Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I thought I’d write about something a bit different, still about science, but of another kind. When I was sixty-three, I had the curious experience of getting my heart and lungs and all tested to the max by the doctors. They shot my veins full of drugs and made way cool movies of how the blood was pumping around my heart, and other fun pursuits.
They also gave me a full-stress treadmill test. It started out moving slowly, and on the flat. No problem, I kept up. Then they jacked both the angle and the speed up a bit. I kept up. And after a short time, they did the same again, increased both the angle and the speed. Still, I kept up. After a few more rounds of ever-increasing intensity, I was almost running up what seemed like the side of Mount Everest.
But I kept up.
Afterwards, they pulled the tape off of the machine. The nurse and the doctor looked at it, and conferred a bit. Then the nurse came over and asked “What kind of exercise do you do?”
I mimed flexing my bicep, bending my elbow, and lifting a glass to my lips …
“No, seriously”, she said, “do you work out at the gym?”. I admitted that no, I didn’t go to the gym … and I also didn’t run or exercise at all. Why was she asking?
“Your metabolic score on the treadmill”, she said, “we only ever see that high a score on twenty-year-old guys who are firefighters or cops or bodybuilders.”
I could have told her why I was able to get that high a score, but it wasn’t the time, so I just laughed and went on. Anyhow, there’s a curious story behind my ability, and this seems like a good time to tell it.
When I was about twenty-seven, I spent about a year in Hawaii in training as a psychotherapist. Yeah, I know, who would have guessed? And I spent many, many hundreds of hours working with and assisting lots of clients during that time. Anyhow, about a year later I was swimming in the pool at Laney College, in Oakland, California. I was working on my Red Cross Lifesaving Certificate, but I was having trouble with the distance swimming. I could swim fine, but I always ended up panting and out of breath after only a few high-speed laps of the pool.
One day, it all changed. Who should I run into at the pool but an ex-client from Hawaii. Talk about a surprise, we weren’t even in the same state as when we’d known each other, and he wasn’t a student at Laney. I have no idea why he was there. He was never all that coherent, and that day was no exception. He tried to tell me what was going on, but it was hard to follow.
Somehow I got to talking about my difficulty with swimming distances. He watched me swimming for a while, and then he waved me over to the side of the pool. “I know what you’re doing wrong”, he said, and he told me how to fix it.
So I tried what he said, and to my astonishment I found that I could just swim and swim and swim! I was totally blown away, I’d never done anything like that. I thanked him profusely, he walked out the door … and I’ve never seen him again in my life.
I showered and dressed … and then on a whim, I decided to run the two miles back to my home.
To understand what that meant, you need to know that I hated, hated, hated track in high school. They wanted me to run a mile, and after the first of four laps my tongue was hanging out, I was panting to the max, and totally out of breath. I despised running, and I never, ever ran unless I had to. So for me to suddenly decide to run the two miles from Laney back to my place in Oakland, that was a shock to me.
I started out, not knowing what to expect … and I ran the two miles home, and when I got there, I wasn’t even breathing hard.
So … what was it that the half-crazy guy told me about my swimming that made such an instant difference in my stamina.
He said “You’re not breathing out enough.”
He explained that particularly when we’re swimming, but also with any exercise, people usually end up panting, taking very rapid, shallow breaths. We focus on breathing in, on forcing more air into our lungs. He said that the way to break that habit was simple—when you start running short of air, don’t mess with the in-breath, just breathe out for one count longer.
He pointed out that when we swim or run, we usually fall into a pattern. With me, when I swam I breathed out and then took an in-breath with every alternate stroke of my arms. He said when I ran short of air, there was no need to mess with the in-breath—what I had to do was just add one more beat to the out-breath. So for example, if I was running, I was in the habit of breathing in for two steps and out for two steps. When I started running out of breath, I needed to lengthen my out-breath to three steps … and then if that wasn’t enough, lengthen the out-breath to four steps, and so on.
And that was it. There’s no need to make any alteration to the in-breath, we’re all really good at that part. Filling up the lungs isn’t the problem, it’s emptying the lungs.
And from that day to this, I don’t run out of breath. I just breathe out one beat longer, and I keep going. That’s the reason why at the age of sixty-three, I finished my treadmill test breathing deeply, very deeply … but just like some young guy who does pushups and runs laps all day, I wasn’t out of breath at all. I could have kept it up for a while longer.
Will this have the same effect on you? Heck, I don’t know. It was a gift that was bestowed on me by a slightly mad man I’d once cared for and had tried to help, who reappeared in my life for a single afternoon, apparently for that one purpose … all I can do is pass it on in the same spirit of joyous abandon. I only wish someone had been around to tell me about this back when I was in high school … so if you’re interested in catching your own breath, think of it as science, do the experiment, and report back.
My best to everyone,
w.
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Hey Mr. Pokerguy, idle it back a little. And you to too, Janice. First, Willis didn’t make any claims about inventing this. It was the crazy guy at Laney College. Willis just put it to use. Second, who is Willis supposed to write about? You two? Why would he? You don’t even know the crazy guy.
PS: Before I (oops, slipping into ego land) lost 60 pounds I found myself panting at the top of just two flights of stairs. My technique for avoiding embarrassment at the check in window was the Willis Crazy Man method. Blow out vigorously all the way from the front doors to the top of the stairs. Works great.
pbh
Good advice. I’ll concentrate on that the next 5k I do. I generally limit my running to short distances like that due to a gimpy left knee.
DiskoTroop
I used to get quite bad asthma especially during the pollen season. Some 15 years ago I had to go into hospital and I went into surgery clutching my inhaler.
From that day to this I have never had asthma. I believe it was the anaesthetic purging my lungs but no Doctor has ever been interested in following up on why this should be.
tonyb
I think Willis has posted here about some of his difficulties as well.
I’ve done some serious climbing (8000 meters) and at altitude, breathing right is important. One of the things we were talk is how to breath out; sounds simple, but we were taught, when you get to what you think is the natural end of the out breath, to purse your lips and breath out some more. (Try it, it works). That increased the volume of new air that would come in with the next in breath. That technique may not work with swimming, but it works when climbing.
(Posted before I saw the post from Genghis, looks like we received the same advice)
Thanks for this tip! I’ve been mountain biking a lot lately and I’ve hit a wall. I haven’t improved for the past few hundred miles of cycling. This discussion of breathing makes perfect sense and I’m trying it this evening after work on my toughest route!
Leonardo Eschenbach shows the way!
Wow. Love running, love swimming, HATE panting. Sharing this with the wifey immediately. Thanks!
Petrossa says:
> I use that technique for years now to fall asleep. Inhale, exhale till there’s nothing left anymore and then exhale some more in a steady rhythm. Soon you’ll start to feel relaxed and doze off.
I suspect it is not quite the technique Willis and others describe, or maybe it is, if you discount the fact that you’re not doing any work when you put yourself to sleep that way. You relax and doze off because hyperventilation induces a short-term hypoxia. You could as well hold your breath to achieve the same effect, except holding your breath is not comfortable, while hyperventilating does not feel wrong in any way. Note that in this case the manner in which you inhale and exhale does not matter; all that matters is that you breathe more than you need at the moment.
Next time you want to do it, try panting — the result will be the same, and you may even arrive at it it sooner.
“we only ever see that high a score on twenty-year-old guys who are firefighters or cops or bodybuilders.”
I’ll put up some 40 year old cross country skiers, runners. and cyclists against cops and bodybuilders on a treadmill test any day. “the gym” is a lousy place to gain aerobic fitness.
Sure . . . We all know it was roids!! ;>)
I’ve read where emphysema starts at the bottom of the lungs and works its way up–the explanation being the lower lungs aren’t emptied as well as they should be.
It appears Willis has hit upon a solution that could prevent development of emphysema and provide better lung function, hence better health.
I’ll have to get my choir members to breath out more so they can handle those long phrases that don’t have obvious breathing breaks–this could be the solution I’ve been looking for.
This should also be beneficial to those of us working in a sedentary position all day long and have difficulty emptying our “wind bags”.
Thanks, Willis.
I’m sorry if I’m a bit doubtful of your “health score” comparing it to that of firefighters and such.
I know how the stress test is performed where I come from and it starts with a walk on a treadmill and it’s like this:
Wearing full firefighters garment including helmet and breathing apparatus on your back (or a weighted vest), a total weight of extra weight approx. to 24 kg’s you then consecutively:
1 min. of walkin at a 2.5 degrees incline at 4.5km/h
1 min. walking at a 4.5 degrees incline at 4.5km/h
6 min. walking at a 8.5 degree incline at 6.0 km/h
During this walk your pulse is never to go above a maximum pulse of (210-(age x 0.5))
W.E. being 63 years old that would give him a max bpm rate of 178.5
I’ve read that breathing deeply into and out of the full lung, stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. This calms the body and allows it to function efficiently. It is the way an athlete gets in the “zone”. It is also the way a yogi enters a deep meditative state. I shouldn’t say “the way”, but neither can happen without proper breathing.
Breathing shallow, or panting, stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. This is essentially our flight or fight mechanism. It causes the body to be flooded with adrenalin, which causes shortness of breath and short-lived bursts of energy. Then the body has to break down the adrenalin and you get all kinds of free radicals floating around in your body.
Summarized from Douillard’s Body, Mind and Sport.
Maybe off topic(and relating to something written by author in another article) ,but,exhaling a little more is kinda like an “overshoot”.My favorite Phase Diagram also has some “overshoot”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phase_diagram_of_water.svg
There’s a little “overshoot”below 0°C and at high pressure both in vapor and liquid.
Sorry for cross-threading.But exhaling more just made me think of “overshooting” some set limits.
Thanks for the interesting articles and comments.
As a later in life distance runner (10K and above), I learned this trick by trial and error. Much more efficient were longer but deeper breaths both in and out. Whenever during a run I would start to feel even a little short of breath, I could exaggerate this breathing pattern and feel an almost instant energy boost.
Thanks Willis- this comes under the heading of “need to know” and thanks to everyone else for adding your own knowledge about this. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell us this stuff?
(I know, you just did, but out there in the world, who even mentions this?)
Back in 1948/9 my father was posted to the Royal Artillery barracks at Tampin, Malaya. I had to attend the primary school there and we used to have a regular PT session with one of the army instructors. He used to insist, after each round of exercises, that we stand at ease, arms behind our backs and head up, then breath in through your nose and out through your mouth — hooaoorrr… we would repeat this three or four times before going on to the next exercise. Us kids just thought it was funny. Only now I realise what was going on. I owe that instructor.
Age 73– triple bypass, injurious lower back, yet over 21 years from 1993 I’ve walked close to a Magellan Moment of 25,115 miles– Planet Earth’s circumference as determined by Eratosthenes of Cyrene c. BC 245 (actual diameter is 24,901 miles, so the Master was off .859%).
Never heard this “breathing out” advice… thank you, good Sir Willis, on behalf of Eratosthenes. On reaching Magellan’s navigational terminus next April, we shall heft a vintage flagon of Falernian to your own extreme good health.
Good topic Willis. Many interesting comments of the discovery process wrt breath. I’m surprised no one has mentioned Pranyama yoga, a branch of practice devoted to breath. It has enriched my life for nearly 50 years.
This is why the military forces students at basic training, etc. to sing jodies. The length of the repeated lines prevents them from panting and extends their out breath.
You’re fixating on the story, not the message. Willis is sharing a tip.
Years and years ago I learned that if I forced a stifled yawn, my eyes would water a bit and then I could focus the tears to see the blackboard clearly. After testing the concept for a week I mentioned it to my mother; I also mentioned that I wasn’t going to tell anyone else as such an easy thing couldn’t be truly secret and no one had shared it with me…
Two days later I was pulled out of school to visit with the ophthalmologist.
To add a bit of aggravation to the humor, before my glasses came in the school had their yearly eye screenings; only with a new optometrist who rearranged the test room.
Attending a parochial school one quickly learns that failing or doing poorly on tests is bad, very bad. Nuns seem to take it personally when a child fails a test. Every year when we filed into the test room, five at a time, we sat in chairs near the door and conveniently near the test chart. I’d promptly memorize the chart and then pass the test.
Only with the rearranged room we sat at the other end of the room, no chance to memorize anything. I failed that test miserably, with the new eye tech checking last years results and then testing me again. I’m dead I thought.
Several hours later right on cue the room speaker rumbled to life and I was called to Mother Superior’s office.
As it turned out,, they had already called my mother and found out about my visit to the eye Doc. Their reason for calling me to the office was to grill me about how I had managed to pass the vision screen for so many years with 20/200 vision (I could see at 20 feet (6.6m) what other people could see at 200 feet (66.6m).
I kept waiting for the physical incentives to tell all, usually rulers, pointers, belts or flat hands; but for some reason this visit to Mother Superior’s office didn’t come with a skin stinging rebuke (one of only three such visits to Mother Superior during grade school; this was seventh grade).
They did change the vision screen test with the chart covered and only one student at a time in the test room for eighth grade (last year in grade school).
Thank you for the tip Willis! I plan to try it when I’m next above 10,000 feet (3333.3m) altitude.
Pursing your lips & purging your lungs through long exhaling is an element of wind instrument playing. You have to increase your lung capacity in this way, plus breathe from the diaphragm. The difference is that you also have to inhale deeply to fill the volume thus created, turning your lungs into the biological equivalent of bagpipe bags.
Many thanks, Willis.
As many others here have already noted, why is this technique not taught in school? Surely ignorance is no longer an adequate explanation, now that you have explained it so eloquently.