Intensity in Flow

Intensity in Flow:

When you do sandbag carries, cardio workouts and CrossFit workouts, I want you to push the intensity, but maintain nasal breathing. Why?

Nasal breathing forces you to be aware so you don’t freak out when you are doing the workouts (it controls the freak out). It forces you to connect with your body so you don't disengage. It will help you get mentally tougher.

Nasal breathing doesn’t mean going easy, it doesn’t mean pacing through a workout. Mouth breathing on the other hand has its time and place but that isn’t every day. Constantly mouth breathing during conditioning will drive you into a flight state, and you won’t want to be in the workout (so you won’t hunt the workout). Rather, the workout will hunt you and kill you.

I want you to find "flow under pressure" or "intensity in flow" or "intensity under control". This means you are "flirting with the fight state", which is where the magic happens. Nasal breathing lets you control the flow and have a little bit of fight without the fight bringing the stress it normally brings. This allows you to win the workout, instead of freaking out and going into a flight state. But once again, that doesn't mean you pace, or else you lose your progress. Still go hard, just not so extra hard that you kill yourself.

If you are on the floor dying after every workout then you are losing every single workout. You are in a flight state and this will make you quit. You need to win your workouts. Gains come from winning, not losing. Nasal breathing teaches you how to win.

Note: The difference between Fight and Flight is wanting to be there versus not wanting to be there.

Nasal breathing prevents you from breaking … it prevents stress/anxiety. Once you switch to mouth breathing, it’s freak out mode, and this puts you in a FLIGHT state. Mouth breathing is for when "the bear is coming". If the bear is coming to get you every single day you train, eventually you will die. Mouth breathing puts you in stressed out mode (flight mode), releases cortisol (eats your gains). Training like this is fine once every 6 weeks.

To burn fat: that means doing "FLOW UNDER PRESSURE WORKOUTS": nasal breathing with an exercise that puts you in a FIGHT state. You need both in order to burn fat (nasal breathing and a fight state … it’s an arch).

Remember: We are built for intent. So if you attack the 10 minute home workout, you’ll burn fat. But if you do 30 minutes of cardio and you don’t want to be there (flight state), this will promote water weight gain (cortisol) and you'll activate the fat gain mechanism.

During your workouts: just slow down and calm down if you feel you are going to switch to mouth breathing.

Goal: be happy with your performance. Do productive work. Attack the session. Win the workout. Prioritize long-term value over short-term reward.

Note: Nasal breathing doesn’t mean just nose breathing. You can also inhale through your nose and exhale through pursed lips, but try to do all nasal. Do it for conditioning and lifting.

Nasal Breathing Tips:

As my training becomes more intense, I smile to open up my nostrils (to optimize my inhalation). Did you know you can improve your nasal inhalation by smiling like the Joker from Batman (this flares the nostrils)? Here are my 2 other pro tips: inhale upwards towards the top of your skull (not backwards), and inhale gently (not aggressively or else you close your nostrils).