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.
Interesting stuff.
But there is a lot more to fitness than breathing. I’d put forward the case that as a builder Willis is used to hard physical work and at pacing himself to get a job done.
All the breathing in the world won’t help once you hit that wall … I know … I was a skinny farm kid, spent a lot of my early years outworking, not outlifting, bg muscley guys on building sites. I heard later on one job someone had said, “That new guy shovelling there is going like the clappers, he’ll be quitting by lunchtime”. That day I didn’t slow down and finished at 10PM and was still on that job site until it finished.
Now, after years of desks, computers and planes, can’t run up the stairs.
I very much like Willis’ “I’ve won!” comment above.
Thanks again willis and all bloggers here, you are all amazing.
My breathing problem (had operation could not work for 2weeks), read Christopher Bookers book on agw
Which led me here which of course you all made me a denier Thanks
Willis, I think you’ve got part of it. When my doctors and cardiologist were surprised at my stress-test results even though I also don’t do a regimented exercise, I told them my solution: I play saxophone. What does that entail? Lots of long, sustained breathing under pressure while pumping a lot of oxygen through my system. I told my cardiologist he should recommend to his patients that they take up playing a horn.
As a former runner of mid distance,( knees finally went out), I discovered that I was a left footed runner. That is, my rhythm was to do all my breathing in and out as the left foot hit the ground. For some reason when I did that using my right foot if seemed harder. It was always let the air come in naturally in two short quick and shallow intakes starting on the left foot and one long forceful exhale again starting on the left foot. Once you get the rhythm you just zone out and before you know it you are where you want to be.
Tim OBrien says:
September 24, 2013 at 4:45 pm
I play sax myself, I actually have an alto and my favorite, a C melody, haven’t touched either in a couple of years … sigh … but I don’t play them well. Reminds me of the drummers lament, “So much music … so little time”. I do agree that the reed instruments can do wonders for your breathing.
The problems with your overall recommendation, though, is that I’ve found it’s difficult to play the sax when I’m running … and really tough to get a good tone when I’m swimming.
w.
Hi Willis, thank you for this contribution and of course for the others, too. I am an occasianal recreational runner and I have tested to outbreath more deeply (and a little more “forcingly”, which may caused an impression for the other runners that I was a steam engine :-)) just at my last run according to your suggestion. I was totally amazed how it worked! It improved my performance considerably, I was not short of breath where (and when) I used to. Thanks!
Well, I think TANSTAAFL applies here as everywhere, but your advice is very good. I used to be a runner in my youth and started running again 3 years ago after almost 2 decades “on the couch”, and I can confirm that it helps a lot to be aware that you exhale properly (and that you use your stomach to exhale!). If I get a side sting while running, it almost always go away quickly if I start concentrating on a long exhale – quick inhale rhythm.
I breathe out as much as I can to control pain – it works a treat.
A great bonus to the normal high-quality WUWT articles.
My wife and I recently celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary by running our 100th marathon together. Actually, we started together. She has thumped me in every one, mainly because I quickly become winded and end up using a Galloway run/walk approach. She came back for me in our 100th, so we could cross the finish line together.
In two weeks, we will be running the Twin Cities Marathon. I will begin using your technique immediately, and maybe, just maybe, we can legitimately cross the finish line together – I know better than to pass her up.
This kept me alive during a 90% asthma attack/blocked lung situation.
Getting oxygen isn’t a problem, dumping the carbon dioxide so you can GET the oxygen is the problem.
Add to that extra long out-breath a momentary chest compression on closure of the airway after inhale and you gain a touch extra as well. Not as much as another second of dump…
And I’ll add to this knowledge: Lean forward when exercising. A 20° forward angle, the angle you eat a real Philly or instinctually vomit at – is the angle of the dangle of your lungs, it keeps your heart from whapping against your spine.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 24, 2013 at 9:46 am
“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. ”
Willis…at the risk of being totally non-PC might I suggest that you have two other lucky attributes…you’re male and white! Unfortunately in most cultures being either of those things can still be a huge disadvantage in life. The world is not perfect but I do think that things are (all too) slowly improving in this respect.
Alastair in NZ
Great post, Willis.
As a physical chemist i can understand exactly how and why this works. Respiration is a diffusion-controlled process. The O2 in the air you inhale and the CO2 in your blood diffuse through the lung membrane from high concentration to low. Since they are gases, pressure can affect this process. The CO2 leaves your blood faster when the pressure in your lungs is lower, and the O2 enters your blood faster when the pressure in your lungs is higher.
This part may seem counter-intuitive, but the pressure inside your lungs is higher when you exhale than when you inhale. The pressure difference between the inside of your lungs and the outside drives the air in or out. The pressure difference speeds up the CO2 leaving your blood when you inhale, and speeds up the O2 entering your blood when you exhale.
By prolonging the exhalation from 50% of your time (2 steps breathing in & 2 steps breathing out) to 67% of your time (2 steps breathing in & 4 steps breathing out), you ‘push’ about 33% more O2 into your blood. You may build up CO2 a little bit more, but at the concentrations found in the blood normally, CO2 is not toxic. Besides, the difference in CO2 partial pressure (which actually drives the diffusion) between your blood and the air is great enough that the CO2 diffuses rather quickly. It is also helpful to this process that although hemoglobin has an affinity for O2 (helping the O2 enter the blood), there is nothing in the blood with an affinity for CO2 to keep it from leaving.
Just thought you might want to know…
Awesome. Just returned back from 15km run. My breathing frequency went down by 25-30% only by forcibly squeezing the lungs against the diaphragm. I was now able to do 3 steps-exhale, 2,5 steps-inhale instead of 1,5/2 at comfortable pace 5:00/km. Just concentrate on breathing and it runs by itself. Thanks a lot Willis! Simple, but great advice.
Willis, I tried your idea this morning at Crossfit and was the first one to finish the Workout of the Day, WOD! Normally I’m struggling to keep up. Thanks!
Alastair Brickell says:
September 25, 2013 at 8:31 am
Sorry, bit of a late night typo there…meant to say:
Willis…at the risk of being totally non-PC might I suggest that you have two other lucky attributes…you’re male and white! Unfortunately in most cultures being either of those things can still be a huge advantage (not “DISadvantage” as per my original post) in life. The world is not perfect but I do think that things are (all too) slowly improving in this respect.
Alastair in NZ
Hi Willis – I started this straight away. Not running, just normal breathing, and was surprised to find that extending that out breath became automatic by the very next day. I made a dash-run to the gate that morning and got there without panting (okay, admittedly not far, but it is a country block and normally I can’t run anywhere!). Greg, my husband, began doing it too and finds a great improvement.
You may well have lengthened a few lives here, Willis, because I can’t but help think that properly clearing the lungs helps clear the body and is beneficial on a whole range of levels.
This is from someone who not only practiced martial arts, but taught it. I also – for some years – performed three hours of aerobics every morning (from 4:00 am to 7:00) 6 days a week – alas not now. I knew about warm ups and cool downs, and breathing – but never that little bit extra that you explained so well. The most important bit of all, it turns out!
What you have passed on to us is seriously, seriously appreciated in this household. May God – or the Universe – bless you. Thank you so very much.
🙂
Seems to work.
Actually we were told (more or less) this by a sport teacher when I was at school – didn’t help me much, I didn’t notice any positive effect. I always had to force myself to do physical exercise (and even things I liked, e.g. driving a bike). So go ahead, call me names if you want.
Tony Mach says:
September 26, 2013 at 3:12 am
OK. I call you “human”.
w.
I tried this technique during my runs yesterday and today, but didn’t notice much difference. My runs were slightly over 7 miles. Jury’s still out for me.
I noticed one web site, which talks about the breathing problems people have when climbing above tree line on Pike’s Peaks, recommendsw breathing out longer, to help catch one’s breath.
Willis said..
“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.”
Probably too late to catch you Willis, but do you also increase the count for the in breath as you increase the count for the out breath, or does the in breath remain at two steps?
Ben D says:
September 27, 2013 at 4:33 pm
Still following the thread, Ben. I don’t worry in the slightest about the in-breath, it takes as long as it takes. Often it shortens as my breath deepens, but not always. Usually, after a while, my jaw drops, my throat opens, my lungs fill in an instant, and pump huge volumes of air.
w.
Got it, thanks Willis.
Ben
Thanks for sharing, Willis, a very valuable insight. It’s explained to me why I am able in my fifties to outfperform my reasonably fit twenty year old daughter on cycle rides.
I had adapted my breathing to that learnt from kettlebell classes ie breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
After reading your article I’ve further adjusted my breathing to that extra beat out, with improved results – so a big THANKYOU – I can now pass this on to my daughter….
I tried this right after it was posted. If I had a nickel for every new miracle fitness tip that turns out to be nonsense…. so I was very skeptical.
I tried it on the treadmill doing my regular 40 minute run and later during my 10 minute warm-down on the exercise bike.
Absolutely NO discernible difference whatsoever!
I always suspect nature has designed us to be pretty much optimally efficient by instinct. Evolution would be doing a pretty lame job if we could massively increase our stamina by doing something other than what feels natural.
So. I suspected this would be yet another bogus miracle tip and indeed it was.
Malcolm says:
September 28, 2013 at 10:27 am
Malcolm, what I said in the head post was the following:
If you read the comments, there are a large number of people who said that it had the same effect on them that it had on me—it made an immediate and huge difference in their lives. So your claim, that we are “pretty much optimally efficient by instinct”, is completely falsified by my experience as well as that of many others.
Now, it may be that you personally are optimally efficient by instinct, and if so, my congratulations. Many of us are not.
For you to use your “optimal efficiency” to try to proclaim that I’m pushing some false or bogus solution, however, is absolutely reprehensible. What I described worked for me, and it worked for many others as is evident in the comments, so it’s not “bogus” as you falsely claim. For you to try to convince people I’m a fraud, when I said from the start it wouldn’t work for everyone, is the nasty, unpleasant action of a jealous, bitter man. Take your unhappiness elsewhere.
Finally, generally we find what we are looking for. Let me suggest that you set out to find a “miracle tip that was nonsense” … and you found one. Reality is curious that way.
So please, take your nattering and nay-saying elsewhere. It worked for some, and not for you … so you’re optimal. So what? Get over it, for those like me it was a lifelong gift. As a result, I’m giving it away, and people are changing their own abilities overnight. You clearly don’t like that … tough.
………………
Anyone else who has benefitted and hasn’t posted, I’d be happy if you chimed in. Or those that haven’t benefitted, for that matter. This Malcolm guy is not the only person on the web who has claimed I’m giving out a “bogus miracle tip”. As usual, hating on Willis is a popular sport, all I can do is laugh …
w.
Willis,
I suspect many of us, like myself, are still testing and gathering data. I can tell you off-hand I did get a sense that there might be something to it, but I have so far been unable to make even a rough approximation to a controlled experiment to confirm it. I do intend to go somewhere quiet where I can repeat the same ride multiple times and measure things.
My first impressions are:
* It does seem like I can climb the same hill with less effort if I exhale more
* It does seem like I can regain my ability to cruise sooner after having climbed that hill
* The process feels so unnatural that I have to exert considerable effort to keep breathing that way, and my perception of an easier climb can be an artefact of distraction. It could also be due to a slow-down. I did not time those climbs (but am going to).
* It makes me yawn during the climb and several more minutes following it. Yawning affects speed.
* Today I had a 20-mile ride with steep hills and it felt easier than I would expect a ride like that to feel, but it was complicated by two factors. I had a headache that did not let me press hard and I had to dismount and walk a couple times. Besides, I was on a new bike that I had just finished building for myself, and it is the most comfortable bike I ever had. Things vary beyond control here, and I need a dedicated experiment to sort them out.