wise athletes podcast

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Outline of Discussion The origin story behind BIGWhat was the result?  Why did it succeed so well?How to replicate this in other cities?  What are the keys?  What are the layers…the sequence of what comes first, second, etc.? Summary of Key Points 4 pillars Community health — Lowering barriers to accessCharityConnectionFun Keys: Non-profit with a cause that resonated with many people, cyclists and beyondQuality volunteers (enabled by the “no one is making money; we’re all in this together”)Support of professional and celebrity cyclists and personalities (no fees, just hotel plus 1 dinner: Hunter Allen, Lance Armstrong guy, Canadian continental league team, …)…also enabled by non-profit status?Effective board leadership…connections plus strong management skillsA great jersey that people liked and wanted to wearInclusive of experienced, inexperienced, and non-riders; weekly rides to provide skills and fitness for 12 weeks in the lead upSome people jumped in early to make it happen, while others saw a success and wanted to be a part of it….a snowball effect. It’s takes a community Cycling shops (and other vendors) help out and get businessCity provide support and get positive Successes Bike ridership is way upCity received a ton of tourism benefit…people came from all over YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIqZIaLc_W8koxWvrb4g1nQ B.I.G. Website: https://bigf.ca/ BIG-Highlights-2021-1-1Download BIG-Overview-2022Download

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) The Posturepro Method We know that posture stems from your brain’s interpretation of the information it receives. We also know that your body is constantly fighting the effects of gravity in order to keep you upright or moving. Proper posture allows your body to work efficiently against gravity. On the contrary, poor posture leads to excess energy expenditure in attempt to stay upright. This can be exhausting! In order to optimize your posture, The Posturepro Method observes several elements: BRAIN-BODY Muscles respond to the commands of the brain. A brain imbalance leads to a muscle imbalance. FOOT SENSOR The weight distribution of your feet changes knee and hip mechanics. EYE SENSOR The eye muscles tell your brain where your body is in space. TMJ Recent studies have show that the position of the jaw affects our posture. Annette’s biography:Annette Verpillot is the founder of Posturepro, a health company specialized in restoring the brain-body connection through some of the world’s most advanced rehabilitation and injury prevention techniques. She has created the Posturepro Method which has gained global recognition for eliminating chronic pain, increasing strength, and improving sports proficiency. Additionally, Annette actively works with clients, professional athletes, trainers, practitioners, and researchers to develop solutions to tackle global health issues.Here are links to connect with Annette:Website: posturepro.coInstagram: @postureproFacebook: @PostureproYoutube: @posturepro1Twitter: @posture_proClubHouse: @postureproPosturepro Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/postureproclub TedTalk: https://youtu.be/S3qdSo8z0Is Annette bio: https://posturepro.co/annette-verpillot/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Posturepro Example video from website: https://posturepro.co/improve-your-posture-through-your-feet/

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Who is Dr. Adam Bataineh? Adam Bataineh, MD: Internal medicine doctor focused on aging and longevity. Co-founder and chief medical officer of Span Health, a longevity-focused health coaching app. The focus of the Wise Athletes podcast is older athletes, and how they can improve athletic performance today and retain their athletic capability for a long time.  As a group, older athletes are big users of performance tracking tools for heart rate, power output, speed, and distance; and more and more we are adding biometric tracking wearables for general health and fitness tracking, such as sleep duration and HRV. Dr Bataineh is an expert in the wearables market. Dr. Adam Bataineh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrAdamBat Our discussion topics: Why do we need continuous tracking of anything?  Why isn’t my annual physical and blood test with my family doctor good enough?An overview of the market:  types of devices, data services that sit on top of devices to give us advice?Where are the devices and AI accurate enough to turn over our decision-making to the machines?What is the 80/20 rules in this space?  How do I get the biggest bang for my money and time? What is Span Health? Span Health is one of the startups that translates the science of personalized nutrition & lifestyle using your data to find what works. “We started with a mobile app with tools and content to run experiments, validate which ones truly work for you, and stack healthy habits into a sustainable routine, “says Patrick Samy, co-founder and CEO of Span Health. Span Health website: https://www.span.health

My Talk with Dr. Luks Dr. Luks is a top Orthopedic Surgeon and Sports Medicine Physician who is also a masters endurance athlete. Dr Luks knows all too well how hard it can be and how important it is to remain athletic for the pleasures it brings to life as well as for the many health and longevity benefits that cannot be obtained in any other way. In our discussion we cover a set of topics that are of interest to all older endurance athletes, including: How do I interpret that joint pain that appeared out of nowhere, and what should I do? When should I get an MRI? How to avoid training mistakes behind “overuse” injuries that can take away our athletic fun. Arthritis:  ….. am I causing arthritis by exercising a lot?  Should I rest my joints to let them heal? Surgery vs. no surgery:  What’s this top orthopedic’s surgeon’s surprising perspective on the role for surgery?  If you are dealing with chronic pain, thinking about surgery, worried about arthritis or just want to understand your body a little better…listen in to this conversation.  You will learn a ton. Who is Howard J Luks, MD? Dr. Luks has been named as one of the top Sports Medicine Physicians in the United States, by US News and World Report.  He has also been named as one of the Top 10 “Social Health Makers” for Osteoarthritis.  Dr. Luks has been named one of the top Sports Medicine Physicians in New York for nearly 10 years in a row and Dr. Luks was named one of Twitter’s Top Ten Doctors and served as an Advisory Board Member of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media for 3 years. After graduating with honors from New York Medical College, Dr. Luks completed his Orthopedic Surgery residency in NY in 1996 and a fellowship in Sports Medicine at the Hospital For Joint Diseases in NYC in 1997.   As the Chief of Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy at New York Medical College for over 20 years, Dr Luks was entrusted to teach the next generation of Orthopedic Surgeons about the needs of athletes of all ages.  As a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon specializing in Sports Medicine, Dr. Luks focus is on injuries that involve the shoulder, knee, ankle, and elbow.   More than twenty years of experience in an academic community has enabled Dr. Luks to offer a comprehensive sports medicine treatment experience; including a solid education about what’s bothering you, and a formal plan to move forward and back to your anticipated level of play.  Most injuries are managed non-operatively with a focus on how to adjust training, lifestyle, diet, and exercise to improve condition.    Blog post on when to get an MRI: https://www.howardluksmd.com/sometimes-our-joints-just-hurt-and-its-ok-not-to-know-why/ Website: https://www.howardluksmd.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/hjluks

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Who is Dr. John Day? Dr. John Day is a cardiologist specializing in the treatment of atrial fibrillation and other abnormal heart rhythm conditions at St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received his medical degree from John Hopkins and completed his residency and fellowships in cardiovascular medicine and cardiac electrophysiology at Stanford University.  Dr. John Day is board certified in cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology. Since 2004, Dr. John Day has appeared as a health expert on all of the major television networks. For several years he had a weekly television segment on the CBS affiliate in Utah.  Over 65,000 people now follow him through his newsletter, blog, or social media channels.In 2017 Dr. John Day published his first book, The Longevity Plan.  This book went on to become an Amazon number one best seller and was named best books of 2017 by the Huffington Post.In 2021 Dr. John Day published his second book, The Atrial Fibrillation Cure which was also an Amazon best-seller and was the top selling book in the entire cardiovascular space for over two months.In addition to his books, Dr. John Day is the prolific author of more than 100 studies that have been published in many of the most prestigious scientific and medical journals.  He also is the founding editor-in-chief of the Innovations in Cardiac Rhythm Management medical journal.Dr. Day is also a researcher and pioneer in the field of electrophysiology, with a patent on technology that allows physicians to map the source of atrial fibrillation three-dimensionally. https://drjohnday.com/ Podcast Summary Notes “Long time, competitive endurance athletes have a higher risks of AFib, which is a marker of premature aging. The faster you solve AFib, the better your long-term outcome. Ablation technologies have come a long way….success rates of 80-90% can be expected.” What is atrial fibrillation? (https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/atrial_fibrillation.htm) Atrial fibrillation (AFib or AF) is the most common type of treated heart arrhythmia. An arrhythmia is when the heart beats too slowly, too fast, or in an irregular way.When a person has AFib, the normal beating in the upper chambers of the heart (the two atria) is irregular, and blood doesn’t flow as well as it should from the atria to the lower chambers of the heart (the two ventricles). AFib may happen in brief episodes, or it may be a permanent condition. Cardiologist vs. Cardiac electrophysiologist (EP)? To become an EP takes an extra 2 years of trining.  EP’s deal with every electrical related to the heart.  Treatments:  ablation, pacemakers, etc. What is the connection between AFib and long-time endurance athletes? It is true.  There is a U shaped curve with both ends having a higher than average risks:  a couch potato on one end and the highly competitive athlete (very long endurance events and/ or maximum heart rate races) on the other.  The more races you do, the more risk you may have…up to 4-5 times higher.Lowest risk?  Regular, modest exercise. Why AFib for older athletes?   High sustained heart output….stress on the heart for too long might be a cause.  Perhaps related to the very low heart rates of the athlete when at rest.The heart is a pump with valves.  Scarring on the heart can take place with athletes…just over using the heart somehow.  Little areas of micro scarring …could it be related to blood flow issues, maybe.  Maybe the level of cardiac output is just too high, and some people are subsetible to this damage.Still, the risks to inactive people is higher than for athletes, even though the long-time, competitive athlete has a higher risk than the average person who exercises regularly but modestly.How common is AFib?  40-50% higher risk up to multiples higher.  About 1 in 4 people in US will have some AFib in their lives. What increases risk?  Chronic risk of repeated AFib episodes Extremely long endurance racesExtremely high HR racingFamily history of AFib (20-30% of cases)Caucasian have a higher riskOverweight is more likely….causes higher stress on heartDiet plays a role.  Fast food, over eating, greasy food can increase risks AND be triggers of episodesAging…the older you get the higher the risk Short term triggers of AFib episodes Alcohol can trigger Afib even in young people with zero other risksHigh stressCaffeine?  No, not a trigger, but cut back if you feel sensitive.Energy drinks, yes!  Exercising in dehydrated or electrolyte (magnesium and potassium) depleted state AFib begets AFib — don’t let episodes continue.  Heart scars more quickly when you are having episodes…and more scaring means more episodes.  And get the AFib to go into remission.Put it in remissionLose weight.  Back off of the extreme athletics.  Get an ablation to avoid medications which compromise athletic performance.  In general, slow the aging process:  optimize nutrition, keep weight in check, optimizing sleep, managing stress, regular exercise while hydrated but not too much or too hard. AFib is a marker of premature aging.  A marker of a person who hasn’t taken care of themselves enough given their genetic status.Cardiac output drops 20-30% when you are in AFib.  And the poor beating leads to blood clots that can kill you.  Heart failure is another potential consequence. Ablation   Out-patient surgery.  Run catheter up a leg vein.  Surgery over in 2 hours, patient observed for 3 hours, and then back home.  About 5 days until returning to full activity.  It’s not major surgery; well tolerated.  The technology is improving all the time; fewer and fewer people don’t respond well.  Sometimes a 2nd session is necessary, but rarely. Younger (30-40 yo) get 90-95% success rateOlder people — 80-90% successBetter for men, but even women get fantastic results. If they don’t go crazy with risk factors, they don’t get it again. Just to be safe, people should be prepared to shutdown AFib episodes if they do happen. Everyone is different, and they should work with Dr’s to figure out what is beset for them.Wearables:  Apple Watch and many others have AFib detection software that is very good.  Do that.  Don’t worry about the super high tech AFIb trackers…an EP wants to see the tape, not a blip on a device.Stay hydratedTake a nap…or go to bedExercise to stop a low HR AFib episode (check with DR)Do some meditationBear down, cough — vegal tone“Pill in the pocket” — work with your dr.  Take it only when the rare episode pops up to stop it to avoid a trip to the ERIf all else fails, go to the ER to get the heart shocked back into rhythm. Right side vs. left side sleeping Most AFib patients sleep on right side to minimize the sensation of heart palpitationsMaybe left side sleeping contributes to AFib but maybe not.  Certainly makes the sensation more noticeable. AFib and Sleep Apnea Sleeping on back is bad for Apnea and AFibApnea makes is 4x higher risk of AFibOxygen levels can fall into 70% rangeMany times solving sleep apnea causes AFib to go into remission.T-shirts with a pouch for a tennis ball to teach you to not sleep on back. Final Advice from Dr. Day: For the competitive athlete who cannot give up the extreme exercise and they have done everything else right.  Don’t be afraid of ablation.  The sooner they get treated, the better their long-term success rate Two books written by Dr Day: Longevity PlanThe AFib Cure Newsletter, podcast, blog on Website:  drjohndaymd.com Previous Episodes on AFib: Episode #10 – Endurance Athlete’s A-Fib, Part 1 Episode #11 – Endurance Athlete’s A-Fib, Part 2

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) This is a shortened version of Episode 50 (1.5 hours long)….I cut out the good and left the great. If you haven’t listened to the full episode, start with this one and then graduate to the full story from George Dallam, PhD. Nasal breathing is not a trick or hack to get an unnatural advantage.  Nasal breathing is the designed in way to breathe properly.  Not nasal breathing causes health and performance problems. But it’s never too late to do it right. Learn the why’s and how’s of nasal breathing from George Dallam, PhD. Dr. Dallam says, “One simple rule:  breath through nose all the time, or as much as possible.” Benefits of nasal breathing:  Better filtering of particles and viruses (less nasal infection, bronchitis). Filtering becomes even more important when exercising because we take in so much more air.Less water lost though breathingLess energy spent on breathing (more energy for locomotion); higher O2 extracted per breath (higher efficiency)Recovery from “EIB” exercise induced bronchoconstriction (exercise induced asthma)Provides a powerful training stimulus to improve fitness…make you faster even if you go back to mouth breathing in high intensity efforts, such as racesImproved stress managementBetter sleep, and overall improved recovery from exercise (lower stress, avoidance of snoring)Better posture and movement ability with improved diaphragm activityFunctional movement benefits —diaphragm is a major core muscle that is under strength when we mouth breathe. Avoids possible damage to the heart from over breathing (a hypothesis from Dr Dallam)  Notes from discussion with George Dallam, PhD Myths about breathing: I feel the need to breath faster when I need more oxygen — mostly false.  It is the presence of higher than usual CO2 in the blood that causes the “air hunger”CO2 is bad, and needs to be removed as fast as possible — false; CO2 is necessary for normal bodily functions.  Too much AND too little CO2 are bad for the body.Breathing faster brings in more oxygen (superoxygenation) — no; red blood cells are generally 95-98% oxygenated after passing by lungs.  You don’t get more oxygen into red blood cells, you just lose more CO2 from blood plasma, which creates problems for the bodyBreathing doesn’t take much energy or oxygen to do — false.  During exercise, breathing can use as much as 15% of the total energy burn of the body…15% of the oxygen being used.  If we can save 25% of that by breathing more efficiently (less breathing for same oxygen), we’ll have more oxygen left over for other muscles to use.An athlete cannot get enough oxygen for exercise though just nasal breathing — false.  It is easy to see why people would come to this conclusion after one attempt, but with adaptation, many elite athletes compete using just nasal breathing. What does the nose do for us? Conditioning of the air:  humidifying the air and warming up the air.  Reduce lung dehydration and related wheezing and breathing problemsFiltering:  particulates (dust, smoke), viruses are captured instead of putting in lungs.  Avoid damaging lungs long-term (emphysema, cancer) and reduce infections impacting lungs.Increasing air resistance…forces a recruitment of the diaphragm which is the best muscle for efficient breathing.  Breath through the nose, then you will breath diaphragmatically without thinking.  You can stop trying to train yourself to “Belly Breath”.Calming.  Reducing stress.  Deep slower breathing vs. quicker shallow breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system…lowers the stress level of the body.  This is definitely true at rest.  For athletics, peak performance comes of being able to relax into the effort..not by trying as hard as possible, so stress level might also play a role in athletic performance.More efficient breathing:  breathe less to get the same amount of oxygen.  25% less breathing when nasal breathing.  So the 15% of total energy expenditure being spent on breathing is lowered to 11.5%….a 3.5% point reduction in energy used for breathing that can now be used elsewhere.  This is the same level of economy improvement that elite endurance athletes seek to obtain from using weight training…and this is just from breathing through your nose.Avoids the over breathing associated with mouth breathing. Over-breathing MAY be a cause of damage to the heart seen in endurance athletes as a higher incidence of AFib….lowering of CO2 in blood (from over breathing) results in blood flow restriction, which may be a cause to a lack of blood flow (a lack of oxygen) to the heart.   Related to Exercise Induced Asthma / Bronchial restriction (EIB) The lungs are filled with alveoli … the little sacs that allow the body to exchange gases.  Single cell thick, covered in a surfactant that allows the sacs to stay open even at low pressure.The lung environment is very liquid and very delicate.Imagine blowdrying wet tissue paper with a hairdryer…not good.When the air comes into lungs via the mouth, the air is not treated. Everyone has experienced coughing…the only way we have to get stuff out of our lungs that shouldn’t be there. It also is what happens when we have damaged our lungs, whether from breathing air that is too cold or too hot or too dry or too wet or filled with damaging particulates or just through over extertion.Our body creates “broncho constriction” to protect the lungs. If you ever had a wheeze at the end of your exhales, you’ve had this thing.This correlates very highly with mouth breathing athletes. Bronchio restriction is vey common among elite athletes…cycling, swimming, running. 20-50% of population vs. 5% among sedentary population. The more you breath, the more important it is to treat the air you breath and protect the lungs.The availability of broncho inhalers may just be serving to allow us to overcome our natural defense again damaging our lungs from mouth breathing. HOW TO NASAL BREATHE? The transition to nasal breathing is easier for some people.  Some people feel a terrible air hunger while others get used to it very quickly.  The path forward for everyone is to find your way to just the threshold point that your body can do it…with just a suggestion of air hunger…and then move higher over time.    It takes 6 weeks to 6 months.  Three key variables that impact time to adapt: Existing sensitivity to CO2.  If low sensitivity, then short time to adapt.How well developed is the diaphragm muscle.  The more you need to build, the longer it will take.How dedicated is the effort to adapt.  The more you nasal breath, the faster you will adapt. What do you need to do to be able to nasal breathe all the time? Break / Start the Habit Break the habit of mouth breathing.  Do it whenever you realize you are not nasal breathing.  Set reminders.  (See Episode 45 on building habits: https://www.wiseathletes.com/podcast/45-build-strong-habits-with-samuel-salzer/https://www.wiseathletes.com/podcast/45-build-strong-habits-with-samuel-salzer/):  During exercise, put a little water in your mouth so you don’t have to think about nasal breathing.According to Dr. Dallam, “I also found that focusing on nasal breathing during exercise facilitated focusing on it throughout the rest of my life as well.   While subjective at best, I consider that I am more relaxed, more thoughtful, sleeping better and happier as a direct result.” Once you can do your endurance & recovery workouts while nasal breathing, the adaptation will go very fast because that is most of your training.  And, if you are nasal breathing outside of exercise as well, you are essentially always nasal breathing at this point.You’ll adapt even faster if you will take down the level of effort to match your ability to perform while nasal breathing, and only increase as your nasal breathing improves.Separately work toward nasal breathing during sleep.  This is harder as you will be unconscious, but this will have a gigantic impact on your health and ability to recover from exercise.  Look into mouth taping and breathing exercises to open nasal passages before sleeping. Reduce CO2 sensitivity: By nasal breathing more, you will have less CO2 in your blood.  Your body will get used to that …meaning it will start to feel normal quickly (in days).  Keep pushing on the edge of discomfort to keep lowering your sensitivity.  Pushing too hard will backfire, so take your time.  This is not the place to develop a psychological problem.  And, this adaptation will happen faster than the muscle development so there is no payoff from pushing harder than just enough. “Breathe light” exercises:  just breathe more slowly while resting…until you feel an urge to breath more….just experience the feeling (from Patrick McKeown)Do breath holds while moving (walk, light jog).  Hold until the air hunger is strong.  Recover your breath fully, then repeat (from Patrick McKeown)https://pneuma.plus/ — a free site with breathing exercises Muscle development: Training the breathing muscles to get stronger.  This happens simply by using nasal breathing.  Just give the muscles some time to adapt.  It’s like getting used to using a bigger gear on the bike….You can do it for a short time right away, and over time you will get more muscular endurance as you get stronger.The Diaphragm muscle has to adapt.  At first, you won’t be strong enough to keep nasal breathing (i.e., pulling air through the nose and down into the bottom of the lungs) for a long time.  But the diaphragm muscle will get stronger and eventually you will be able to breath diaphragmatically for as long as you need and train for.  This might be the slowest part of the adaptation..The nose muscles have to adapt as well. Nasal passage recovery: If you haven’t been using your nasal passages in this way, you will have to get them adapted to this level of use.The most important thing is to just breathe through your nose as much as possible.It will probably help to start using a Neti pot or Neti bottle (there are many varieties).  Use distilled or boiled water, not tap water.  Remember to not blow your nose too hard after rising nasal passages with water…you may inadvertently push water into your ear tubes which may cause irritation.  I do it first thing to let the water fully drain out before I sleep. The first few times will be unpleasantly reminiscent of getting water up your nose at the beach.  But do you remember how amazingly good your nasal passages felt after a day in the surf?  This is the same thing.  After doing it for a week, you will never want to stop.  And it will make nasal breathing so much easierUse BreathRight strips or the like to hold open the airways in your nose.  George says his nose muscles got stronger after a while, so this may be a temporary thing.  But it does make an enormous difference in the beginning.  There are other nasal dilator devices to try if you like the idea of stuff up your nose.  I don’t.Try the Buteyko (bu-tek-o) method for clearing mild nasal congestion Metrics: It can help to track improvement if you use metrics but you don’t have to do so because the goal is NOT to breathe less, it is to use nasal breathing.  The rest comes naturally.HRV — your HRV level should start to increase, especially if you can nasal breath while sleepingHR — you may find your HR starts getting lower for the same power / speed.  This doesn’t occur for everyone.Breaths per minute — monitor your natural breathing.  Oura ring & Whoop strap do this for sleep, which is a good way to see if it is falling.  You want to get to 14 or less breaths per minute.  10-14 breaths per minute is normal, according to Patrick McKewon.Length of time until air hunger —  5 normal breaths. Exhale. How long until impulse to breath?  25 seconds minimum. 40 seconds target. Maximum breathlessness test:  normal breath in and out of nose.  Exhale, then hold and see how many steps you can take.  60 steps is minimum for “good” CO2 sensitivity.   How to get started with nasal breathing during exercise, According to George: Get on an indoor device you like to use:  stationary bike, treadmill, etc.  Get going at a pace that is lower than normalBreathe nasally.Every 3 minutes increasing the pace just a little, and rate how much the air hunger you feel.When you find the level at which you feel you cannot keep going, back off just a little so you can keep going.  It will feel hard but not feel like you are suffocating. The effort should be in the challenge of pulling the air in and out, not in staying conscious or in dealing with the fear of suffocating.  Another thing to watch is a rising HR…if your HR is higher than it should be for that level of power / pace, then you are struggling too much…just back down a little until the HR stabilizes The next workout, try to go a little harder while nasal breathing to see if you can do it.  You will probably find you can go harder every time for a while.  The early, beginner gains will be the easiest, as in most things.Continue the upward progression over timeFeel free to mouth breathe once in a while if you want to go harder.  It won’t be a set back, but it won’t help you progress toward 100% nasal breathing.  Just don’t lose track of the behavior change you are trying to instill as a habit. George M. Dallam, Ph.D. – Biographical Information Dr. Dallam is a professor in the School of Health Science and Human Movement at Colorado State University – Pueblo. Dr. Dallam has taught a wide variety of classes in exercise physiology, research and statistics, behavior facilitation, sport psychology, kinesiology, biomechanics, management, exercise assessment and prescription, swimming, running and triathlon. He is currently chair of the CSU-Pueblo Faculty Compensation Committee and is the outgoing chair and an ongoing member of the CSUP Institutional Review Board. Dr Dallam is also the former inaugural National Teams Coach for USA Triathlon and worked for many years with elite U.S. triathletes as a coach, advisor and consultant. Athletes coached directly by Dr. Dallam have included National Elite and Age Group Champions, Olympians, Pan American Games Medalists, World Age Group Champions and the top ranked male triathlete in the world in 2005-2006, Hunter Kemper.Dr. Dallam has been involved in numerous research studies and the publication of their results at both CSUP and the USOC examining various aspects of triathlon performance and training, diabetes risk factor modification, and the effects of functional movement improvement on running . His primary research interest recently focused on the capability of human beings to adapt to nasal only breathing during exercise as a way to improve both health and performance. Dr. Dallam was both the founder and a long term member of the USA Triathlon National Coaching Commission. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters applying training principles to triathlon and is the co-author, with Dr. Steven Jonas, of Championship Triathlon Training, published in 2008 by Human Kinetics and Teaching and Coaching Triathlon Successfully, published in 2014 by Coaches Choice. He is currently writing The Nasal Breathing Paradox during Exercise for future publication. He is regularly sought as a speaker and expert on exercise related topics having provided insights to a broad range of publications. Dr. Dallam has received both the United States Olympic Committee’s Doc Counsilman Science in Coaching award (2004) and the National Elite Coach of the Year award (2005) for triathlon. He has also received all three of CSU-Pueblo’s university-wide awards for teaching (2001), scholarship (2003 and 2021) and service (2005). He has further twice received the outstanding faculty member award (2005 and 2013) in the College of Engineering, Education and Professional Studies at CSU-Pueblo and the inaugural Scholarship Award (2021) in the newly formed School of Health Science and Human Movement. Finally, Dr. Dallam has been continuously training and competing in triathlon since 1981 and has recently also begun playing water polo again as a masters athlete.

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Nasal breathing is not a trick or hack to get an unnatural advantage.  Nasal breathing is the designed in way to breathe properly.  Not nasal breathing causes health and performance problems. But it’s never too late to do it right. Learn the why’s and how’s of nasal breathing from George Dallam, PhD. Dr. Dallam says, “One simple rule:  breath through nose all the time, or as much as possible.” Benefits of nasal breathing:  Better filtering of particles and viruses (less nasal infection, bronchitis). Filtering becomes even more important when exercising because we take in so much more air.Less water lost though breathingLess energy spent on breathing (more energy for locomotion); higher O2 extracted per breath (higher efficiency)Recovery from “EIB” exercise induced bronchoconstriction (exercise induced asthma)Provides a powerful training stimulus to improve fitness…make you faster even if you go back to mouth breathing in high intensity efforts, such as racesImproved stress managementBetter sleep, and overall improved recovery from exercise (lower stress, avoidance of snoring)Better posture and movement ability with improved diaphragm activityFunctional movement benefits —diaphragm is a major core muscle that is under strength when we mouth breathe. Avoids possible damage to the heart from over breathing (a hypothesis from Dr Dallam)  Time marks to find particular parts of discussion: Dr. Dallam background and the beginning of interest in nasal breathing: 4:58Myths about breathing:18:51What does the nose do? 31:00More problems from mouth breathing: 39:30Stress and related lower performance from over breathing: 46:30Intro to transition to nasal breathing:  50:50Advantages of nasal breathing: 53:58Potential heart damage (related to AFib) from mouth breathing during hard exercise: 1:05:23How long does it take to adapt to nasal breathing during exercise: 1:07:15Summary of adaptations in transition to nasal breathing: 1:12:13Recommendation for getting started: 1:20:14How to find Dr. Dallam:  1:26:10 Notes from discussion with George Dallam, PhD Myths about breathing: I feel the need to breath faster when I need more oxygen — mostly false.  It is the presence of higher than usual CO2 in the blood that causes the “air hunger”CO2 is bad, and needs to be removed as fast as possible — false; CO2 is necessary for normal bodily functions.  Too much AND too little CO2 are bad for the body.Breathing faster brings in more oxygen (superoxygenation) — no; red blood cells are generally 95-98% oxygenated after passing by lungs.  You don’t get more oxygen into red blood cells, you just lose more CO2 from blood plasma, which creates problems for the bodyBreathing doesn’t take much energy or oxygen to do — false.  During exercise, breathing can use as much as 15% of the total energy burn of the body…15% of the oxygen being used.  If we can save 25% of that by breathing more efficiently (less breathing for same oxygen), we’ll have more oxygen left over for other muscles to use.An athlete cannot get enough oxygen for exercise though just nasal breathing — false.  It is easy to see why people would come to this conclusion after one attempt, but with adaptation, many elite athletes compete using just nasal breathing. What does the nose do for us? Conditioning of the air:  humidifying the air and warming up the air.  Reduce lung dehydration and related wheezing and breathing problemsFiltering:  particulates (dust, smoke), viruses are captured instead of putting in lungs.  Avoid damaging lungs long-term (emphysema, cancer) and reduce infections impacting lungs.Increasing air resistance…forces a recruitment of the diaphragm which is the best muscle for efficient breathing.  Breath through the nose, then you will breath diaphragmatically without thinking.  You can stop trying to train yourself to “Belly Breath”.Calming.  Reducing stress.  Deep slower breathing vs. quicker shallow breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system…lowers the stress level of the body.  This is definitely true at rest.  For athletics, peak performance comes of being able to relax into the effort..not by trying as hard as possible, so stress level might also play a role in athletic performance.More efficient breathing:  breathe less to get the same amount of oxygen.  25% less breathing when nasal breathing.  So the 15% of total energy expenditure being spent on breathing is lowered to 11.5%….a 3.5% point reduction in energy used for breathing that can now be used elsewhere.  This is the same level of economy improvement that elite endurance athletes seek to obtain from using weight training…and this is just from breathing through your nose.Avoids the over breathing associated with mouth breathing. Over-breathing MAY be a cause of damage to the heart seen in endurance athletes as a higher incidence of AFib….lowering of CO2 in blood (from over breathing) results in blood flow restriction, which may be a cause to a lack of blood flow (a lack of oxygen) to the heart.   Related to Exercise Induced Asthma / Bronchial restriction (EIB) The lungs are filled with alveoli … the little sacs that allow the body to exchange gases.  Single cell thick, covered in a surfactant that allows the sacs to stay open even at low pressure.The lung environment is very liquid and very delicate.Imagine blowdrying wet tissue paper with a hairdryer…not good.When the air comes into lungs via the mouth, the air is not treated. Everyone has experienced coughing…the only way we have to get stuff out of our lungs that shouldn’t be there. It also is what happens when we have damaged our lungs, whether from breathing air that is too cold or too hot or too dry or too wet or filled with damaging particulates or just through over extertion.Our body creates “broncho constriction” to protect the lungs. If you ever had a wheeze at the end of your exhales, you’ve had this thing.This correlates very highly with mouth breathing athletes. Bronchio restriction is vey common among elite athletes…cycling, swimming, running. 20-50% of population vs. 5% among sedentary population. The more you breath, the more important it is to treat the air you breath and protect the lungs.The availability of broncho inhalers may just be serving to allow us to overcome our natural defense again damaging our lungs from mouth breathing. HOW TO NASAL BREATHE? The transition to nasal breathing is easier for some people.  Some people feel a terrible air hunger while others get used to it very quickly.  The path forward for everyone is to find your way to just the threshold point that your body can do it…with just a suggestion of air hunger…and then move higher over time.    It takes 6 weeks to 6 months.  Three key variables that impact time to adapt: Existing sensitivity to CO2.  If low sensitivity, then short time to adapt.How well developed is the diaphragm muscle.  The more you need to build, the longer it will take.How dedicated is the effort to adapt.  The more you nasal breath, the faster you will adapt. What do you need to do to be able to nasal breathe all the time? Break / Start the Habit Break the habit of mouth breathing.  Do it whenever you realize you are not nasal breathing.  Set reminders.  (See Episode 45 on building habits: https://www.wiseathletes.com/podcast/45-build-strong-habits-with-samuel-salzer/https://www.wiseathletes.com/podcast/45-build-strong-habits-with-samuel-salzer/):  During exercise, put a little water in your mouth so you don’t have to think about nasal breathing.According to Dr. Dallam, “I also found that focusing on nasal breathing during exercise facilitated focusing on it throughout the rest of my life as well.   While subjective at best, I consider that I am more relaxed, more thoughtful, sleeping better and happier as a direct result.” Once you can do your endurance & recovery workouts while nasal breathing, the adaptation will go very fast because that is most of your training.  And, if you are nasal breathing outside of exercise as well, you are essentially always nasal breathing at this point.You’ll adapt even faster if you will take down the level of effort to match your ability to perform while nasal breathing, and only increase as your nasal breathing improves.Separately work toward nasal breathing during sleep.  This is harder as you will be unconscious, but this will have a gigantic impact on your health and ability to recover from exercise.  Look into mouth taping and breathing exercises to open nasal passages before sleeping. Reduce CO2 sensitivity: By nasal breathing more, you will have less CO2 in your blood.  Your body will get used to that …meaning it will start to feel normal quickly (in days).  Keep pushing on the edge of discomfort to keep lowering your sensitivity.  Pushing too hard will backfire, so take your time.  This is not the place to develop a psychological problem.  And, this adaptation will happen faster than the muscle development so there is no payoff from pushing harder than just enough. “Breathe light” exercises:  just breathe more slowly while resting…until you feel an urge to breath more….just experience the feeling (from Patrick McKeown)Do breath holds while moving (walk, light jog).  Hold until the air hunger is strong.  Recover your breath fully, then repeat (from Patrick McKeown)https://pneuma.plus/ — a free site with breathing exercises Muscle development: Training the breathing muscles to get stronger.  This happens simply by using nasal breathing.  Just give the muscles some time to adapt.  It’s like getting used to using a bigger gear on the bike….You can do it for a short time right away, and over time you will get more muscular endurance as you get stronger.The Diaphragm muscle has to adapt.  At first, you won’t be strong enough to keep nasal breathing (i.e., pulling air through the nose and down into the bottom of the lungs) for a long time.  But the diaphragm muscle will get stronger and eventually you will be able to breath diaphragmatically for as long as you need and train for.  This might be the slowest part of the adaptation..The nose muscles have to adapt as well. Nasal passage recovery: If you haven’t been using your nasal passages in this way, you will have to get them adapted to this level of use.The most important thing is to just breathe through your nose as much as possible.It will probably help to start using a Neti pot or Neti bottle (there are many varieties).  Use distilled or boiled water, not tap water.  Remember to not blow your nose too hard after rising nasal passages with water…you may inadvertently push water into your ear tubes which may cause irritation.  I do it first thing to let the water fully drain out before I sleep. The first few times will be unpleasantly reminiscent of getting water up your nose at the beach.  But do you remember how amazingly good your nasal passages felt after a day in the surf?  This is the same thing.  After doing it for a week, you will never want to stop.  And it will make nasal breathing so much easierUse BreathRight strips or the like to hold open the airways in your nose.  George says his nose muscles got stronger after a while, so this may be a temporary thing.  But it does make an enormous difference in the beginning.  There are other nasal dilator devices to try if you like the idea of stuff up your nose.  I don’t.Try the Buteyko (bu-tek-o) method for clearing mild nasal congestion Metrics: It can help to track improvement if you use metrics but you don’t have to do so because the goal is NOT to breathe less, it is to use nasal breathing.  The rest comes naturally.HRV — your HRV level should start to increase, especially if you can nasal breath while sleepingHR — you may find your HR starts getting lower for the same power / speed.  This doesn’t occur for everyone.Breaths per minute — monitor your natural breathing.  Oura ring & Whoop strap do this for sleep, which is a good way to see if it is falling.  You want to get to 14 or less breaths per minute.  10-14 breaths per minute is normal, according to Patrick McKewon.Length of time until air hunger —  5 normal breaths. Exhale. How long until impulse to breath?  25 seconds minimum. 40 seconds target. Maximum breathlessness test:  normal breath in and out of nose.  Exhale, then hold and see how many steps you can take.  60 steps is minimum for “good” CO2 sensitivity.   How to get started, According to George: Get on an indoor device you like to use:  stationary bike, treadmill, etc.  Get going at a pace that is lower than normalBreathe nasally.Every 3 minutes increasing the pace just a little, and rate how much the air hunger you feel.When you find the level at which you feel you cannot keep going, back off just a little so you can keep going.  It will feel hard but not feel like you are suffocating. The effort should be in the challenge of pulling the air in and out, not in staying conscious or in dealing with the fear of suffocating.  Another thing to watch is a rising HR…if your HR is higher than it should be for that level of power / pace, then you are struggling too much…just back down a little until the HR stabilizes The next workout, try to go a little harder while nasal breathing to see if you can do it.  You will probably find you can go harder every time for a while.  The early, beginner gains will be the easiest, as in most things.Continue the upward progression over timeFeel free to mouth breathe once in a while if you want to go harder.  It won’t be a set back, but it won’t help you progress toward 100% nasal breathing.  Just don’t lose track of the behavior change you are trying to instill as a habit. Links to Amazon books (kindle preview) on this topic (no affiliate fees involved): https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00RLU286G&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_5CB4TTKDEBGPFRDT5NQ1https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B08ZT37NQ8&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_JC58H1D288HHZE35AM5Xhttps://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B0818ZZNLR&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_EVB5D44YS4BW6BX3WYXFhttps://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B07B8S1P26&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_JC5JZZ9JEAZZH8F2GPGM George M. Dallam, Ph.D. – Biographical Information Dr. Dallam is a professor in the School of Health Science and Human Movement at Colorado State University – Pueblo. Dr. Dallam has taught a wide variety of classes in exercise physiology, research and statistics, behavior facilitation, sport psychology, kinesiology, biomechanics, management, exercise assessment and prescription, swimming, running and triathlon. He is currently chair of the CSU-Pueblo Faculty Compensation Committee and is the outgoing chair and an ongoing member of the CSUP Institutional Review Board. Dr Dallam is also the former inaugural National Teams Coach for USA Triathlon and worked for many years with elite U.S. triathletes as a coach, advisor and consultant. Athletes coached directly by Dr. Dallam have included National Elite and Age Group Champions, Olympians, Pan American Games Medalists, World Age Group Champions and the top ranked male triathlete in the world in 2005-2006, Hunter Kemper.Dr. Dallam has been involved in numerous research studies and the publication of their results at both CSUP and the USOC examining various aspects of triathlon performance and training, diabetes risk factor modification, and the effects of functional movement improvement on running . His primary research interest recently focused on the capability of human beings to adapt to nasal only breathing during exercise as a way to improve both health and performance. Dr. Dallam was both the founder and a long term member of the USA Triathlon National Coaching Commission. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters applying training principles to triathlon and is the co-author, with Dr. Steven Jonas, of Championship Triathlon Training, published in 2008 by Human Kinetics and Teaching and Coaching Triathlon Successfully, published in 2014 by Coaches Choice. He is currently writing The Nasal Breathing Paradox during Exercise for future publication. He is regularly sought as a speaker and expert on exercise related topics having provided insights to a broad range of publications. Dr. Dallam has received both the United States Olympic Committee’s Doc Counsilman Science in Coaching award (2004) and the National Elite Coach of the Year award (2005) for triathlon. He has also received all three of CSU-Pueblo’s university-wide awards for teaching (2001), scholarship (2003 and 2021) and service (2005). He has further twice received the outstanding faculty member award (2005 and 2013) in the College of Engineering, Education and Professional Studies at CSU-Pueblo and the inaugural Scholarship Award (2021) in the newly formed School of Health Science and Human Movement. Finally, Dr. Dallam has been continuously training and competing in triathlon since 1981 and has recently also begun playing water polo again as a masters athlete. Nasal-Breathing-StudyDownload

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Matthew Smith, DC, CES Dr. Matt Smith is a sports chiropractor, strength coach, and the founder of EverAthlete, an online strength training, injury prevention, and recovery resource for outdoor enthusiasts. Matt has been a trusted coach and consultant to some of the best athletes and highest performers in the world, helping them navigate injuries and perform at their best.  EverAthlete website: https://www.everathlete.fit/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everathlete/?hl=en Part 1 — Breathwork for Recovery (episode 48) — https://www.wiseathletes.com/podcast/48-breathwork-for-faster-recovery-matthew-smith-everathlete/ Part 2 — Injury Prevention for Older Athletes Older Athlete are particularly vulnerable to injuries: Many years to accumulate movement problems and muscle imbalancesPast injuries from accidentsToo much time sittingToo little cross-trainingSlower healing  Summary (1) Do assessments to identify body areas that need work Example: Lunge Movement Assessment:   Lowering the body down so the back knee comes close to touching the floor.  Then stepping back to the original position.  A few things we look for in a test like that are:  (1) torso control:  Does the torso stay upright or does it drop down towards the floor, towards the knee as you go through the movement.(2) lower body:  are the hips (and torso above) shifting from side to side, and do the hips stay level?(3) front foot points straight ahead(4) front knee to point straight ahead in line with 2nd and 3rd toe (vs. pointing inward our outward relative to the foot)(5) overall movement should look smooth and stable When we see a problem, we do further breakout tests to fine tune the finding.  Do they struggle with hip or ankle mobility or lumbar stability?  Deficiencies in those areas can lead to a “messy” lunge. (2) How to avoid injuries: Focused efforts on individual muscles that need to be addressed (based on assessments) in order to allow proper movement patterns: tissue work (foam roller) stretching (lengthening tight muscles) activation (such as using bands to turn on muscles creating muscle imbalances)Practice standard movements until competent (check out Matt’s Instagram or Website for details)Mix up training: use of strength training as cross-training:  healthy exercise to build balanced strength into the body for greater resilience as well as to learn proper movements that don’t lead to stressful movements (and pain or poor performance). Force the body to adapt to a variety of movements…to bring the body back to balance.  If we focus too much on one sport we become unnaturally adapted to that limited movement set.  Reduce the cycle of repetition.Periodize your training.  Undulating the load over time…each week up through each annual cycle.  Have a buildup, a peak, and then a recovery phase.  Build time into the plan for cross training (for balance) as well as recovery (for repair of biological systems).  Without this expedites the breakdown of the athlete.Add daily tissue recovery practices.  Restore tissue mobility, joint mobility, core stability control.  Lead to less compensation issues. How to: Start the day, prepare for exercise, get into recovery asap For a morning routine, just to start the day feeling a little better:  Use slow, light, full body movements to check in with your body to see how you feel and if you have soreness or tightness.  Then address any issues:  foam rolling, light stretching, some activation.Preparing for a workout, it’s more of an excitatory routine.  You are building in more neuromotor demands as you go.  Start with tissue work (like foam rolling), then core activation (bird dog), then dynamic stretching:  light lunges, light squats, jogging back and forth, side shuffling.  Things to open up the body in motion.Post workout:  is more about recovery.  Stimulate the parasympathic system to re-build toward the next workout.  Do breathwork to calm down.   Light tissue work, static stretching holds for longer periods of time, long and deep breathing patterns.  Just get things to calm down as fast as we can. ——— Discussion Notes (not a transcript but my notes from the discussion) Q:  what is your approach to helping athlete avoid injuries? A few different things to do: (1) tissue work and stretching and activation technique using bands ….like what you’d see in a rehab setting (2) strength and cross training.  Healthy exercise can help with past injuries as well as make the body more resilient. If done the right way. Q:  what is the “right way”? We leverage compound movements and cross training.  We like to provide the body with practice in a range of compound movement needs (demands of the exercise).  Squat pattern, Hinge pattern like a deadlift, or a pull-up.   Q:  What I hear from other experts is:  before you should try to get strong, you have to learn to move properly.  That moving improperly, from past compensations or whatever the source of the improper learned movement patter, is the source of a lot of chronic problems. And, we don’t want to get stronger in that patter, we want to learn a proper movement pattern first.  Is this what you are saying? Yes.  Part of the reason cross training like strength training for endurance athletes works is that it pulls athletes out of their repetitive stress patterns.  We can leverage movement patterns to give athletes a foundational way to bring their body back to balance and out of normalized stress patterns, and once they achieve competency with no or low weight, they can start training to get stronger in the proper movement patterns. If you are a cyclist who has spent a lot of time in a seated, flexion position:  rounded mid-back position without cross training….you may have lost the ability to stand fully upright:  full range of movement through the hips, turning glutes on.  This is a problem. The brain has different programs to activate muscles for particular movements.  When we sit too long in one position, it tends to dampen the response to the brain’s movement programs.  By leveraging movements in the gym that require full hip extension, you can begin the retrain the body to move properly with a full range of motion.  This will provide a huge benefit over time in performance, avoidance of pain, longevity in the sport. Q:  I’m looking for general good advice for the older athlete.  What can we do to be healthier longer?  Do we need to think about posture?  Is poor posture a sign of a problem in movement patterns?   And, what general thoughts about movements that a person could try to see if they have a problem, such as a body weight squat:  can’t go down far enough, etc.? Posture is generally regarded as a static thing vs. dynamic.  We focus on the dynamic…how people move.  Anytime we start to work with a new athlete, we do movement assessment.  See how well they are able to move their body, core stability, overall strength, neuromotor control.  I’m looking for spinal control, lower body control, and fluidity throughout the movement.  Then I create a mobility program to address what I see that would help them as an athlete. Q:  Can you provide any details to help a person to be able to tell if they need help? Yes.  Let’s do a lunge.  Lowering the body down so the back knee comes close to touching the floor.  Then stepping back to the original position.  A few things we look for in a test like that are:  torso control:  Does the torso stay upright or does it drop down towards the floor, towards the knee as you go through the movement.lower body:  are the hips (and torso above) shifting from side to side, and do the hips stay level?front foot points straight aheadfront knee to point straight ahead in line with 2nd and 3rd toe (if knee moves inward, it signifies a stability issue or movement pattern problem)overall movement should look smooth and stable When we see a problem, we do further breakout tests to fine tune the finding.  Do they struggle with hip or ankle mobility or lumbar stability?  Deficiencies in those areas can lead to a “messy” lunge. Q:  These sorts of problems lead to “Overuse” issues?  What is the take-home for the listeners? If you are running into pain issues (knee, lower back) or your performance is not what you want, one of the causes could be an underlying movement deficiency.  There are a lot of professionals who can evaluate movement and identify how each person can improve how they move, and how they are positioned on bike. Q:  if they already have chronic pain or recurring injuries, then this sort of poor movement pattern could underlie that? Yes. Q:  even if they don’t have pain, if the movements are not optimal, it might be a matter of time before there is an injury or lack of performance.  So testing yourself or by a professional is a good idea. Yes.  Pain tells us there is a problem but the pain doesn’t help us to understand what the problem is.  for example, a swimmer with elbow pain can be caused by poor mobility or stability of the shoulder.  The shoulder is causing a poor movement in the elbow so you have to work back to the root cause to really solve these problems. Chronic injuries do not come out of nowhere.  The body is resilient, and it takes a lot of poor movement to cause pain to show up somewhere.  Don’t wait for the pain to arrive. Q:  But often people don’t seek help until they have pain, right? True, but that is why we try to offer improvement in movement patterns to head off pain.  Taking the lessons learned from working with athletes in rehab and created programs to allow athletes to find deficiencies that might later result in pain.  Q:  Is Overuse injury a real issue?  I’ve heard it both ways.  Is overuse only related to improper movement being used over and over? No.  There are several ways to get overuse injury.  Improper movement is only one.  If you increase your activity level too fast, even using proper movement, you can also damage yourself.  Also, you need to allow for enough recovery and healing after workouts or you can get “overuse” injuries.   Best Advice: Mix up training.  Use cross training to force the body to adapt to a variety of movements…to bring the body back to balance.  If we focus too much on one sport we become unnaturally adapted to that limited movement set.  Reduce the cycle of repetition.Periodize your training.  Undulating the load over time…each week up through each annual cycle.  Have a buildup, a peak, and then a recovery phase.  Build time into the plan for cross training (for balance) as well as recovery (for repair of biological systems).  Without this expedites the breakdown of the athlete.Add daily tissue recovery practices.  Cross training and recovery.  Restore tissue mobility, joint mobility, core stability control.  Lead to less compensation issues. Q:  Here’s my summary of what you said.   Make sure you are moving properly so that when you are putting stress on the body, the stress is not creating damageDo some cross training so you are not always engaging the same stress over and overLeave enough time for recovery…each day as well as over time.  And if you are trying to get better, make sure your peaks in performance are separated by valleys to allow for healing and repair and adaptation.  Don’t always go for PRs Q:  What about flexibility?  What should I do in the morning to loosen up after being immobile for a long night of sleep. For a morning routine, just to start the day feeling a little better:  start with some foam rolling to activate tissue and get fluids into the tissues.  Then some stretching and activation work to reinforce the elasticity and elongation from the tissue work.  To improve how you feel during the day as well as to create better performing muscles if done regularly over time. Use slow, light, full body movements to check in with your body to see how you feel and if you have soreness or tightness.  Then address any issues:  foam rolling, light stretching, some activation. Q:  What about warming up and/or cooling down after exercise? Preparing for a workout, it’s more of an excitatory routine.  You are building in more neuromotor demands as you go.  Start with tissue work (like foam rolling), then core activation (bird dog), then dynamic stretching:  light lunges, light squats, jogging back and forth, side shuffling.  Things to open up the body in motion. Post workout:  is more about recovery.  Stimulate the parasympathic system to re-build toward the next workout.  Do breathwork to calm down.   Light tissue work, static stretching holds for longer periods of time, long and deep breathing patterns.  Just get things to calm down as fast as we can. Q:  Why stretching after workout? Relates to getting the body back into a normalized state after hard work.  So after a hard workout.  Muscles might feel tight, and need stretching or activation (turn on muscles) to address muscle tightness elsewhere.  Want to normal length / tension….to muscles that are over stimulated.  Also relates to fascia, ligaments, tendons. Q:  How does pain come into this?    Low, dull pain vs. sharp pain? Do you start with pain?  Hopefully you are being guided by a professional.  If you have pain that is lasting for more than a week or two, you should be seeing someone for help who is a sport minded healthcare professional. Escalation of pain should be temporary at most.  Foam rolling can cause temporary pain that disappears once the activity stops. If you are are pain free, and you do a mobility or stretching routine, you should stay pain free.  You might feel soreness if you are not used to it, and that pain should not last more than 48 hours.  You should not feel sharp pain at any time. Q:  how can people find you and EverAthlete? Instagram:  @everathlete Website:  everathlete.fit

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Matthew Smith, DC, CES Dr. Matt Smith is a sports chiropractor, strength coach, and the founder of EverAthlete, an online strength training, injury prevention, and recovery resource for outdoor enthusiasts. Matt has been a trusted coach and consultant to some of the best athletes and highest performers in the world, helping them navigate injuries and perform at their best.  EverAthlete website: https://www.everathlete.fit/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everathlete/?hl=en Summary During exercise, approximately 15% of the calories we burn is used for breathing.  That is oxygen that is unavailable for our muscles that propel us.  What if there was a way to be more efficient in breathing? What if that same skill in breathing would allow us to be more calm and recover faster?  To sleep better?  Wouldn’t that be a skill worth learning? Overbreathing Caused by stress:  shallow chest breathing Causes stress:  mouth breathing increases stressPoor breathing habits How? Belly breatheBreath slowerNasal breathingGet comfortable How to start Everyday lifeLow intensity exercisePush the envelope Videos: Diaphragmatic Breath Video: Diaphragmatic BreathingClear the nose to be able to breathe nasally: https://youtu.be/1IWWcyk3_jkSwitching to nasal breathing during exercise (10-12 weeks): https://youtu.be/0gtlAAQzENw ——Notes on discussion with Matt (not a transcript)– We are interested in understanding your perspective on how fitness impacts health and longevity, and on how health impacts fitness. Matt is a sports chiropractor and strength coach.  Worked in athletic performance for 15 years.  Founded Everathlete….now an online platform focused on helping athletes improve outdoor pursuits:  hiking, swimming, biking, running.  Training programs and recovery programs.  Started with a focus on injury treatment and prevention for athletes…migrated into a performance training company designed to meet people where ever they are, and helping them get to where they want to go.  We use a wide variety of resources including strength training, soft tissue therapy, injury prevention techniques, breathwork (as a tool for recovery). We will be recording two podcasts with Matt.  (1) breathwork and (2) performance training for adventure athletes including injury prevention. Worked with a wide variety of athletes:  olympians and world champions, as well as many masters athletes. Breathwork: Several books have come out in the last few years.  Oxygen Advantage, Breath are the most notable. Q:  What is breathwork? Breathwork is the practice of breathing to improve one’s health.  Used it heavily personally and with athletes.  Deliberate practice of breath to improve your state of being.  Incorporating a breath practice to improve your overall health and performance.   Based on a couple principles:  (1) we need oxygen to survive and compete, and we need to be efficient in the capture, transport and utilization of oxygen to produce energy, and(2) we need to be good at recovering from training to get the adaptations we did the work to get.  Stress is something we have to deal with and work around and thrive in, and we live with stress in our everyday lives.  And training adds to the stress our bodies must contend with.  Recovery is the transition to a restful state that gives us access to the benefits from our training.   So the skill of recovery is critical for the high-performing athlete, and breathwork is a tool for recovery. Breathwork allows us to access the parasympathetic state of recovery….to shut down the sympathetic state and transitioning to a rest and recovery state to begin the recovery and adaptation from the training. Benefits from an immediate, real-time perspective and longer-term perspective:(1) real-time benefits of being more efficient in the usage of oxygen in our muscles(2) improved ability to recover and destress our bodies in general to facilitate better recovery and adaptation, which should lead to higher performance over time. Break this into chunks: (1) why it works(2) benefits to athletic performance and general health(3) what are the practices to adopt to get the benefits Q:  Why does breathwork work? Lot’s of different things can be done.  In terms of how do we improve the oxygenation of our tissues, and how to we improve our ability to get oxygen out of lungs and into our tissues.  It can be counter-intuitive since oxygen in lungs does not mean the same thing as oxygen in tissues.  This is the hardest thing for people to get. Q:  So just breathing faster does not result in more oxygen getting into the body? Faster breathing does not result in “super oxygenation” of the blood.  It just removes extra CO2, which makes it harder to capture oxygen from breathing. Q: Isn’t “air hunger” related to CO2? Yes, being comfortable with higher CO2 in the body is a skill that we can learn, which then provides benefits to the body.  Generally, people have a low tolerance to CO2 which results in chronic over breathing. I think the root cause behind why we over breath is our general state of being over stressed.  Driving to work, dealing with kids, spouse.  Many stressors everyday.  And without awareness of practices to use breathwork to move out of the stressed state into a restful state, we just stay over stressed all the time. Q: I’d heard that just habitual breathing in poor ways, such as chest breathing or shallow breathing because of bad posture, then leads to stress.  A stressful way of breathing leads the body to become stressed, and then all the over stresses compound on top to create even more stressful breathing to make the situation worst.  True? Yes, poor breathing mechanics can create a vicious cycle that feeds back onto itself.   Poor posture and poor breathing mechanics leads to more chest breathing and less diaphragmatic breathing.  Using neck and ribcage muscles to expand the ribcage to breath instead of the diaphragm is naturally stressful on the body.  Leads to shallow breathing that leads to more rapid breathing which switches on a stress response in the body. The practice the skill of getting a good, deep breath is a skill we can lose. The Foundation:  With my clients, I start with  (1) breath mechanics(2) cadenceAnd then(3) we focus on getting used to a higher level of CO2   Q: Here’s a bundle of things to discuss: (1) These practices of breathing seem to come from yoga and meditation.  The question of why it works is hard to understand.  But it is true that our brains control our bodies but it is also true that our bodies have an impact on our brains.  Everyone already knows this…anyone who has ever forced themselves to smile finds that they feel happier afterwards.   (2) So the “why it works” would be interesting but the fact that it is known to work means we can just get started with these practices to have these desired effects on our minds and bodies.   (3) Unfortunately, we have already learned bad habits that take advantage of this brain-body connection, and we are over breathing, over stressed, and not recovering as well as we could be as a result.  We need to unlearn these bad habits, and return to not just breathing properly when we are thinking about it but all the time, without thinking….including when we sleep. (4) And let’s also touch on nasal breathing. Q: Just dive in, Dr. Matt. Our autonomic ability to breath properly is not great, just looking at our society.  Impacting longevity and quality of life.  Over breathing seems to be related to many diseases. The practice of slowing down breathing….lessen the amount of breathing throughout the day.  You can do it through deliberate breath practices.  You can also use Wim Hof breathing to stimulate alertness.  But slowing down our breathing can have big health effects. Nasal breathing is a primary was of slowing the breath.  Nasal breathing has other benefits such as adding nitros oxide into the air we breath, which leads to blood oxygen delivery.  Use BreathRight strips during sleep….and tape mouth during sleep to encourage nasal breathing during sleep.  It helps to begin the transition to nasal breathing to get improved health from improved sleep.  And getting better sleep is good for recovery for training. Sleep apnea can be caused by mouth breathing during sleep. Dr. Matt’s sleep has been dramatically improved. People dealing with asthma, COPD can use breathwork to improve breathing.  There are multiple ways to overcome congestion or swollen sinuses.  Lot’s of YouTube videos on this subject.  Use nasal breathing, and breathing slowly, will let the body stop reacting to a co2 level that is lower than necessary. Q:  If you breath in a less stressful way all day, then do you recover better all day? Yes.  Your breath patter will adapt to what you are doing.  But you also can create a less stressful environment by controlling your breath.   Lower heart rate, reduced blood pressure.Sleep hygiene can include preparing for lower stress and a relaxation breathing.  Be calm.  Manipulate the nervous system through breathing practices.   Q:  What is the difference between using breath to calm vs. activating for alertness? Cadence patterns are different.  Calming is more common a need for athletes rather than activating alertness or stress level.  Athletes tend to already be over activated.1-to-2 ratio of inhale timing to exhale timing.  5-10 minutes.Hyperventalating such as Wim Hof mouth breathing rapid breathing with breath holds is a way to activate.  Reverse the cadence patter to get alert vs. calming.  Alertness and focus improves dramatically. Q:  How to use nasal breathing to improve athletics? Use nasal breathing as a training aid.  Like wearing a weight vest to get stronger, then take the weight vest off to perform better.I think there is a place for mouth breathing in athletics.  Your ability to nasal breath is an indicator of fitness, and doing nasal breathing can help you get stronger.At the beginning, use nasal breathing during low stress training days, just to get a little more out of the easy session.  Don’t use it during intervals if it would reduce the effect of the intervals.Plus, nasal breathing can help you maintain intensity discipline when you WANT to do a zone 1 or 2 ride.  Nasal breathing can help you manage your pace and getting adaptation to breathing allows you to get more out of the easy sessions.  Q:  Anything else? Be careful with changing your breathing.  Experiment but don’t take chances.  Don’t hold your breath while outside riding or running.  Try it while riding on Zwift and just be careful.

Sponsor: RePowerU — a free fitness practices assessment (a 10-minute questionnaire) Christine Bell Christine Bell has more than 20 years of experience and expertise in treating orthopedic and sports injuries. Having worked in Australia, the UK and the USA she has learned many treatment methods and techniques and treated a vast array of sports and orthopedic conditions. She is an expert in many techniques for healing injured athletes, including Dry Needling, which is a super fast method of healing the soft tissues of an athletes body.Contact Christine here: https://aussie-pt.com/contact/ Mobility & Strength Class Video: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/ZiE8tLNNrVTgvEJKjuN4aX28t5QQnnpejNOtholCGJ3f9t8f2k81M2yLCdCZy3wD.WJ4JM9iStHsHnhDQ Passcode: 71L&VPo+  Note: you need a long foam roller, a mat, hand weights and a small looped band for this workout.  Notes from Discussion with Christie Bell, P.T. Christine is in the business of fixing injured athletes Q: Why are you so good? The first thing I look at is the cause of the injury.  I don’t just look at the spot that is painful.  I look for the source of the problem.  Further up or down the chain, that is directly influencing the injury.  Look at the overall body. The key is to have enough time.  I book 1 hour sessions to have enough time to get to the bottom of what is happening.  What is it they are doing that is causing that pain. Lately there are a lot of problems related to working at home…which is not setup for sitting in a good posture for a long time. Q:  What is your backstory? Grew up in Australia.  Primary sport was basketball.  Always spraining ankles.  The physios helped me a lot, and I eventually wanted to do that.  I got my PT education in Australia and later Boston, MA USA. Q:  What is Dry Needling, and how does it help? Dry Needling is a fairly new modality.  It is based on trigger points.  A PT is trained to deal with trigger points, but it is hard to get at the trigger that can be deep in the muscle.  So, a needle can get down into the muscle without having to push through the overlaying tissue.  Plus Needling takes a second vs. 30-60 minutes, maybe multiple times rubbing on the trigger point.  It is fast. Trigger Point — like a lentil (bean) under the muscle or a tight, ropey band in the muscle that is switched on all the time.  Can be from over use  Referral pain — a spinal / nerve being pinched by a tight muscle in the back that is causing a nerve pinch.  Sciatic nerve pain is a sharp pain.  A referred trigger point is usually a dull muscle pain. Q:  What is “Dry” needle?   Same as acupuncture needle.  The needle is very thin since there is not hollow channel inside for delivering liquid like you would use for an injection.  Because it is so thin, you usually cannot feel it. Q:  Acupuncture vs. Dry Needling? Acupuncture is based on meridians where as dry needling is doing directly to the muscle to relieve trigger points.  Acupuncture is for systemic issues more than muscle issues. Q:  What is Dry Needling use for? Muscle issues and tendon issues.   Neck, back, thumb, tennis / golfer elbow.  Spasm around that area.  Release the spasm and encourage blood flow.  The knots in the muscle contain byproducts of muscle contraction that had been held due to poor blood flow.  It gets released and lets the muscle relax which lets the blood flow properly. Plus the tight muscle can pull the joint improperly which creates poor movement and eventually injury. It reduces pain and helps the body to heal.  If you can get the pain to be relieved, the brain can believe in another state of being.  Plus the use of needles is a strong psychological signal that something massive has been done…it provides relief to the mind…provides a whole body relaxation.  A big release of tension. For speed to recovery, dry needling is the fastest possible path. Q: Have you noticed anything about older, endurance athletes…anything common? As we get older, we get tighter.  collagen shrinks.  Wear and tear.  All the miles in the past, maybe done without stretching and proper healing work….there is a consequence.  Tissue isn’t as elastic anymore.  Plus older athletes need more time to recover. When older, just taking time off of training won’t solve the injuries.  You have to get some treatments to resolve the problems directly since we cannot just wait for the body to heal itself. Q:  Mistakes made by older athletes related to failing to recover or dealing with injuries properly? Underestimated the value of mobility.  Need good form to avoid problems. Mobility:  flexibility.  Ability to move well through a full range of motion.  Fire the correct muscles.  Strength training is great, but you must have the mobility in the joint before you can make it stronger without creating compensations and a setup for injuries. The body is naturally great at compensating for pain or injuries.  If it goes on for too long, the compensations stack on top of each other…then nothing is moving properly and posture is poor. Do stretching and range of motion work everyday before exercising.  Don’t ever skip the 5-10 minutes of movement.  After the workout, do more detailed stretching that elongates the muscles which are warm after a workout. Mobility & Strength Class Video by Aussie PT https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/ZiE8tLNNrVTgvEJKjuN4aX28t5QQnnpejNOtholCGJ3f9t8f2k81M2yLCdCZy3wD.WJ4JM9iStHsHnhDQ Passcode: 71L&VPo+  Note: you need a long foam roller, a mat, hand weights and a small looped band for this workout.  Q: Painkillers? Pain killers are a bad idea related to not dealing with the pain.  Making the problem worse and/or developing compensations that will be hard to lose in the future.  But, after surgery, pain killers allows for movement which will help with healing.   So, painkillers do have positive uses. It’s better to stop for a short time to get rid of the source of the pain. Q:  How do you tell the difference between a pain that will go away on its own vs. a pain that needs professional treatment? Ignoring pain is a commom mistake. If the pain is less than a 5 out of ten…if the pain is not too bad and gets lower as you warm up, then that’s promising.  If it doesn’t feel worse after exercise, then it might be something that will resolve on its own.  If might be worth getting it checked out anyway. If it is a sharp pain….if the pain is changing the way you move…it gets worse during or after the activity.  Just stop.  Get help. Q:  Any advice on diet? Make sure to hydrate and use electrolytes.  Get enough magnesium if you are cramping, or have tight muscles.  Magnesium can change the structure of the muscles. If you have a tight muscles all over your body…..  Look to cut out processed sugar, gluten, dairy to see if that helps.  See a nutritionist for support. Q: Anything else to stay out of your office? Don’t cut out mobility or stretching before workout.  If you are short of time, shorten the workout not the stretching / mobility Put quality food in your body. Contact Christine with any questions:  christine@aussie-pt.com Looks for videos on Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/Aussie-PT-339401212744116/ Aussie PT Sports Physical Therapy & Endurance Training Aussie PT specializes in providing physical therapy and strength training for endurance athletes. Using skilled specific hands on techniques, including mobilization and manipulation, we can diagnose and treat soft tissue and joints thus improving your range of motion, reducing inflammation and encouraging tissue repair. This will in turn decrease your pain and improve function. These specialty techniques are used commonly to treat sports related injuries like lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder impingement, plantar fasciitis, anterior knee pain and hip pain. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Christine Bell is a Sports Physical Therapist and a Multisport Coach with a focus on strength training to help prevent injuries. Christine works with triathletes, cyclists, runners and swimmers that want to take their performance to the next level. Bachelor of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland (1984)Bachelor of Applied Science in Physiotherapy, University of South Australia (1991)Master of Science in Physical Therapy; MGH Institute of Health Professions (2002) Website: https://aussie-pt.com/ Facebook (with videos): https://www.facebook.com/Aussie-PT-339401212744116/