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.
pokerguy says:
September 24, 2013 at 4:44 am
Guys, it seems you haven’t noticed what I’ve done in this post. Yes, I’ve said I’m damn good at something … and if I’d stopped there, you’d be absolutely right.
But I haven’t stopped there, have I? Instead I’ve also told you exactly how you can be just as good at it or even better. How on earth is that a bad thing?
Now, I know of no way to do that other than to first point out that I’m good at it, and then show how you can do it too. If there’s a way to do that by starting out saying “I’m really lousy at doing this, but here’s my secret …”, I fear I don’t know what it is.
I live in a funny kind of manner. For example, when I make money, I like to arrange it so that other people make money too. In addition to giving me pleasure, it means that there are lots of people out there hoping that I make money, and that’s a good thing
And when I go on vacation, as you’ve just seen, I like to bring people along with me through my writing, to participate in the experience. Is that just feeding my ego “like a ravenous animal”? By no means, it’s sharing the wealth … and the result is that there are lots of people out there hoping I go on vacation again. And that’s a good thing.
Perhaps a bit of backstory might make this easier to understand.
About thirty years ago, I was working in Africa. I was walking down a dusty street in a village in the hinterlands of Togo, and looking around, I suddenly realized, “I’ve won.”
It was somewhat of a shock to me, but there it was. I had everything that the people passing me by ever dreamed of having. I had achieved everything that they ever wanted to achieve.
I had money in the bank. I had a job. I had friends. I had my health. I owned my own house, more of a shack to be sure but my own. I had my education. I had electric power and clean running water and a septic system, and that alone most of them would never have. I had a wife and family who I was very close with. I had a car, and a truck, and a boat. I lived in a free country. In short, I had achieved every single goal that every person within eyesight would have ever dreamed of in their wildest dreams.
Now, there’s a curious part about realizing that I’d won, that I was one of the global 1%. It brings up a curious question … what do you do after you have won? I gave that some thought, and my final conclusion was, give it away. Oh, I don’t mean give all my money to the poor, but give away whatever it is that has allowed me to win. Give away the knowledge and the ideas and the insights, be of assistance in other people winning as well.
This post is part of that process. And so while you can diss me and get on my case for my style or whatever you want, I’ve done it simply because having a madman tell me that one silly little thing about breathing made such a huge difference in my life … and so I feel a responsibility to make that same opportunity available for others. Not only that, but I’m not on that man’s case for his many faults, he gave me a gift beyond compare that has lasted a lifetime, why would I care why or how he did it?
I’m quite aware that I have many faults, and on top of that, I’m not politically correct. Look, I’m a wicked-smart guy with a whole lot of experience under my belt, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise or put on a mask of false humility.
But I’m also one of the few climate scientists willing to publicly admit in capital letters that I’m wrong … heck, I even have a post somewhere entitled “Wrong Again”. Talk about humility, I can assuring that’s very humbling. Does admitting I’m wrong feed my ego? Don’t think so …
So I’m sorry if you don’t like my style, but like Popeye said, “I yam what I yam” … take it or leave it. Me, I’ll just continue to give away whatever I can in the short time that we all have here on this most wonderful planet, and let you nattering naysayers go your own way.
w.
Willis says:
> I live in a funny kind of manner. For example, when I make money, I like to arrange it so that other people make money too.
This strikes me as a very rational way of doing things, but it is so rare that I’m always in awe when I see it happen. This is a good occasion to share one of such awesome examples that I was lucky to observe.
I used to visit a friend who kept some chickens on his farm. He fed them with grain stored in a 3-litre glass jar. He would often forget to replace the lid, and the grain would be assaulted from the air by sparrows. That did not seem to be a problem because the neck of the jar was only wide enough to allow one sparrow to feed at any time, so they could only feed in turns. Because they spent more time fighting for access than feeding, they didn’t exactly ravage the grain store and their constant fighting was king of amusing, so the jar was often left open.
It went on like that for years, but one day, in a sort of “emergent phenomenon” (wink, wink), things have changed forever. I was right there to witness the change. One of the sparrows, as soon as he won his turn in the jar, began throwing the grain out by batting his wings against it. Within seconds, the ground within several feet from the jar was strewn with grain and the fighting among sparrows ceased. The one-sparrow-at a time bottleneck disappeared and the inventor of the new method of feeding gained uncontested access to an infinite supply of grain, at a negligible cost of batting his wings once in a while.
Mike H says:
September 24, 2013 at 7:13 am
That made my morning, Mike, thanks. But sadly, I fear that the only ‘roids I’ve been involved with didn’t start with “ste”, they started with “hem” …
w.
Love your posts, Willis. Your insights, wealth of experience and good writing are greatly appreciated. My take is you have a normal, healthy amount of ego. If lesser beings feel inadequate that’s their problem! I’ve been doing Tabata Protocol for several years after learning it is the most effective form of exercise. Most will not do it because it is agony…four minutes in the red zone. Now I wonder if it’s effectiveness is at least partly due to forced deep breathing.
When I was a teenager I would go to the local swimming baths with friends. They would swim a mile for fun but I could only do two lengths before running seriously out of breath. Roll on to my early forties and I started swimming lessons at the local baths. I started in beginners but very soon I was pushed up to intermediate. The very fierce lady who coached the intermediates always started by making us do twenty lengths. I pleaded with her that I couldn’t do twenty but she wouldn’t listen. So mainly out of fear I swam twenty lengths. After about four lengths I felt awful and really didn’t think I could carry on. But at about six lengths I felt great and could have carried on all night. I have no idea why this was.
About the same time a girl aged about ten or eleven knocked on my front door and asked me to sponsor her for a swimathon. I asked her what was the maximum number of lengths she could swim and she said about ten. I noticed that others had sponsored her for fixed amounts – independent of how many lengths. I decided to sponsor her for £1 per length. A few days later she came back and told me she had completed seventy two lengths.
I ran cross country and track all four years of high school, ’64 to ’68. I always had good wind and endurance. Now I am thinking of running again. I quit tobacco 3.5 years ago at age 60. I shall have to pay attention to the technique you describe, thanks.
Willis,
That is Tai Chi breathing technique.
Not the prevalent Hollywood Tai Chi, but the real Chinese Tai Chi.
It works doesn’t it.
Dear Mr. Eschenbach,
I tried your technique while I sang this morning. I’ll have to work on it. It MIGHT have helped. I’m grateful for the idea. Laugh out loud, though, it is only useful for taking a breath at the beginning of a song or during a long enough rest. It just takes too long to push out the bad air and take a big breath. Have to use “catch” breaths, else, the conductor will frown. Conductor: Ahem! Ms. Moore, hm. Haydn was, indeed, a thoughtful fellow, but, all those thoughtful pauses to reflect that you are putting into this piece ARE RUINING THE MUSIC!
I’m going to try it when jogging to see if I can increase my pace.
Your mischaracterizing my comment about your talking about yourself shows, assuming your mischaracterization was not intentional, that I need to clarify what I meant. AS IF I wanted you to write about me, lol. That you happened to be praising your own abilities had nothing to do with it; it is simply this: you talk about yourself all the time. Your fans love it. That’s great. If getting your ego stroked is what your posts on WUWT are mainly about, go for it. Apparently, you need it. I don’t have to read your posts. It was my fault for giving you another try. You will, I think, never change — and many above would say, “And that’s fine with us.”
Thanks for sharing some useful information. Much appreciated.
Going my way having learned a lesson about human nature,
Janice
P.S. THANK YOU Poker Guy for the affirmation.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 24, 2013 at 9:46 am
pokerguy says:
September 24, 2013 at 4:44 am
@ur momisugly Janice M
————————————————
and that is the key to the tale.
I understand that without a CO2 level of around 5% in you’re lungs the oxygen which combines with the haemoglobin travels round the body and isn’t released where it is needed. This means you try to breathe more (oxygen) exacerbating the problem. During exercise, maybe this works by re-balancing these levels (you’re creating more CO2), I’m not sure it would work so well when not exercising. It is the cornerstone of the Buteyko method for helping asthmatics and others with breathing problems in ordinary situations. I use it Buteyko) to eliminate wheezing before going to sleep when necessary.
Maybe when the lungs first evolved this was the level of CO2 in the air – who knows, as long as it works.
SteveT
I’m a 55 year old chorister and tenor soloist and sometimes note shortness of breath and will certainly give this a good try. Thanks
Willis – Were you ever in Aklakou, Togo, by any chance? About 5 mi. north of the beach and 5 mi from the Benin border? Very strange voodoo happenings there.
Call me skeptical (what am I doing on this website!). I’ve run 48 marathons, hundreds of shorter races and some longer ones, coached track and field, cross country, and cross country skiing for 30 years- and at age 73 still compete in my age group nationally at a high level. Most serious aerobic athletes and almost all coaches have tried every sort of breathing technique, diet, cross training, etc. that has ever been imagined. I think Willis’ life included a lot of hard physical work, and nature endowed him not only with a superior mind, but a superior body. That’s my tentative explanation. However, I plan to test his emphasis on exhalation when I work out next. Respiration is controlled partly by the amount of CO2 in the lungs, and some people may have been coached or self-taught to breath inefficiently or run inefficiently. I have found that with just a small percentage of those I have coached. I have also learned that the more running you do, the more your own running and breathing style becomes optimal for your own anatomy and physiology. Sorry, nothing more now. I need to run.
I wish I had read this and commented on it earlier. The post by Mr. Eschenbach presents a wonderful breathing technique. In 2003 when I was tested for lung function in one key measurement I exhibited 32%. Currently I test out at about 15%. I use oxygen 24/7 yet I can go up a flight of stairs without it (which I do when I’m doing laundry in the basement). The reason is partly because of the technique Willis Eschenbach describes. It’s a technique that can be used with Yoga, is good for relaxation, and can quell hyperventilation that occurs in panic situations. May I recommend doing it with an inhale through the nose (a very useful organ for lung preservation) and the extended exhale through the mouth.
Navy Bob says:
September 24, 2013 at 12:14 pm
Nope. Lome and straight upcountry, went to three or four villages, back to Lome, and out. Assessing projects funded by the US Agency For International Development (USAID).
w.
Doug Allen
September 24, 2013 at 12:24 pm
‘Call me skeptical (what am I doing on this website!).’
I must respectfully disagree. What Willis Eschenbach describes is scientifically valid and a slightly more involved version is routinely taught by respiratory therapists in pulmonary rehabilitation. It’s referred to as, pursed lip diaphragmatic breathing.
You are right, however, in that there is no exercise to improve lung function. Lungs are not muscles. Exercise capacity is improved, not through increases in lung function, but in muscle tone in the overall body. A well toned muscle can do more work with less oxygen.
Lungs are not balloons, so this analogy is not 100% accurate, but consider lungs as being able to deflate like a balloon. We use our diaphragm and inspiratory muscles to expand our chests and create a void that exterior air pressure rushes in to fill. The elasticity of the lungs makes them deflate on their own. The technique Willis Eschenbach describes encourages complete deflation which purges the spent air in preparation for the next breath.
It’s a wonderful technique really. It can actually be life changing.
This is really interesting, Willis. I’ve been having trouble with my lungs as of recent, the doc says asthma. I don’t think I get enough oxygen, got white hair starting at twenty, attributed to lungs in traditional medicine. I played the trumpet and sang opera, so I used to have to out-breathe to the max, far beyond what a person would ever imagine possible, and that got me by in the past. . What you say is most timely because I’m not exercising and my lungs are not functioning right, no more trumpet and opera singing.
I’m trying your suggested experiment (without exertion though) and feel better already, more oxygenated I believe. I’m a yogi too and use breathing techniques, but it’s odd that I have never come across this simple instruction! I’m off to to move a cord of wood and see if it helps me to not be dizzy from the exertion.
Thank you for kindly sharing this technique. STT/Poems
Willis,
Thanks for the advice. I did my usual treadmill workout this morning using your breathing technique. It worked like a jewel. I was able to do twice the sprints that I normally do and without the chest and out of breath issues that I usually encounter. I also felt more refreshed than normal upon completion. It has made my day and hopefully given me a boost with my athletic endeavors. I’m 54 and in good health, but have always struggled with anything requiring long endurance. Now if only you can help me pick up another 40 yards with my driver!!
I am left speechless, and breathless as well.
K-Bob says:
September 24, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Immediately, you’re doing twice the sprints, and not out of breath … that’s what happened to me. You can see why I was so surprised.
w.
wsbriggs says:
“… I was looking for training aids and I came upon an English (there’s a thread somewhere here) device that improves your exhaling by putting an adjustable rubber valve in the exhaust passage. You can freely breath in, but you have to force the air out. After 10 minutes using it the first day, the next day my chest muscles hurt, muscles you mostly don’t use a lot.”
Did a search for such a device. Many to choose from. Ultrabreathe is the least expensive I found. You can make one from an inline garden hose valve and a snorkel mouth piece for much less, however. Already ordered a mouth piece.
I had managed to work out a breathing pattern over the years doing aerobics. Started with 4 counts in and 4 out and shortened as I got tired and toward the end of the workout. Never thought about asymmetric out breathing. Great technique and suggestion to play with. Many thanks from one Odeshe to another.
Doug says:
September 24, 2013 at 7:08 am
You might want to dial that back a bit. Tests done at UCLA (sorry, I don’t have the ref., it’s been 30yrs or so), showed that competitive power lifters, weight lifters and body builders all had greater absolute O₂ uptake and greater blood flow volume per stroke (or whatever each heartbeat is called) than all of the elite class distance runners in the tests. Fredeick Hatfield, PhD. defines fitness as the ability to do work, and that the relative measure of fitness as O₂ uptake / kG body weight does not properly tell the story.
Another commenter, SanityP, illustrated Dr Hatfield’s definition of fitness; doing work. Hatfield compared a marathoner and a bodybuilder working in a bar. Before opening, all the empty kegs had to be carried downstairs to the cellar, and full kegs (~150# each) carried back up. Who is the fitter?
cheers,
gary
Willis, perhaps you cannot please all of the people all of the time, but you certainly please a large proportion, self included. Thank you for that. I must try it also.
Many years ago when I was a student, I had arranged to visit my favorite uncle, whom I’d not seen for many years. He had moved to Norway when I was a very young child, and being of meager means, seldom made the trip home. So, doing the obligatory student Inter-rail trip, I turned up on his doorstep with not one, but two friends. I knew this would be no problem and it wasn’t. He whipped up a vegetable curry in short order and sat down to hear our travel stories. We had a floor to sleep on for a few nights, and a ready-made guide to one of Europe’s most expensive capitals.
He had arrived in Norway when not much older than we were, to indulge his passion for mountaineering. As he fell in love with the country and decided to stay on, he slept on floors and accepted hospitality from friends and strangers, until he found his feet. Most expected no payment and had no need of it anyway, and from some he had gained far more than he could repay anyway. From that time, his philosophy has been that you can’t always repay hospitality, or a good deed, but you can pass it on. And you have.
It’s fun to do this stuff. Willis always has great posts, almost never anything expected and told in a very conversational way.
I started having asthma in high school. A bit of a drag since the school I went to required everybody to do some kind of sport. The only guy who got out was my friend Tom, a budding concert pianist. He spent 3 or more hours a day practicing and still had nearly a perfect g.p.a. So I chose soccer in the spring. None of the other guys were really athletic either, so half the time I ended up running the ball down myself, hoping someone would be there to pass it off to, then running back trying to defend. After the second time I’d drop to a knee and spend a minute mostly breathing out. An asthmatic learns that breathing out is the best way to give some room to breath in. Took until after college before the asthma started to clear up, but I still do a lot of lung clearing before any excercise and finish every breath with a final bit of exhale.
and Sanity P, I think heart rate may be more personal that the equation. In my 40’s I’d do interval training doing half a mile at 180bpm with relaxations down to 150-160 for half a mile, for 45 min. Now, 20 years later, it simply won’t go above 140 or so. But then I’m not as fast anyway. Too many foot problems, Cycling is easier.
Peter Chapman- the effect you mentioned I call the warm up effect. It takes the body about 20 min. or so of exercise to burn up most of the glycogen stored in the liver and muscles and start to burn fat. When that happens you get and endless supply(sort of) since we almost all are overweight. (read about this in Scientific American, when it was still a science magazine).
Cheers
Phil C
Phil C says:
> It takes the body about 20 min. or so of exercise to burn up most of the glycogen stored in the liver and muscles and start to burn fat.
It is incorrect to name a particular fixed length of time that is required to spend a resource of a cyclic nature. You are not entirely wrong when you say so, but an analogy with a broken clock that shows the correct time twice a day comes to mind.
The amount of glycogen in the liver and muscles varies with the time of the day, or more precisely, with the phase of your sleep-wake cycle (which is not necessarily in sync with daylight). So burning it up may take anywhere form zero minutes to many hours.
Agimarc reminded me of another variation I have used in running. For most of my runs, it is long slow intakes/outbreaths, but as I do tire near the end, I often find staccato breathing helps, and I usually find myself breathing on the strides- in, in, in, then out, out, out with short pauses. I don’t know why it works for me, but it does. And if I am in a race where I am pushing the pace harder than I normally would, I will usually use the staccato method the entire run.