Um, he- he lives in, um, he's English, but I have never heard anybody explain he's a psychiatrist by trade, but he explains the neuroscience of everything and this is where why it got so interesting to me is because he started explaining this chimp model of the brain and how we've got two- we’ve got three teams, right?","offset":548,"duration":32},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: And one team is the kind of the it works off an emotional response and then there's a logical reaction that kind of tells a story to validate that emotional response and this is how children grow, this is the child’s mind. And then it has an action next to it, right? And that action feeds team three, which is a program, okay? The second team is the logical brain or the human brain. And so that first team is the chimp model, the second team is the human model where logic is the basis of things, reality is the basis of things, then there's an emotional response then there's an action towards that thing.","offset":580,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Either one of these feeds that system down to team three or the program, okay? So the program wires up based on how you're going, right? And team one, the chimp model's not bad and team two is not good. They're both good, they're both there for a reason, you're there to survive, we're here to survive and we should honor how we've decided to move through the world, how we grew up and how those responses came in, etc., etc.","offset":613,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Anyway, when he got into this stuff, he started talking about that emotional model and the limbic system, because that's what it- where it really functions. And in the limbic system is the amygdala. So we understand that there is this little, you know, almond-shaped thing that is like the fear center of the brain. A good friend of mine did some research where he figured out the he- I think the paper was titled, um, well, forget what it's titled, but it's about what he found with the amygdala is that is it is a modulator of CO2 as well.","offset":643,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So for those of us that are a little bit more less emotionally developed, we tend to become more reactive and when we become more reactive our nervous system's a bit more hot, when our nervous system's hot, you can bet you'll become more CO2 intolerant, so meaning if Aaron got stressed out, which Aaron doesn't get too stressed out, but let's just pretend he did, and I said Aaron hold your breath versus if Aaron were calm, hold your breath.","offset":681,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":711,"duration":0},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: There would be two very different breath holds, CO2 being the main mechanism and driver for why you would need- feel the urge to breathe, right? You understand that pretty intimately. So that modulator gets involved with things especially for those of us that are wired up in certain ways or just are more reactive or talk a lot more or, uh, you know, are mouth breathers by nature, you end up retarding this process and then you become sensitive to its change because the nervous system's running pretty hot as a result.","offset":711,"duration":37},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Because it biochemically speaking you're moving the needle over to say, oh not enough o- not as much oxygen available, no problem, we'll move into more sympathetic survival mode, which provides more glucose, glycolysis, etc. So I just run up here on carbohydrate most of the day and I don't, you know, my mitochondria are not as functional, right, in terms of where I’d be util- and that doesn't just mean we're not using carbohydrate with mitochondria, etc. because we oxidize, right? We're just not oxidizing as much because we don't have that availability.","offset":748,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So the the system has a very easy long-term way of managing that. It just uses more glucose, right? And and it just happens quicker. It's not that we're not using oxygen, it's just you're not using it well. And so that state becomes chronic stress is what we see and that sensitized chronic stress, you could look at most people who deal with chronic stress have some form of chronic anxiety they're also dealing with or depression, which are same same just different modes of how you're operating with it. Without a doubt, we've seen that people are CO2 intolerant or more CO2 intolerant who are anxious.","offset":788,"duration":43},{"text":"Host: Could you say a little bit more about the relationship of the amygdala and the and CO2? Is that like a downstream effect because of upregulation of the amygdala is causing the nervous system and the respiratory system to go into more of like a hyperventilatory state, therefore the downstream effect is off-gassing CO2, or is it more intimately and closely related than that?","offset":831,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, correct. Yeah, it is that downstream side of things. Um, you know, however when I talk about, oh, you know, my run- my nervous system's now running hot, well you're a high-stress individual so now what you're doing is, you know, if we look at like HRV, your HRV's low, so the beats between the heartbeats aren't as far apart and, you know, your chemoreceptors are on alert because you're in a predictive system.","offset":853,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So you've got chemoreceptors off the aortic arch, the carotid arch, the the carotid artery. So you're talking about a predictive system and when you look at the predictive system, you then can get into free energy principle, which is, well yeah, everything's kind of off of a prediction that I've predicted how my day's going to go. I've gotten in a car to go somewhere, I don't predict there's going to be an accident so any sort of thing that gets in the way of that sets me off.","offset":882,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: And if I'm somebody who gets set off really easy, that predictive system is a mess, right? Well, my- those chemoreceptors that are picking things up are now on a hot nervous system. So I'm in a nervous system that's set up on a high sympathetic drive to be on alert and not be able to manage things, so then I'm just more set cued up to be driven into reactive mode where I'm in that limbic system where I'm in that emotional system trying to validate the problems that I have by not looking at where they originated from, which is myself in most cases, 99.9 percent of the time, right? Accidents do happen, however...","offset":908,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: Yeah, that’s that's I think that's like the bridge between the mind-body conversation I think is really interesting and you know, I’m like the if there is some type of internal impression, you know, or trauma unprocessed aspect of yourself or event or experience within your life that could be like a a smoldering ember deep within your subconscious, you know, and you keep on addressing all of the smoke that's arising and you temporarily be like, oh cool I feel better because I did this breathing practice, I’m down-regulated temporarily. Or I did this psychedelic thing or I had sex or I had this dopaminergic response from you know whatever the thing is, I'm like ah I'm temporarily okay.","offset":952,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: But you haven't actually addressed the smoldering part. And then simultaneously, you can use the breathing tools tools in order to down-regulate the system enough to be able to develop clarity to actually do the work to assess the smoldering ember. Does that make sense? And then so just how do we- how do we do that? Because I think that's what we're trying to do.","offset":989,"duration":21},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, you know, I- I think fundamentally people have to start to look I mean here's what I've done and the people that I've worked with do, you know, a lot of them, um, is if you're not willing to look at your experiences a bit differently, meaning, yeah maybe that wasn't exactly how it went or maybe there's another way to look at this, you know, um, then you're you're pretty fucked, excuse my language.","offset":1010,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Yeah, you’re just if you’re not- if you’re not willing to take yourself out of like a victim kind of mindset I think everything else is just like stasis.","offset":1039,"duration":6},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, you're like if you're just so cued up that you had this torturous childhood that, you know, maybe you did, however hate to be the bearer of bad news but you are a survivor, you are here now and you are listening and if you're listening to this you're on the internet, you're on something and you're living a pretty decent life. So you you can do it, I promise you. Um, I'm a bit more direct than most people with this stuff because I'm not a therapist and I'm like hey you're either going to address this or you're not and if you're not going to really start to address this and you continue down this path, the work we're doing isn't going to work.","offset":1045,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Because you cannot just apply breathing methods and hope you're going all the pain's going to go away. You're just become you're just using you're just using another addiction for something, just filling a void that isn't, you know, fillable.","offset":1083,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: What would be the because I think there are mechanical levers that a person could start to pull?","offset":1099,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Oh- 100 percent. Here's how I look at it. It's like hey, let's let's go over to that model like Steve Peters created. Let's let's just say I'm in this emotional state where I don't he created this model's brilliant, it's like if you don't like how you feel, if you don't like how you behaved or you don't like what you think, guess where you're at. You're inside that chimp. Okay? So if you've got anything going on there, that is the perfect opportunity to introduce some breathing of some sort to bring you down to a level to be able to calm down enough to say to yourself what is the truth or what is the reality about what it is I'm feeling right now.","offset":1104,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Is this person who cut me off in in traffic, were they out to get me or maybe they're just in a rush and I can let this go. I don't know, whatever your f- whatever you're dealing with, right? Like, you know, the deal that you were supposedly going to close for millions of dollars or, you know, the job you were going to get, I understand that that was, you know, that's difficult. But are you capable of lacing up your shoes tomorrow and going after something else and finding something else creative in your life in order to yeah, because you've made it this far. So yes you are.","offset":1147,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So if you can really look at that and go oh okay, but breathing’s the tool to kind of get you out of where you don't like what you're feeling and you know in that with what you said earlier it's like you know you got this victim side if you're ever the victim you're in the mod- you’re- you’re on the wrong side of the tracks, trust me.","offset":1175,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: I think you’re just in stasis. I think it’s I think victim and stasis are synonymous. It's fine, but just know that you will not grow from there. It's fine, just know that you're in a pause state for as long as you choose to be in that victim space. And it’s fine, be there for 20 years. It’s fine, just stay- stay put.","offset":1198,"duration":15},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, no big deal. It’s just nothing will change.","offset":1213,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":1216,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So and- and I’m really good with my life and I’ve, you know, we just won't be close. We won't be having many conversations. Awesome.","offset":1217,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: Um yeah. So breathing something that I'm curious from your perspective and experience with in relation to breathing and mechanics, I feel like mechanics is something that's not spoken about that much. It's a lot about breathing practices and do a 5-7-8 or do a box breathing or do a Wim Hof or do a holotropic or do a this and there's I don't hear very much other than like postural restoration institute which is super complex and hard for any even super smart person to understand.","offset":1226,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: Um, you know, so within these conversations are there some aspects of the physical meat suit that you would recommend people be able to start to work on within themselves to be like oh actually just like you need to shift some things mechanically within your shoulders or your diaphragm or your pelvic floor or your tongue or your you know nasal passages, whatever. How do we start from from the mechanics of the physical body to be able to naturally breathe better?","offset":1256,"duration":30},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: The the easiest way to do it without having me or you there for somebody is to really go you know go somewhere on YouTube and start to find you know look for some core exercises or go look at somebody like a Starrett who's going over movement principles. And like for for for complex movements like a squat or a hang or like a press, right? Like you're overhead with a press. Like here's something for people like you go and press overhead just take a 45-pound dumbbell or a- a bar, dumbbells are going to be far more challenging, right?","offset":1286,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: But take a- take a bar and go overhead. Shut your mouth and go end to end nose-only breathing, right? You're going to start to figure out how how non-integrated your core actually is because or how much your diaphragm actually should is is integrated into the core complex. In fact, I'm of the mindset it is the epicenter of the core complex because the moment that diaphragm's out of place, the breathing gets very difficult, right? Maybe you don't start with a press overhead, maybe you go online, find some videos or some tutorials from some experts on movement standards for some complex movements, go get into those those positions, shut your mouth. Can you go end to end from your nose for 5 to 10 breaths and just hold that?","offset":1319,"duration":51},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: That will tell you how you're set up with that diaphragm real quick and the intercostals per se. I don't want to leave the intercostals out because the intercostals and the diaphragm work together. It's not a separate thing, those two muscle groups work together um, to move that cage open. From there, it becomes secondary where you're talking about things, you know, pecs that come off, the neck muscles, etc., then things start to grab. You want to make sure that those those secondary muscles aren't first things to grab when you're doing these things.","offset":1370,"duration":40},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: If they are the first things to when I breathe then we definitely want to address this and this is where it's like get into those positions and try that. You know, I go to the extremes of getting people with some resistance breathing devices that are fairly cheap and easy to get, um, to where we really train, you know, the strength of these things um, to challenge people. But we don't do a a ton of it. We do some of it as some auxiliary work and then it's like I move more into like breathing gear work with, you know, warm-up and and designed cardio or aerobic work that we implement the breathing gears into.","offset":1410,"duration":38},{"text":"Host: Um what would be the- I mean this might be kind of a a variable question, but what would be the ideal sequence of breathing through you know the ribcage and the torso and the whole chest cavity? If you were to start a breath, an inhalation from full evacuation, what should that look like? What are cues that we could be feeling into and how would that- how would that look in an ideal world?","offset":1448,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: If this is the bottom of your ribcage, right, your ribs, this thing goes out like that. Most people are taught or hear their belly should move. You should feel the air into your back first. That doesn't mean the belly doesn't move, but we're talking the upper belly, not the lower belly. If the lower belly is what is coming out, you're dealing with pelvic dysfunction, pelvic floor dysfunction most likely.","offset":1474,"duration":38},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So I've run into a number of yogis who've practiced for years and taught that whole belly thing and literal- you know and and they're quite they have quite dysfunctional breathing patterns because they can't breathe into the ribcage. They're actually just breathing down, they're not expanding the cage, right? We want expansion horizontal and then that's where the vertical occurs, right?","offset":1512,"duration":26},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So it horizontally initiates and if I just put if I just sit if I just sit up with on my sit bones vertically in a chair with my back my back's not on and I put my hands around my lower ribs, I just want to organize down a little bit and then I and I feel those ribs move immediately out and into my back and then my belly ends up filling, right? That's the the upper part of my belly. So that's that's essentially where that happens and then from there it then becomes shoulders and and all that. But we're not you don't need to really train those secondary muscles, those are short-term muscles that are very glycolytic in nature, so those are those are for last resort type things.","offset":1538,"duration":50},{"text":"Host: And the the most common tendency for people would be for the ribs to have a tendency to flare and kind of be stuck in like external rotation. And to be able to come down and drop down towards the pelvis and drop into internal rotation on the exhalation is going to be very healing for creating support and stability for that respiratory diaphragm pelvic floor relationship slash the whole everything.","offset":1588,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Correct. Yeah, I mean that pelvic floor is so important and I think so many people miss that to where it's like, you know, if you're if you're really working on some breath control and core work, you should be pulling up. Like you should be you should be like it's like you're stopping yourself like you've got to go the bathroom real bad and you're pulling up and trying to stop that. That should be engaged as you're breathing, especially on that exhale.","offset":1610,"duration":28},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Now, that shouldn't be something you're walking around all day thinking about, right? Because if you've done the work, those muscles naturally should remain engaged then when they should be.","offset":1638,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: It’s kind of like healthy healthy tone, not be excessively flaccid or hypertone either. Be like dynamic. It’s interesting the idea of so the, you know, your whole body's a closed hydraulic system and so if you think of the diaphragm descending to expand open, create a vacuum in the lungs to pull air in, the pelvic floor needs to also be able to expand and relax. And so going through that that relationship of as I inhale, there needs to be an opening through my abdomen and my lower back and my pelvic floor to be able to actually allow the space for my diaphragm to function. Like there could be dysfunction because of inhibition or rigidity within my pelvis, which is interesting I think to start to bring- it’s like oh I need to breathe into my cock. Cool. I didn’t think about that.","offset":1654,"duration":55},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. Most people aren’t engaged down there in the wrong way. It’s just it is what it is, but I mean that's part of it. So mechanically speaking, you know, you kind of want to dial that in a little bit every day or, you know, whenever you go train, like that's just kind of like starting, you know, with some stuff, like do a few exercises that revolve around that. Once you get it dialed, that stuff can get a little bit more extreme. Like I I do I'll do some hard some hardcore like kind of neck training stuff that involves the whole core, but like I've got a resistance breathing device in and I'm going end to end with that for a couple of sets to get that strengthened but also to get it activated so that when like I go squat or deadlift, I’m not doing that shit, I’m just squatting and deadlifting because it’s now integrated and it’s a part of the process.","offset":1709,"duration":52},{"text":"Host: What resistance breathing devices would you recommend for someone? Is a straw enough or like what should...","offset":1761,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: I I would just get um, I mean I can here I can tell you and it's actually really cheap, very cheap, I mean I send this to everybody...","offset":1766,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: It’s like one of those little like snorkel snorkel mouse things with a little little turny doodad valve on it.","offset":1774,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Correct. Yeah, I have one of those too, I like it.","offset":1781,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: It gets all slobbery though, that’s the only thing I don’t like about it.","offset":1783,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: It does, but like it's yours, man. Like you wash it out with water every time. Portable respiratory muscle trainer on Amazon.","offset":1785,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Yeah, that’s the same thing I think, it’s like 13 bucks or something like that.","offset":1796,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. Yeah and so- I buy like 20 of them at a time and then I just give them to clients as they come in and stuff.","offset":1799,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: Yeah those tools are great because it it creates feedback and resistance to be able to actually have to really actively engage those muscles, the respiratory muscles. And you'll see people's neck start to grab and you're like dude, no, no, no.","offset":1808,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: So I have a question for you with that. With using the respiratory tool like that, would it be is it okay that you are now practicing mouth breathing for one thing, um, and is it more efficacious or does it matter to emphasize the exhalation or the inhalation if you're using resistance for your breath?","offset":1820,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So in- in with respects to this is causing more resistance than what the nose does. So that's why I'm actually using it, it's strength training. So I'm actually doing some strength training I'm looking at it like lifting weights for the primary breathing muscles um, and getting the core integrated into that. Um, that is all we're doing with that. I will sometimes include it into cardio warm-ups where we go resistance breathing device, you go end to end one- one to three breaths at the top of every minute and then you go right back into nose breathing and the nose breathing feels like mouth breathing.","offset":1842,"duration":43},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So it's a very easy, well-orchestrated path to kind of not only getting warmed up and getting the pulmonary system integrated with everything, but I'm getting my breathing really ready to go for whatever sort of intense work I might be doing, which is something most people are never thinking about or doing.","offset":1885,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: And something probably for people to think about if they are using a a resistance tool like that or just using the natural resistance of just, you know, breathing in general, uh, would be paying attention to the alignment of your ribs and your pelvis and all of that. Because it's kind of like if you're doing, you know, kegel exercises but you're practicing clenching your- your kegels um from a a quote unquote like dysfunctional position, you're just um downloading or pressing save on a dysfunctional file. And so if you're doing these resistance exercises, it would probably also be wise to be paying attention to orientation of the ribs and all the other different parts. Is there any specific cues you would provide for a client or yourself as far as rib orientation or body orientation when they're going through a a resistance breathing exercise?","offset":1911,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: They they will typically because my clients are typically all over the work- they're all over the place. So I'll they'll get videos of how to do a specific exercise then they're actually given, hey, I want you to go end to end three breaths with this device in that position. And they supply me with the feedback on that type of stuff. So hey, was that how hard you know, what was going on? Um, if somebody comes to see me and I work with them, I'm actually my hands are on them and I'm showing them exactly what's going on, um, you know, but for- you know I don't I try to keep it as dumbed down basic as possible meaning I don't try and talk over their head about mechanics, I try and just go no let's see this position, now show me your breathing. And they like fill up. And they're like holy crap, you know, and it's like yeah, you couldn't fill up before.","offset":1964,"duration":57},{"text":"Host: I like the I don’t know if this is Belisa Vranich’s language or not, but I got it from her of like the horizontal versus vertical breathing.","offset":2021,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yes, that is- yeah. That yeah, that is Belisa's. She’s...","offset":2028,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: And so something like really simple would just be like allow your ribs to kind of descend a little bit, like relax, like relax in yourself and then bring your hands on the sides of the ribs and feel that breath starting to move horizontally. And then you could also put your hands in your lower back, which I don't know if Belisa recommends this as well, but I do. Um and feel that breath going into your back and that’s going to naturally place the ribs into a more natural healthy kind of like cylindrical orientation to be able to create better pressure and then maybe stack the the breathing on top of that. I think would be maybe a potential you know horizontal breathing with that. Yeah. And then with with and then with something that's very common with people is nasal restrictions. Do you have any recommendation for that? So we- so we've got resistance, we're starting to turn on the respiratory muscles, we're starting to align and organize the diaphragm and all that stuff, but we still are bunched up and we actually can't get breath through the nose.","offset":2033,"duration":56},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, I uh go spend one month focused on not going outside of a gear one, which is you know an equal in and out nose-only breathing where it's greater than 4 seconds in length, so like a two in two out, two seconds out, two seconds in, two seconds out. So your breath rate your respiration rate is below 20 breaths per minute, right? Go only do that for a month no matter what. So toggle down the intensity of whatever you're doing if it pushes you beyond that, right? Do that for a month, then if your nose is still an issue, go see an ENT and get that thing- thing cleaned out.","offset":2089,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Why a month? What happens during that time frame? and would you recommend mouth taping during that time frame for any activities at all?","offset":2136,"duration":10},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: No. I don't like mouth taping because it just- it kind of- it changes the the level of commitment. It's like oh I'm just going to put this tape on so I don't open my mouth. No, you- you really should be learning to kind of wire that up mind and body a bit. Um the big thing is adaptation. What sort of- like for if you look at my nose...","offset":2146,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: You got- you got a little lopsided there, bro.","offset":2173,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah, I'm very lopsided.","offset":2176,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: I think mine’s lopsided too.","offset":2178,"duration":1},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah you’re not too bad. Regardless, I can operate in a gear one up to about 140 heart rate, which is just touching zone four for if we're talking about cardiovascular, right? Like so like that and beyond that I then switch into a gear four which is easy mouth breathing because that's where that should happen because now we have a whole community of people who bought into this nose breathing thing and thinking that it's the be all end all. It is not. I've- I've tested a lot of people, they retard things in the opposite direction because now you're not getting enough oxygen when you go above moderate efforts of exercise.","offset":2179,"duration":53},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: So now you're not actually onboarding enough oxygen for use. So ventilation goes up, right? So depth and rate change for very good reason. But easy mouth breathing gear four is just and because you've been rewiring things for a month, when you do switch out when you do go up to that you now are primed and designed to really be using those primary breathing muscles still.","offset":2232,"duration":27},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: You don't need to bring on where most people who have not done any sort of training with these with their with their breathing muscles are tend to have I mean I can- the amount of runners I watch and see that are just like breathing here, stiff upper, you know, their neck is stiff, all of it. They don't they only have access to the upper chest for breathing. They're missing huge huge opportunity and the huge opportunity from what I've been seeing with testing, I mean I I see between 20 and 60 percent changes in VO2 Max with most of the people that come to me. And I have seen some elite athletes.","offset":2259,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: Could you outline the gear system of breathing quickly? Because I think it's a a great model for people to to have.","offset":2305,"duration":7},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. Gear one is easily is is easy nasal breathing, but it's also, you know, it's controlled, it's it's greater than 4 seconds in length, right? So two like just think of it as two in two out. Gear two is power nose breathing. Gear two is very limited because we will skip gear three, which is transitional, that's usually transitional gearing down, but I'll sometimes use that to train people just for some just training purposes.","offset":2312,"duration":35},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: However, it's a gear it's a transitional gear for gearing down, so so don't think of gear three right now. We go gear two, gear four, which is... into gear five... So anything above roughly a 30 respiration rate with mouth breathing is gear five. Gear four is between 20 and 30 breaths a minute. Um, gear three comes in when I go from working hard into I now shut it off and now I'm... nose in, mouth out. And you will see recovery happen pretty quickly by doing that and you could also reverse that but then you move that air with that transitional gear and as soon as you feel a change then you drop into a gear one.","offset":2347,"duration":70},{"text":"Host: And how does that work that when you are in say gear five because you are in higher respiratory demand, being in that gear too much or just breathing that way in general or mouth breathing, you're off-gassing more CO2 and alla Bohr Effect, you're increasing alkalinity, decreasing acidity and you are causing your hemoglobin to become change shape and become more stingy with the release of oxygen while simultaneously you need more oxygen in that moment.","offset":2417,"duration":33},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: You you can overbreathe at moderate to lower to low-high intensity efforts, meaning like heart rate zone four and below, you can overbreathe in. Like heart rate zone you're 90 percent and above, you really can't overbreathe, although there are compensations that I've seen and picked up on where people are breathing at like a 60 respiration rate but they're at like 70 percent tidal volume. So you're in an obvious compensation at that point where you can't hit tidal volume, you know, because you're so stressed.","offset":2450,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: Can you define tidal volume?","offset":2484,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah. The depth at which so how much air you can act- how much air you can fill your lungs with. You'll still you will see people hit some tidal volume in like a gear two, gear one, so they'll hit in range, but they're not needing to move that very fast, right? Well, if I'm moving up into a gear five and I can't go all the way in, so that just means I'm going short and short-change breathing, I'm just going... versus... Right? You don't need to necessarily hit end to you know bottom end, but if you can't hit that top end, there's a problem. Your alveolar sacs are most sensitive at end ranges. So you're getting to you're getting best diffusion off of CO2 and O2 at those end ranges.","offset":2486,"duration":46},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: There's a there is a genetic reason for that. If I'm in fight or flight and I'm hauling ass and I'm moving, I got to be able to move air and get real good air.","offset":2532,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: How interesting, your alveolar sacs are more sensitive during end ranges, so full exhalation full inhalation you're going to have more sensitivity within- is that- is that kind of like the the physiological sigh kind of thing where it kind of like lifts them off of themselves from collapse?","offset":2547,"duration":16},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah and yet none of that is necessary if I'm calm. So I can just be but you can't see that I'm breathing, that that's, you know, when you get back to normal breathing, normal breathing should be I can't tell that fool's breathing.","offset":2563,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: Yeah. Like the samurai breath or what- what people call it. Um I was doing the I know you have relationship with Laird Hamilton I was doing the the pool training stuff uh out at his place maybe I don't know whatever last summer. And the one of the things that stood out to me as we're dunking up and down uh that he said that has continued to stand out and been something that I've like I've continued to perpetuate with myself is that it's not about the inhale, it's about the exhale. And that was like a download that he got from I don't know who somebody else and that was one of the things like when we come up out of the pool it was like getting a full evacuation to get all of that air out to be able to get replenished with a like a you know a a more robust inhalation or a richer inhalation. Do you think that there's something to that? What are your thoughts of the value of of exhalation?","offset":2579,"duration":56},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: In in certain instance in certain instances, yes, right? In certain instances, yes. I don't think you need to dump all your air all the time. Um in fact, I I mean I'm on a bike or I'm on a you know I'm running and I'm I'm I'm literally research I'm studying the stuff I'm doing, I'm paying attention to where is the change happening. And I've got like a metabolic cart on, right? And I've got and I'm watching tissue saturation. I'm watching this stuff as it's occurring and dumping the air while exercising all the time is not necessarily the best like trying to get rid of that, that's just wasted time. You're going to actually move you're moving air fast, air doesn't just sit while I'm moving air like this, right?","offset":2635,"duration":45},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: But in instances like with Laird in the pool or Laird in big surf, yeah you want to be getting rid of your air before you go to take a full inhale because you're going to need all the fresh air you can get in order to be down for two or three minutes while you're getting rolled, right? Like so in Laird's training to be clear is is genius in that this this maniac discover- figured out how to kind of push those limits of CO2 and pressure and force control of breathing in a pool environment. So I mean it- he's a genius like that. I mean he's an innovator, the guy is an innovator. That's what he does.","offset":2680,"duration":46},{"text":"Host: Are there so we we can wrap up here do you have like a hard out you got to get out of here like...","offset":2726,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Yeah I do I have a yeah I definitely have a hard out in like 5 minutes.","offset":2731,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: All right, cool. Sweet. Um I so in wrapping things up, uh are is there anything that you see standing out in the in the breathing world that you feel is maligned or off that you would like to see rectified or shifted?","offset":2735,"duration":22},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Oh, I stay away from the breathing world. Most of it's hogwash.","offset":2757,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: So what's- what would you say is hogwash in the in the breathing education space?","offset":2767,"duration":5},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Uh I I would say most people are getting lost and stuck to a methodology versus understanding respiratory physiology and physiology in general, you know, and and even mechanics, you know, you went into a deep dive with mechanics here. Most of these methodologies and things don't even touch that, right? Because they don't want to because they've got this cool little toy that can change somebody's state and that's really all anybody's interested in. They'll just keep breathing people and doing this with people without actually, you know, going well you're still doing the same shit.","offset":2772,"duration":41},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Like hey, for me with what I do with clients is I'm looking to kind of help these people who I mean I'm dealing with professional athletes and like executives working at very very high levels, so managing multiple companies things like that where I do a full run down of like how they manage stress, how they respond to s- an exhale assessment CO2, and then how they respond to a metabolic assessment that I'm looking at tissue saturation, oxygen to the brain, etc. I'm looking at all this stuff so that I can go, hey what you're doing throughout the day we need to figure out some off points because you're not managing stress here very well.","offset":2813,"duration":42},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Like I I run people through an assessment that is very um boring to start. They're doing they're doing low-low effort work on a metabolic cart that just goes up a a smidge every five minutes and they're like bored out of their mind and it's everything I need to see because the thing one of the things that changes that really that is that stress thing we started kind of with this is CO2. Is CO2 changes that respiratory drive it changes how things are going on in the body and if I've got somebody we'll just use this as one case because we've talked about it, if I've got somebody who overbreathes a little bit I see that in the tissue. I see that even though the metabolic cart is saying oh he's aerobic right now, or he's utilizing fat. But yet his tissue and his brain are not getting oxygen very well.","offset":2855,"duration":51},{"text":"Host: What would be the metabolic test that that you would suggest someone uh goes through, say from from home? Is there are they going to need fancy gadgets and devices and such or what would be your suggestion?","offset":2906,"duration":12},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: There so there is actually it's gotten better and I'm supposed to get my third version of this one, but I got a buddy of mine at Duke who's really like I swear this version of it is badass. It's called Caliber, it's spelled C-A-L-B... C-A-L-I-B-R-E, so it's English Caliber, Caliber Biometrics. They've got a $400 uh metabolic cart that's pretty badass.","offset":2918,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Okay. I’ll look it up.","offset":2943,"duration":2},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Um, and- and it's a pretty easy to use with their app um, but it'll give you some pretty good numbers. But if you really want the whole shebang, you're going to want either a MOXY or a Train Red Near-Infrared, but you know it takes time to kind of understand what you're do- I’ve kind of pioneered a way to look at this and look at clientele with this stuff that come to me because I mean I can get some of the high- the highest level players in the world in a sport and I can see a limiter that somebody else wasn't picking up because they just did a traditional VO2 Max test which is just like you start at nothing and you go to everything within like eight minutes. And I'm taking like 30 minutes to get to that to a point to where I might have them work really hard for three minutes, right?","offset":2945,"duration":47},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Needless to say, my point here is that most of what I'm seeing if people go and address how they're looking at how they manage their daily life, like the stress of their life, and then they start to implement tools around that in order to bring themselves into reality, breathing has a very potent impact in that, especially when we apply it to exercise and you decide to stop being a reactive, you know, SOB to everything or victimizing yourself to everything, that is where breathing has a very very potent deal. And I've had I've had um an entire C-suite at one point thank me as a client walked out of the room, who was you know the owner of the company, and they literally were like thank you with what for what you're doing this this like over the last three years this dude this dude has changed so much, like he's calmed down in a level to where he's not as reactive and not this tyrant, right?","offset":2992,"duration":60},{"text":"Host: Like he’s- he’s regulated. Um I so I appreciate you saying the thing that you'd want to change is the lack of emphasis on mechanics and a lack of emphasis on principles around respiratory physiology and understanding like how to how to kind of drive the boat as opposed to just having some specific exercises because I created a program that's not out yet but it's all founded on first mechanics and then the principles of down-regulation and up-regulation and then a section on anatomy and physiology of just like what you ought to know to have a visualization of what's happening. So I’ll include that for people listening in the intro- the link for that for like we’ll have like a free trial and all that stuff. And so I'm very glad that that's the exact thing because I'm like I agree. That’s why I made something.","offset":3052,"duration":46},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Exactly. I’m like yeah I’m off- I’m in my own world doing my own thing, I'm like I'm good man I don't want to like the whole breath space it got so I was just like no I'm out, everybody's into their own little methodology of some sort.","offset":3098,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I’m not into methodologies. Principles, learn principles. What do you need to know as far from a principle-based understanding and then from there you can apply the principles on whatever methodology but actually understand the intrinsics of the methodology as opposed to being lost in the methodology. Um, thanks so much man, I really appreciate these conversations. Um where if people want to I know that you do various different things you actually actually work with with coaching clients you have all sorts of things...","offset":3112,"duration":29},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: We we have a membership website people can jump on we're not exactly very active with that. I have some coaches that help run that with for me, but what I do is very personalized, um it requires high high um commitment level uh meaning life and financially for people to invest in. Um it's not a a short-order process, but if people really are interested and think that they want to you know test that, more than welcome to jump in, go to shiftadapt.com and just go through the website, they'll they'll find everything there.","offset":3141,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: Amazing. Cool. Um thanks so much I appreciate you...","offset":3178,"duration":3},{"text":"Brian MacKenzie: Very easy, uh I I love you dude you are such a cool soul.","offset":3181,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: I love you more I appreciate you man. All right that’s it that’s all thank you for tuning in I’ll see you next week.","offset":3185,"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":"2.9","message":"⚠ Cookie download failed: WARNING: [youtube] [jsc] Error solving n challenge request using \"deno\" provider: Error running deno process (returncode: 1): \u001b[0m\u001b[1m\u001b[31merror\u001b[0m: Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read prope","detail":null},{"elapsed":"2.9","message":"Retrying without cookies...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"26.5","message":"⚠ Downloaded without cookies — audio may contain ads","detail":null},{"elapsed":"26.5","message":"Audio downloaded (31.7 MB) in 26.5s","detail":"File size: 31.7 MB"},{"elapsed":"26.5","message":"Video title: How to Breathe Better for Peak Performance | Brian MacKenzie | Align Podcast #527","detail":null},{"elapsed":"26.6","message":"Audio duration: 53:15 (53.3 min)","detail":null},{"elapsed":"26.6","message":"Uploading audio to Gemini File API...","detail":null},{"elapsed":"30.3","message":"Audio uploaded in 3.8s","detail":"File ref: files/53gb8lo4p30m"},{"elapsed":"30.3","message":"Audio processed in 0.0s. 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