Oxygen Advantage

“The more I’m listening to within, the better it becomes.”This week on the OA podcast Patrick and Daniel speak to German model, health/wellness/breath coach and Oxygen Advantage Instructor, Jules Horn.Jules speaks to Patrick and Daniel about his own life story as well as his own journey with breathing and his discovery of the Oxygen Advantage and the many health and well-being benefits that they have brought to his life.Jules explains that finishing school at 16, he worked as an industrial mechanic for seven years before a friend encouraged him to try modelling. Since then he has worked his way up through the modelling world and is now living and working full-time in New York.Despite a healthy life with a vegan diet, Jules says he was initially sceptical about breathing’s benefits but upon using breath holds and air hunger exercises, he began to see major improvements in breath, sleep and gut health. He explains how since then he has continued to deepen his knowledge of breathing and share this learning as a breathing instructor.

“If I exhale at the wrong part of the movement, I’ll jeopardise my technique and there goes my efficiency.”In this week’s episode, Patrick and Daniel are joined by Swedish CrossFit athlete Simon Mäntylä to discuss his career and the training required to be a top-level competitor. Starting in 2012, Simon had no competitive outlet for the variety of gym work he was doing at the time. Some friends in his local gym introduced him to CrossFit and after a short time found he had a knack for it and has competed ever since both in Sweden and internationally.Simon outlines his journey to his current fitness obsession, the level of training he has to go through on an average week (a minimum of 11 different training sessions!) and the kinds of work expected of a CrossFit athlete at the highest level.

“Physical fitness is far from everything. You need spiritual, mental and emotional fitness also.”This week on the OA podcast Patrick and Daniel are joined by Anna West, founding board member of the Global Wellness Summit and VP for Six Senses Spa brand of luxury hotels where the message is ‘Integrated wellness’.Anna outlines how she became a wellness pioneer when setting up a series of successful businesses built around health in Sweden and how she used that knowledge to set up the Six Senses brand of luxury hotels with over 30 locations worldwide. She also outlines the chain’s initiatives to reduce its impact on the environment with goals to be plastic free by 2022, bottling their own water to reduce plastic waste and even hosting chicken farms and vegetable gardens on their sites where guests can collect their own ingredients to enjoy a sustainable, farm to table experience.

“It was my breathing outside the water that influenced my breathing inside the water.”This week, Patrick and Daniel are joined by multiple World Champion free-diver Karoline Meyer to talk about how breath control has benefited her life and career diving to incredible, World Record-breaking depths, without breathing equipment.The Brazilian national takes us through her training regime and explains how she began using breath control as part of her dive training. She outlines the kinds of complex physical and psychological training and breath control techniques she has utilised to make her a leader in the field.

“I would have loved to have discovered [breathing/mindfulness] when I was 25… This would have made a difference for me, for everything else that I did.”In this week’s episode of the Oxygen Advantage podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by former NHL professional, two time Stanley Cup winner and Olympic runner-up Johnny Oduya. Making is way through the Swedish professional scene, Johnny made it to the National Hockey League (NHL), the world leader in ice hockey in his early 20s, reaching an apex in the 2013 and 2015 seasons when he won the league’s highest honour, the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks.Despite his renown as an elite level ice hockey player, the Swede has taken a huge interest in mindfulness and breathing in recent years, leading to the opening of his own ‘HALE’ studios in Sweden. He takes Daniel and Patrick on his journey to finding focus and how important mental focus is for athletes.

“I love to work hard, but for me it was more about making sure I could fortify myself.”In this week’s episode, Patrick and Daniel are joined by elite Australian CrossFit athlete and author James Newbury to discuss his life and career and the benefits that breathing techniques have provided him.Four times named Australia’s fittest man, James first discovered breathing techniques in 2016 “passively” and after his first rookie year competing in CrossFit, he looked into breathing more deeply to improve his performance, endurance and recovery.“And it just flourished from there,” he explains. He says his methods were questioned initially by fellow competitors when he would utilise breathing techniques prior to events but after his times improved and he moved up the rankings he says this way of thinking started to change.James explains how he has managed to remain positive despite a massive setback which hit him following an excellent season in 2019. He outlines how during mountain bike training for an Iron Man triathlon, he crashed his bike into a tree and suffered a punctured lung, mild concussion and a broken back. He tells Patrick and Daniel how he dealt with this setback and how he was able to motivate his recovery through breathing and mental fortitude and actually take part in that Iron Man triathlon only five weeks later.

“I was not curious anymore.”This week on the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel speak with retired Danish footballer Allan Gaarde to talk about how breathing helped bring back focus, motivation and fitness to his life after a career in football.Allan enjoyed a 14-year career as a player in the beautiful game before transitioning back to the sport post-retirement as Sporting Director of top flight Danish club Aalborg BK. After leaving this post in 2019, Allan found himself ‘tired all the time’, having let a lot of his physical fitness fall by the wayside. He explains how breathing techniques brought additional motivation back into his life and helped him find a healthy balance.

“Stress is not just ok, stress is essential.”This week on the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by Swedish Army Captain Niclas Wisén to speak about how breathing has become an essential part of his life both in and out of the military. A psychologist and captain in the Swedish Armed Forces with over 10 years’ experience, Niclas has been involved in the training and selection of new recruits for much of his time in the military. During this time, he has incorporated breathing as a way of improving performance and coping with stress. He outlines how things like Stress Inoculation Training (SIT) and various breathing techniques can help physically and psychologically in many facets of a soldier’s everyday life and during the rigors of military performance.

“That’s the thing I’ve probably searched for my whole life, that ability to wind down.”In this week’s episode of the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel are joined by founder of Conscious Breathing, Anders Olsson as the “Three Breathing Nerds” delve into what started his journey into various breathing techniques and how he has used that knowledge to become a world leader on the subject.Originally looking at breathing techniques such as Buteyko as a way of calming his racing mind, Anders even attended one of Patrick’s old Buteyko workshops in Copenhagen in 2009. “I could notice almost immediately that it gave me a new tool, an ability to unlock the turbo, to slow down.”Anders explains the many trials and tribulations he faced on his journey, including having to sell his house in order to keep pursuing his Conscious Breathing dream, in this engaging and informative conversation with Patrick and Daniel.

“Recovery didn’t really start to speed up until I understood what had happened to me and before I started to change my life in a better way.”In this week’s episode of the OA Podcast, Patrick and Daniel speak with former professional tennis player and successful businessman Robin Söderling. The Swedish ace started playing professionally in 2001 and reached the top of his field in tennis, playing all over the world and competing in two consecutive French Open finals (2009/2010). His career reached its apex in 2010 when he was ranked world number 4 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). However, in that time he says he was so obsessed with tennis and his performance that it started to negatively affect him mentally. He explains how, his tennis career was sadly cut short in 2012 after he contracted mononucleosis, a persistent illness that prevented him from playing until his eventual retirement in 2015 at just 26. On top of that he suffered regularly from anxiety and panic attacks, starting in 2011. He tells Patrick and Daniel how he was able to use breathing to deal with his anxiety and use the lessons learned to continue to build a successful business career in tennis equipment.