N=1. A sample size of one: you.

The Question: What is your objective?

The Baseline. What is your initial state?

Re-test v. Real Time.  How do you want to track your progress?

Supplementary Data. What extra information helps you draw deeper connections?

We have covered each (in case you are just joining us… you can catch up here) and are left with the Grand Poobah: The Analysis. As I said before, this is “the math stuff, the ‘how did it feel’ stuff, the biochemical stuff.  The stuff that starts to help generate understanding.”

I want to place emphasis on that final sentence.  Generate. We are not suddenly going to receive a parting of the clouds with rays of omniscient information raining down upon us (unless you have an incredibly robust subconscious brain).  We need to start fiddling with our data, throwing it on the floor in front of us, on a white board in the office or gym, or digitally into spreadsheets and plots.  Often times the pattern is right in front of us and we just need to help our brain connect the dots.  Right now, this is where you should be: a tally of data points over the past two weeks waiting for me to deliver you a golden key of an excel spreadsheet to unlock all the answers.  It may not be a golden key, but, as promised, you will find an attachment below to the spreadsheet I created. (A brief paragraph on how to use the spreadsheet is at the end of this post lest it become a foreign language to you and, therefore, unusable.).  So, what did the data show?  Not so fast… let’s give you some visuals to help out first.  These are the plots my spreadsheet will produce for you and your data (all dependent upon what you collected):

For reference:

Blue – Baseline Test

Orange – Day 1

Grey/Black – Day 2

Yellow – Day 3

Green – Re-Test

A bunch of colors, some crazy ass numbers, and lines that look like rockets fired in an old school MS DOS game. You may be overwhelmed at first, while others of you may be completely comfortable in this space. Either way, be open to what’s to come. First, a clarification. What is the R² value next to each trendline? Well, trendline is your line of best fit: the guestimate of what your data points have in common. This line can be made by using many different mathematical equations from linear (does y=mx+b ring a bell) to power functions and exponentials. In statistics “R squared” is known as the coefficient of determination. The fancy words will say things its “main purpose is the prediction of future outcomes or the testing of hypotheses, on the basis of other related information” (Wikipedia, coefficient of determination). All that roughly means is that by displaying the R² value, I can test out, essentially, how accurate of a guess my trendline selection is to the data set. The closer to 1, the more accurate the selected math model is to my data. Now, the point is not to go with whatever option from the menu gets you closest to 1, but, rather, to examine the different options and their coefficients as you gain an understanding of your experiment. You can start to see patterns that you may not have seen before and then you can start correlating them to what makes sense.

What does that mean? Let’s focus on an example:you take all your distance data from the rows and plot them in the excel spreadsheet. You notice you have an R2 value of 0.8 for roughly each data set using a 2^nd order polynomial line of best fit (2^nd order polynomials make one hump aka the parabola, 3^rd order makes two humps aka an “S”, etc.) You decide to tinker with the trendline and change your baseline to a 5^th order polynomial, giving you a much higher R² value of 0.95. When you apply the same option to the rest of the data sets, however, you notice that while some increase, others decrease… one even drops below 0.5. While there are some case that using different trendlines within a single data set can help identify specific behaviors of a system, we typically don’t want to judge things based on different sets of rules. Double standards seem to cause all sorts of fun in the world. Don’t add to it with your mad scientist work. (If you don’t believe me try to tell a 5 year old why he can’t do something that you can do). Rather, I encourage you to except that one of the “big four” usually gives you the highest overall R squared value for all the data sets in your plot. Those “big four” are: linear, exponential, logarithmic, and polynomial (2^nd order). If you want to get thick into the weeds, grab a statistics book or start chasing the dragon on the internet.

In the case of the data I collected, I felt comfortable keeping the polynomial (2^nd order) parabola across the board for my data sets. How did I come to this conclusion? The same way you can come to a similar conclusions with your own data and any data you may test/analyze in the future. Consider what is happening in our base measure of distance: I am performing intervals at my max effort, but as each interval comes along I am going to get more and more fatigued. The likelihood of my performance being as high in the rounds to follow becomes less and less likely. I relate this to shooting a bullet at a target. If I shoot in exactly the same place but move my target to farther and farther distances between shots, I will notice that it may be dead on for the first 100, 200, maybe even 300yds, but eventually it starts to drop and then eventually it falls off. Just like me on the rower.

If you remember back a few weeks, I picked my interval distance because I knew I would reach the point where I stopped focusing on my rowing position and skill and start focusing, instead, on pure survival. I will assure you I went to my limit. The shear amount of pain my legs were in after the final round would have made for a great gif. I would walk like two steps and then lay down, roll around helplessly, then try to stand back up and walk… only to end up sitting in a nearby chair only five steps further. I even tried getting on a treadmill at one point just to move blood and found myself barely keeping pace at 1.2mph as each step suggested my legs might collapse under me. Know the limits, but make sure they know you aren’t afraid to test them a bit.

All recovery antics aside, this is the common projectile math of middle/high school physics class and we all have seen the image of a projectile path (the basketball shot arch) looking like a parabola. Since my performance, in my experience, would follow a similar slow reduction until sudden degradation process, the parabolic best fit seemed ideal. When I compared it to the other three in the “big four” across (and this is key) all my data sets, it also had the highest averages for my R squared.

I tested my hypotheses against the math and received confirmation. Sometimes you may not have your concept match the data. Sometimes the big four won’t cut it. Sometimes you have to throw out data points to get a really solid grasp of what is going on (this is exemplified in the deltas plot of my test vs my retest values… I removed the pre measure and post measure to see how my body behaved during the workload). It’s a game and, just like any game, you will get better at it the more you do it. You will also get better at it the more information you bring to the table on the topic. For instance, even though I may know how gravity works, without more research on its effects on orbiting bodies and studying Newton’s Laws of Motion, it will be hard for me to understand why the golf ball I just crushed is quickly making its way to Jupiter instead of coming back to the ground.

It’s examples like this that are driving the next move I will be making with you: I am not going to give you any answers this week.

This is not the analysis post you were expecting, I know. Sorry, I’m not sorry. Remember when I said the training wheels would be coming off? This is phase one. Rest assured, we will get into what all the numbers mean and you will have the breakout you want, but, for now, I want you to input your data, read a few topics, and start drawing some conclusions before I begin shoving my own brain propaganda down your throat. I want you to push your own limits. This way you can predict how you could do things differently for your own outcomes; remember my body may react totally different than yours and that’s the entire freaking point of this blog. Don’t just read my stream of words and be a “yes” man/woman, apply the concepts in their most basic form and empower your own understanding.

You have the excel sheet with examples above on how things will look when you are done. We also covered how trendlines worked to prepare you to read the information you are seeing on the screen. That’s the nuts and bolts of the hardware, but the actual components will require homework this week. To help, here is a list of topics to chase after and get acquainted with… you don’t need to marry the ideas, just speed date them and the ones you like the most can be taken out for dinner and a movie:

• Energy systems and metabolic pathways
• Lactic Acid and the difference between aerobic and anaerobic
• Blood glucose and gluconeogenesis
• Hydration and the pump mechanisms that move fluid into and out of a cell
• Myelin and how it relates to skill development
• Parasympathetic and Sympathetic responses in the body
• Shared communication channels between the heart and the brain

There are literally lifetimes of data in each category above. Don’t try to become an expert. Try to find things that connect back to what your data suggests. If you were like me and saw a lower heart rate response from the intervals in your re-test as compared to your baseline… what could be causing it? What does it all say about why you did better or worse with the mask on? Does it have any relationship to why you stumbled around the gym with open consideration to rip your legs off your body instead of dealing with their implosion? If you didn’t test, look at my data and plots. Imagine they were your outputs… this is not about you all having done the test, but about figuring out how to read it and react to it.

When we meet again we are going to talk about overarching principles of the analysis and then we are going to start jumping into each one on its own, exploring the depth and breadth of what it has to offer, and see what other cool experiments we want to try by the time this is all over. To me, it’s not enough to learn a few things and say “hmmm, news to me” and move along. I want to slide into home plate in shorts, face first, screaming.

N=1. A sample size of one: you.

By Cody Burkhart

“The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry” — Robert Burns

Today you are expecting to receive the fifth and final tier to understanding your own personal experiment: The Analysis. Unlike the future experiments we will be covering in this blog, I developed this one to be performed live with you instead of completing all the work in advance so that we can talk in-depth about what we are learning from the results. For this experiment, we would both be in the trenches together.

Then fate provided a misstep in my journey with the passing of a family member. The result was an inability to be around the equipment necessary to gather enough data points for the Training Mask experiment to demonstrate value added to our conversation. The silver linings, though, are where the magic comes from all this.

I will still keep my promise to deliver the analysis conversation, the excel spreadsheet, and my own data for you all to piggy back off of, but we are going to take a tangent in our journey to talk about something that often happens in life: the unexpected. We must be honest with ourselves and realize that there will be times that the rest of our life, outside our little human experimentation projects, presents scenarios that require quick adaptation. Adaptation may come in many forms.

Perhaps you forget your digital pulse oximeter at home on a testing day? I did that exact thing on my baseline test day for our training mask experiment and ended up driving all the way home and straight back while on a telecon just to pick it up. I could have, instead, elected to postpone my baseline. Yet another option could have been self-checking my HR using my two fingers and a clock. There are all kinds of options if we take a moment and examine the situation before letting it stress us. Each of these options comes with it its own risk-to-reward balance. By properly understanding how I built my experiment, though, I can make even smarter choices because I have a clear layout of my intent and impact of each, and every, element. For instance, had I elected to measure my own HR I would not have had my SAO2 data, but with only one missed data set I could still, likely, see the trend over time (benefits of deciding on a combination of my “Re-test v. Real Time”). Under the same investigation, I also could accept that the SAO2 was, simply, part of my supplementary data and was, by nature, not required to answer my initial question. I could still record the quantitative performance metric of my distance on each interval (remember I was rowing for meters) along with qualitative measures of how I feel during each session.

Analyzing the impacts above is just an exercise we can run on our experiment before getting started. It verifies that we have concise reasons for what we are doing and, justifiably, weight the importance of each component. At the same time, this exercise is also meant to keep testing fun and low stress.

This desire for reduction in stress is especially important in a case such as the one we are investigating. Why? Let’s engage you a bit… I want you to imagine the last time you were stressed out. What did it feel like? What did you notice? As Eminem would say “palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy; There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti.” We can both agree you also notice the changes to your heart as it pounds on the inside of your chest like a caged animal; the blood rushing past your ears, its pressure making your mind fog over with thumps. That may all sound a touch overdone and cliché, but at the same time, it really isn’t. We know there are exact physiological processes going on that make my storybook tone accurate as to the intensity of stress and its changes to our heart.

This relates to our experiment because we know that we are examining implications of our diaphragm on our breathing. If breathing changes, then we are directly impacting gas exchange of fresh O₂ in and toxin CO₂ out, performed by pumping blood through our lungs’ alveoli. It’s accurate, under these connections, to see how our heart rate and breathing have a deeply personal relationship. Don’t believe me? Interactive moment of the day #2: Find your pulse right now. Start huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf and see if you notice any changes to your HR. The best part of our situation is that the same connections work in the reverse order: anything that impacts our heart rate impacts our breathing in return. Stress directly impacts the results of our experiment. Avoidance of stress through preparation, then, is crucial.

We could be done right there.

Many writers would be happy with the result to their reader: you learned that stress is bad for this test and maybe picked up some techniques to reduce it. Sounds like every self-help blog on the internet. This is not one of those blogs. I, instead, can only imagine that you are still wondering to yourself, “But Cody, what is the stress actually doing? What am I really trying to control by reducing my stress levels?” I wondered the same a few years back when one of countless positive message spinners in my life told me: “reduce your stress levels.” This is how the mind of someone immersed in the #nequals1 game gets: you don’t just want to hear it or feel it or understand it. No, no, no… you want all three.

I hate the “one thing led to another” concept, but this is a massive topic so we are going to define an origin for the sake of simplicity…

Our story begins as a camera chase scene behind a stress signal at it arrives in the hypothalamus: the body’s homeostasis “Grand Central Station.” This region of the brain has many functions including the link between the endocrine system and the nervous system by way of the pituitary gland. In synthesizing and secreting neurohormones (release hormones) to the pituitary gland, the hypothalamus can also control many metabolic processes and command pivotal tasks like fatigue, hunger, and the balance of your fluids and electrolytes.

Under stress, one particular homeostatic function directed by the hypothalamus is an increase in cardiovascular tone; a fancy way of saying, vasoconstriction: reduction in the diameter of blood vessels. Remembering back to our work with Boyle’s law, we determined that if pressure increased in our system then our volume decreased. This means that constricting the blood vessel, aka adding pressure to the system, reduces the volume of blood in the same length of vessel (think soda can vs. coffee can… similar height but vastly different volumes). By constricting peripheral vessels we keep more blood flow away from unnecessary tasks and redirect it to the big muscles required to get us out of danger. Examples of peripheral vessels affected include those provided to our skin, which is why you turn into Casper the ghost when you are in shock or people say you look pale when you are stressed out. Along the same lines as its ability to change the dilation of vessels, the hypothalamus goes as far as causing the chain reactions that manipulate the dilation of your airways to allow you to extract more oxygen with every breath.

Pause. Go back.

“Did he just say that I get more oxygen from every breath? Isn’t that helping to support improvements of breath on my body’s performance and recovery?”

Yes and yes, but… you had to know there was a catch coming. There is an optimal stress for performance, the whole “getting into the zone” element (we will be getting to in this more in the future with our research into the world of groups like The Flow Genome Project) is a great output tool. The “but” comes in over-stimulation. If we bring in stress from our day, it’s only adding to the stress of testing and the stress of our actual physical workload. All thanks to the fact that the more stress we build up and carry with us, the more our hypothalamus releases CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone) and triggers ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) in the pituitary gland. Just by looking at these precursor hormones names you may already know the problem child. Can you guess what the pituitary and ACTH are telling the adrenal glands to dump into our bodies like it’s a store closing sale? That’s right… glucocorticoids: hormones that are responsible for glucose metabolism.

Oh… not what you were thinking? Perhaps you were thinking about, arguably, the most popular of this class of hormones: Cortisol. Take the arterial constriction properties of cortisol and mix them with the increased the heart rate caused by the epinephrine from the fight-or-flight response. Now we are trying to have our cake and eat it, too.

This is where the thumping begins to go from a nervous-ready state to an overwhelming “DEFCON 5”. Suddenly, I feel like I’m running in sand or lifting with a weight vest on via the culmination of many common systems acting in response to a threat, resulting in a massively higher heart rate over a long period of time (“you know, because hitting your red limiter continuously is a good thing and all,” he says, dripping with sarcasm). Why the massive increase? In order to move more blood through my body to handle the extra oxygen intake of my dilated airways, I have to overcome the reduction in total volume in each “inch” of my constricted vessels. If I have less blood in the vessel from my pressure increase (going back, back to Boyle, Boyle) but still have to increase my overall flow rate (the amount of mass – but let’s assume uniform density so we can simplify it to volume – moving through a specific point in a common length of time like one second) what major option does my body have up its sleeve? Your body turns to the engine and increases the heart rate. If I pump harder and faster, I can overcome the changes to my vessels.

Looping back to where we started, we identified that breathing is directly related to heart rate. With this in mind, if we see stress increasing our heart rate, without knowing anything else, we know there are direct impacts of stress also on our breathing and, therefore, our experiment. It is exactly why there was a silver lining to my stressful life event. In dealing with stress I can noticeably see the impacts to my mental clarity and my physical performance. I can hear my heart beat pounding through my chest and I can feel my breath pattern changing. I know the impacts can invalidate my test. Either I work to mitigate them or I fix my moment, lock it up, and get back at it later, when I am ready. This is the game I want to teach you to play: the one that doesn’t just accept a bad performance or an outlier data point as trash. This is the game that screams at you to dig deeper and find out what Alice knows.

It’s not about becoming a scientist. It’s about becoming the experiment. It’s not about dealing with your shit. It’s about learning from it … every day, every joy, every pain, every success and every defeat.

Now you are starting to get a taste of where we are headed…

As we head down this road, you, too, will collide with both small and large adversities. I say collide because, quite literally, impacts with these events will directly change your speed and direction in life. It’s why we call them life-altering events. You and I get to decide how to manage those deviations to our journey and, ultimately, we will also experience the fallout (consequences) of those management choices. I want to be transparent with you in this process because doing so builds your respect and trust. As part of this transparency, I want you to know that right now, I hurt. I am stressed. The pain of losing someone is immense. The past couple years has had a trend of loss for me, but it does not make this one easier. Fact is, the idea of saying goodbye to someone younger than myself, someone I loved, shared life with, and in whom I saw so many gifts and talents… it’s devastating. My hypothalamus has been on overdrive and the random places/positions I have “nodded off” into a micro nap today alone are just traces of the impact it is having on my body and my mind. I get to, however, decide how to mitigate these feelings of grief and disappointment. I choose to embrace her life and my own. I choose not to weep for how she left, but for how she lived. To not be mad at my own loss, but feel a warm embrace in knowing her pain is over. I will empower myself with action. I will take the things I wish I had said and give that knowledge to my own son and anyone who will listen. So if you are listening…

Love hard, it’s not easy. Laugh often, it’s contagious. Cry with your whole soul, it’s cleansing. Never take for granted the gifts you have to share with the world. Being a hero to one person means everything to them. Change a life. Let these kinds of thoughts dance through your heart and mind. They are the cures to the stress, the preventative maintenance to everything else in your day. The body does not work without the mind. If you are leaving yourself in pain, fatigue, and stress over the problems of the world it’s like leaving your command center full of non-essential personnel. Good luck trying to get anything worth putting your name on done under those conditions. And if you ask me…. If you don’t feel like putting your name on everything you do… I suggest you start re-examining your priorities. You can be lost and never even know it. It’s a big world out there.

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.” -D.H. Lawrence

Mackenzie… this one is for you, little sis. I will cherish the moments we had, always. I love you.

The Compass is more powerful with the Map by its side: A road map to building a proper test matrix

By Cody Burkhart

When we last left our hero…

You were left wielding some variations of diaphragmatic breathing protocols to see what effects they had on you; open-ended, no real rules, and simple solutions. Let’s assume, for the sake of progression, you have been spending the last week developing the skill of breathing with the diaphragm and are noticing some differences (not described as positive or negative – simply deltas from your baseline) in your training session via their application. You likely have this feeling inside of whether or not this skill set is improving the performance metric you are using to validate it against. A feeling in your gut.

The gut reaction: the kind of beautiful, sub-conscious calculations that your brain does every moment of its functioning life are the cornerstone of much research including work like Blink . But, what is that churning feeling deep in your center telling you about breathing? Can you trust it? Do you even know what kind of feeling you are looking for? Did other changes to your week, your day, or your mindset affect the outcome? Slippery slope. Slippery slope, indeed.

The best way to build confidence in your gut is to start infusing it with more data. Creating a proper framework for how to test, controlling that framework for repeatability and comparing your results to initial measurements are all part of the recipe to success in becoming your own experiment. My solution to this is simple, let’s build an experiment you can easily do yourself and identify the steps of the process along the way. You should leave with not only homework to start your first test, but clear guidelines to make more of them and break down any you may find in your exploration of the data mine that the world has to offer.

THE QUESTION

Science is not about being an expert of all knowledge as many people get suckered into believing. At the core of being a scientist, first, is being inquisitive. It’s all about questioning the world instead of simply accepting it as it stands. Empowerment v. Enablement. However, knowing where you stand in a self-discovery test, especially a test as open-ended as I left you in the last post on diaphragmatic breath practices, is not second nature… it’s a learned skill. Previously I asked:

“If I strengthen the contractile function of the diaphragm, do I become super human or should we just let sleeping babes lie?”

You may be asking yourself in retrospect, is “strength” the solution? Or are you simply kick-starting a more efficient activation of the innate response of the body to use the diaphragm as the primary air mover? This kind of cycle of questions can quickly become a spider web and is what gets most of us overwhelmed with science, let alone creating a genuine hypothesis and then testing on ourselves. That’s exactly what we don’t want. The ENTIRE point of this blog is to arm you with skills to test on yourself, not leave you frustrated and confused. That’s why you and I are going to build the first experiment together, lay it all out cleanly, get data together, and learn to apply that knowledge in an environment where we actually grasp the reason for our failures or successes.

Our first test is going to center around the Training Mask. That said, if you are not interested in picking one up just replace the Training Mask in this example with the Sandbag Breathing. As a refresher this is a simple supine breathing style focused on breathing with the belly as opposed to the rib cage. You might say “but the results with just breathing are going to be different than that of the training mask.” Are you so sure? How do you know what the response is going to be if you immediately close out all possibilities? This is the nature of the right question. It has to be broad enough to leave room for possibility, but precise enough that it can be tested. The point? Don’t get hooked on the exact tool used. Focus, instead, on the point of the tool, find a similar setup that aims to produce the same effect at the most simple form, and then be concerned with your own results and not the noise of anyone else around you.

Our question is based on using the diaphragm to breathe and whether or not actively applying that skill will cause improvements that might seem super human. I am electing to use a training mask to force breathing with the diaphragm because my own personal use of the TM has always forced me to engage my diaphragm out of more than just focused practice, but out of necessity. My question has helped me find a resource to use for a test, your resource can be different… it just has to always focus back on the question you are ultimately trying to answer.

THE BASELINE

So I have a “what”, but now I need a “how.” The hard part about “how” is that it’s extremely hard to define the results of my Darth Vader mask if I haven’t defined a starting point: my baseline. Without it, I will be stumbling in the dark with wherever I find myself in the end. Without an origin, I have no real concept of the delta or the change that I experienced in my performance. In proper use of a test, we aren’t training to train, we are training to evolve.

A baseline for this test, or any test, needs a set of initial conditions or data points. As in our example, I propose the use of total distance for a monostructural effort over an interval-based workout. I have chosen to record my max effort distance of rowing in meters for a specific number of rounds of my own comfortable interval length. My baseline, therefore, has a simple structure (complexity can be a killer), a rather precise metric for measuring my output, and leaves me lots of options for reusing it for other tests like comparing the use of sandbag breathing to that of the training mask that I will be using.

My workout looks like this:

4RDS:

1min max effort (meters) row

2min rest to recover

In simpler terms its:

SOME NUMBER OF ROUNDS:

(Some Time of Effort) performed at max effort (Recording Some Numerical Measurement) for a Monostructrural Activity

2:1 Rest/Work Ratio

The point of splitting it out like this is to get you to see how you can break apart any test you see out in the “big white cloud” of the internet and make it work for your constraints and your level. For instance, if a test says run five three-mile intervals and you can’t remember the last time you ran three miles in a straight stretch… an 800m or a mile will feel quite similar to your body. High practice breeds high skill… translated: work at your skill level and over time you can take on new explorations of your capabilities. This blog will never be about breaking yourself – rest assured I will engage you to push the limits but not by going ninety miles an hour into a concrete wall. This is about deeply sampling yourself and the world around you, so your baseline should be something you can repeat and feel comfortable in performing.

RE-TEST v. REAL TIME

Sometimes the baseline we establish is left untouched, pristine, and constant across a test plan. From here we can go off, immersed in our experiment, before returning to a re-test for an apples to apples. Another option, though, exists. I can choose to repeat the test through many sessions; tracking gradual progress and receiving more immediate feedback. Everyone has their preference and sometimes the nature of our test will direct us to a best option. Often we will even combine the two variations; that is exactly what I want to do for this test. I want to use a re-test to track my total change across the testing timeline, but also perform real time data collection by imbedding my protocol into the exact structure of my baseline test.

My example of generating immediate feedback for this particular test will be taking the first 30 seconds of my recovery period, of each interval, and breathe with the training mask on during this time. I will follow this immediately by breathing without the mask on for the remaining 1:30 of my rest. While this is not a strong dose, I provide you with a fair warning: those first 30 seconds with a mask on are going to make you want to break away from the protocol with haste. I challenge you not to; the dosing is often the magic in the sauce.

My real-time variation for testing the effects of the training mask overlaid on my baseline looks like this:

4RDS:

1min max effort (meters) row

:30 recovery breathing with training mask (set @ 6k feet)

1:30 rest to recover

Right here I have the foundation for a good experiment. I can perform my baseline and then perform the training mask workout 2 or 3 times a week for a couple weeks and have a nice chunk of data that will show the progression and effects of the training mask on performance and recovery. And, as I mentioned, I will even go further by adding a re-test of the baseline. This way I can really explore how much affect my dose of the training mask is having on my individual homeostasis (that innate kick-start we pondered about).

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

I have an issue, though, and maybe many of you do as well: I like to over-achieve. My brain wants to ask more questions when I’m done than when I started. One way to really open up this channel of thinking, and springboard myself to further testing protocols, is by adding more methods for collecting other unique forms of data. It like the Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.”

Coming prepared to gather more data than the minimum needed to answer our question is not at all required, but it can give us new insight into the actual effects of what it is our body is doing. There isn’t a perfect set of data you can gather every time in this uncertain world.  To get the right idea you need to look at the experiment and identify what knowledge you already have on the subject. In the case of our diaphragm test we know we are deep into the world of breathing. Breathing means bringing in O2 in and pushing CO2 out and, to do this, the heart is going to be in charge of moving the blood around to make the gas exchange at the lungs occur. So I would be logical in finding ways to measure some of these facts.

That said, I am going to enhance my data set by recording my oxygen saturation rate (SAO2) and resting heart rate (RHR) using a digital pulse oximeter. These measures will be added at the beginning and end of the total session, as well as a minute into my two-minute recovery period after the max effort. I’m not interested in bogging down the plan or muddying the water, so let’s look at how this changes our workout structure:

4RDS:

1min max effort (meters) row

:30 recovery breathing with training mask (set @ 6k feet)

[@ 1min post effort, Measure/Record SAO2, RHR]

1:30 rest to recover

[Measure/Record SAO2, RHR 5min after the end of the session]

Add in the re-test of the baseline after multiple uses of my training mask protocol and I am left with a sizeable chunk of information that I can sift through when the dust has settled.

THE FIVE DEGREES OF SEPARATION

Now, if you stumbled onto the conversation here, you might be like: “What in Dante’s First Ring of Hell is going on here?” Instead, we have gone step by step to get to the “Promised Land.” This process is opening up opportunity for us to reverse engineer any test.

Much like the fanciful game to idolize Kevin Bacon, I have proposed five tiers to any experiment that you need to look for to apply your own variation. The hope is that you can take a mind-numbing test protocol and simplify it with these tools in hand. Each of these were just covered, but let’s go back and boost long-term memory retention:

• The Question

What is the test trying to answer? There is always a hypothesis at some level.

• The Baseline

Set a start point. Deltas define results.

• Re-test v. Real Time

Sometimes it’s one, sometimes it’s the other, sometimes it’s a mix-and-match. This important step helps you understand the premise of the data collected and how you might read the results or restructure future testing.

• Supplementary Data

When diving into any rabbit hole, grabbing extra data can help find correlations; unforeseen outcomes become regular occurrences when you have more accessible information.

• The Analysis

The math stuff, the “how did it feel” stuff, the biochemical stuff. The stuff that starts to help generate understanding.

Your brain may currently be calling to attention that we only talked about the first four layers. Rest assured, this is intentional. My goal is to give you concrete examples using our first test on how each of the sections works. So, before we can talk results, you and I have some data to collect and some n=1 testing to perform. For this reason, I will cover the analysis in the next post.

For now, I would love for you to participate along with me and openly share your results with the community. To entice you, I’m even going to make an excel spreadsheet to attach to the next post that you can use to quickly analyze your data. Nothing flashy, just something to help you sort through your data in the same way I will be sorting through mine: a practical application of the knowledge. If you roughly follow my protocol, I promise it will be easy to input your data.

Once we have the data, we can start to, not only, talk about the biological agents at play, but also identify connections to other topics that share common traits. This is when things will get really fun, when we get to chase performance like a cheetah to its prey. If we are successful in setting up our test matrix, you will be strapped up and ready for combat. Reader beware: there is no enablement here… the training wheels are going to be ripped off soon.

Now it’s time for you to go get busy on your homework and start making yourself your own metric for comparison, your own data set. From there we can start to tune your confidence in that gut feeling we introduced this post with by reinforcing it with physical results. As the Seuss says:

“You’re off to Great Places!  Today is your Day! Your mountain is waiting, so… get on your way!” — Dr. Seuss

N=1. A sample size of one: you.

We have all seen a baby peacefully lying asleep, its little “coos” filling the air. While you may have likely never paid attention to the breath patterns of a little one with specific intent, I bet your mind’s eye can remember this visual image: a tiny belly filling up like a carnival balloon with each inhalation. Pause a moment… are you breathing with your belly? Or is your chest and shoulders rising as the air filling your lungs presses your rib cage up and outward as its expands to make room?  Not to burst your bubble… but that baby, you need to pay attention to what it’s teaching you.  He or she has not, yet, gathered all the bad habits you have and their diaphragm is working like a dream. That’s right… the diaphragm:

“A dome-shaped, muscular partition separating the thorax from the abdomen in mammals. It plays a major role in breathing, as its contraction increases the volume of the thorax and so inflates the lungs.”    –Google definition

The diaphragm

The diaphragm is one of those things that gets used an awful lot in conversations regarding the body and training because of that primary role in breathing.  What I see/hear more times than not, however, is a clear misconception of how the diaphragm actually works and what ways we can develop it.  The biggest issue becomes trying to wrap your mind around how the contraction helps to inflate your lungs. 

Often I hear this: “When you engage the diaphragm, the muscle pulls down and you can get more air into your lungs.”  This is both correct and incorrect because the mental image most people get is that you are just trying to engage the muscle to push down your organs in order to free up space in your thorax.  The issue with this is that it turns the active scenario of the diaphragm into a somewhat passive lens.  People begin to think that it’s like pushing a cubicle divider back: “the more I push it back, the more living space I have to enjoy the bliss of my work day.” While this helps people wrap their mind around the idea that activating the diaphragm can give them “more room” for more air… it takes away a concept of how the diaphragm works.  It, instead, turns the diaphragm into a boring wall with places to hang pictures of your kid.

To clarify this concept

Let’s relate your diaphragm to a syringe: simplistic in design, but beautiful in its application.  Your body, like the syringe, takes advantage of natural laws to increase the amount of air it can pull in through a concept called Boyle’s Law.  To explain this, replace every sliding wall or divider image you have had in the past with the image of a syringe.  A syringe has a very unique difference to that of a wall… it has a seal between the outer diameter of the plunger and the inside diameter of the tube.  This seal prevents air, fluid, etc. from leaking out the bottom of the tube.  Now, think about that syringe pulling fluid out of a vial… retraction of the plunger not only increases “space” for the fluid to fill, but when we pull the plunger back it actually pulls the liquid into the syringe.  This isn’t magic but, rather, follows a simple concept: Boyle’s Law.

Mathematically, this law is written as P1V1 = P2V2.

Where P is pressure, V is volume.

In words, it means that there is an inverse relationship of pressure and volume of a gas in a closed system. 

Essentially, Boyle’s Law means that if I don’t have any holes in my syringe (closed system), as I make more room in the syringe (pulling the plunger aka “moving the wall”) the pressure inside the syringe changes in the exact opposite fashion. So, if the volume goes up (more space), then the pressure goes down.  Due to the reduction in pressure inside the syringe, our system of the vial and the syringe wants to try and balance out its own Boyle’s Law: the two elements seek to balance out the pressure.  The result? Liquid flows from the vial into the syringe to reduce the difference in pressure.  This is the same process for air movement that is, basically, vacuumed into our thoracic/abdominal space and lungs via our diaphragm.  

 To grasp the raw impact of this effect, imagine how much work you would have to do in order to push liquid into the syringe if the plunger couldn’t move.  An incredible force would be needed and only a little bit of the plastic syringe would flex, which means a ton force over a short distance aka “a metric ton of work.”  But on the other side of the token, how easy is it to pull the plunger back in a syringe… I bet you can do it one handed?  Relate this back to your diaphragm, connected like a seal to your inner cavity… The principle is that you get more air movement for less work by properly using the diaphragm to breath, as opposed to forcefully expanding your rib cage trying to huff and puff like the big bad wolf with your lungs only.

This is the beauty in the design…

Your body takes advantage of natural laws to increase the amount of air it can pull in.  Now we can transfer more total air across our lungs’ capillaries on the exhalation, which directly correlates to removing more waste and CO2 from our bodies with every breath.  (More to come on this is a connected post, but for now a taste…)

Not only do you provide yourself with more oxygen to, say, stay aerobic under workload (keeping yourself from becoming anaerobic and burning your glycogen stores down like a 5-alarm fire), but you are also promoting recovery by eliminating toxins generated as waste due to your body’s general workload.  In fact, I’m sure there are countless infographics that proudly proclaim the following: approximately 70% of your waste is not disposed of via your porcelain throne, but through breathing.  The diaphragm isn’t just a wall – some partitioned space that you move to make more room for activities – it’s oxygenating your body, clearing waste, and all with very little energy required as your smart biology games with the rules of physics. 

So what to do?

Well… now that we have the training wheels off, let’s go run with scissors and see where we find ourselves.  It’s time for the first experiment…

If I strengthen the contractile function of the diaphragm, do I become super human or should we just let sleeping babes lie?

This is where you come in, this is the whole “getting dirty” part.  The thing about developing strength in the diaphragm, and adequate control of its functioning to a state where it becomes instinctual, is not a game of seconds.  It’s a game of deep practice, the kind Coyle can get behind.  You can dive deep into the billions of pages out on the web and find some really great information, and I encourage you to do so, but to get you started – and to introduce the first experiment we will be discussing – I want to give you some concepts to try out and test on yourself; help you become that n = 1.

Without further ado, here are three very different methods to work on your diaphragm control (all of which I have experimented with, in depth):

1. Sandbag breathing and Yoga breathing

This basic breathing style known as sandbag breathing is all about allowing your body (beginning in a supine position) to return to a natural state, like the sleeping baby from earlier, by having you focus on softening your abdomen and letting your belly (not your chest) rise and fall with your breaths. To make use of this skill further, is to start applying the same feel of breath you receive from the sandbag practice in basic yoga positions.  Don’t go out the gates with an intense balance posture; instead, work your way up through half and full lotus to warrior stances and squat positions.  The entire goal is to patiently let your body relax to engage the diaphragmatic breath in any position you face.  This is not an entire solution, however, because often we need core engagement in our positions to hold them. So… if you get extra frisky, go check out the fiesta over at diaphragmatic rib cage breathing next.

 2. Core development work

The diaphragm is really just one part to the four walls that the core built.  In developing each of them we create a stronger foundation for use of the diaphragm.  Maybe you have already spent lots of time developing breathing styles, but you still struggle with overcoming chest breathing because you do not have the stability of a strong core to maintain position and movement of the diaphragm.  For example, if I collapse forward in a squat, I eliminate the ability for my diaphragm to move; all I am left with is my lungs to expand my rib cage.  To correct this, spend time applying work and training of not just your diaphragm, but also of your Transversus Abdominis (The Corset), Pelvic Floor Muscle (Yes, men you have one too), and Multifidi (The Back Support). 

3. Training Mask application

Diaphragm training self-application is worth its weight. The TM turns normal inhalations into struggles of will and focus.  Whether that happens to you at the 3k feet or 18k feet settings isn’t the point; the goal is to strengthen the diaphragm and generate neurological timing.  As soon as you have to fight to take in air, your body overrides your desire to chest heave for the larger desire of getting its oxygen levels back to normal.  To do so, it, literally, forces you to start taking the biological brilliance to heart and pull with your diaphragm.  Easy applications include wearing the mask as part of your warm up routine or in the initial :15-:30 seconds of recovery from a sprint interval or lift.  In the former case, you tell your body to focus on using the diaphragm first to slowly create an instinctual response throughout the rest of the training session. In the latter, well… let’s leave some mystery and simply state that if you slam a training mask onto your muzzle after your next 400m sprint… you are going to learn some things about the beauty of breathing with your diaphragm.

Conclusion

That gives you a good place to start.  A little bucket of concepts to beta test in your gym space and home laboratories.  Don’t look at these as “The best 3 exercises to be an awesome breather” but rather as honest test cases.  Apply one, compare how you feel throughout the process of a few weeks, and assess it against the rest.  Combine what works best and throw the rest away.  There isn’t enough time in a day to do everything.  Become surgically honest with yourself. As Bruce Lee states:

“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”

This blog isn’t about being told what to do… it’s about giving you enough opportunities to experience yourself, and your interaction with the environment.  

N=1. A sample size of one: you.

You are the test bed. You are the lab rat. The results are your own. This blog is intended to help you improve your health and performance with information and research on new methods and parameters, and as a ground-zero for getting dirty.

We want to empower you to test things on yourself; to explore the possibilities and extract what works for you and what doesn’t. You may find that adding turmeric is groundbreaking in your life, but don’t just trust the tests or the guru. Be your own guru. Feel your body, respond to it, keep what is good, and discard what is bad. It’s that simple.

Chasing your performance limits.

We are going to chase the limits here. You will see us at our mad-scientist best. We are going to remind you of knowledge built off years of testing, and then we are going to try to break it. Nothing is going to be off limits. Lots of things will be complete failures. We may find solutions to problems we weren’t even trying to answer.
It’s going to be raw.

Scientist or not, you have likely seen sample sizes at one point or another in your life. A sample size, at its simplest form, is the number of items that a test was run on to generate enough data to make fancy stats; fancy stats that tell you what the general results were of the test and what can be expected of future application. Essentially, if I take 100 people and apply the same test conditions to each of them, I can say that my sample size is n=100.

My results of whatever is tested will likely yield some sort of pattern and average. If you read my results, you can have a good idea of what the effects will be if you, under the same conditions, attempted to apply the tested regimen to yourself. You will likely find yourself falling within the error band of the “normal” results. But sometimes… you won’t.

Your response to training.

You may respond highly to a specific program or stimulus. You may not be a responder at all. No one else has the same genetic make-up, environment, diet, training program, sleep schedule, etc. as you. We are all unique specimens and that is, by far, the most fantastic, and often most frustrating, component.
Rather than be confused about why you didn’t see the same results as the test group in the newest late night infomercial you stumbled upon to make massive gains, reflect, instead, on the wise words of Sir Winston Churchill:

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

We want you to become the optimist. Find the successes in the failures. Find the possibilities in the difficulties. We want you to start looking at experiments the same way you did as a kid when you were trying to make lava flows out of food coloring, vinegar, and baking soda: getting your own hands dirty and having fun.

All you have to do…

…is try what you want, when you want, on your own. Never take our words as the truth above all other truths. Let yourself be the proof in the pudding.
We are all unique. Test conditions are highly controlled; life is not.

This is the origin of n=1. You are the test bed. You are the lab rat. The results are your own.

One of the most overlooked aspects of training for sport specific events (besides recovery) is mental preparation. Too often, I’ve seen a well-trained athlete fail to meet their performance expectations due to neglecting this training target.

When you embark on training for a marathon, triathlon or obstacle course race, every training checkbox has to be checked. Starting with a carefully laid out program accounting for your unique lifestyle is critical. Whether you’re competing just to finish or to stay healthy and fit, consistent training and recovery are key habits to create. After getting that down, most athletes stop there. They fail to look at the bigger picture.

Think about taking it one step further.

How does training for this event connect to your life? Who or what are you going to think about as the distance increases?

Recently, I addressed this mental dilemma with one of my long distance athletes. An “under-performance” in his first race of the season; a “low priority” race have you, we discovered that something needed to change. Headed into the weekend, he was beat down from a busy week of work and training that had not been his typical consistency. He showed up to the race late and had to rush the staging, barely being able to get his goggles set before the start of the swim. How do you think this story ends that day? Not so good, but still a PR.

Needless to say, we regrouped. After a lengthy coaching call and uncovering all aspects of the experience, I knew I could do better to prepare him mentally. I knew it was time to adjust his expectations … he knew it. Yet it wasn’t just the expectations, it was also his mindset entering the event. He had to dig a little deeper.

Performance is about mindset.

If you’re racing for just a PR, you’re not getting it. The first step in mental preparation is creating your mindset. Discovering the intrinsic motivation behind your training commitment and identifying it from the beginning becomes a make-or-break moment. Who or what are you racing for? How does this commitment make you a better human being?

 

Going out there because it’s something to check off your bucket list is going to leave you walking at the end of an Ironman event. What I’m suggesting is that you think deeper. What’s the point? You’re going to face your best self (hopefully not your worst) thirty-five miles into your fifty-mile ultra marathon, whether you like it or not. What are you going to call on? As your butt and legs are cramping at mile ninety of the Ironman bike leg, don’t you think you’ll need a mental boost?

How you approach training sessions matter.

Secondly, how you approach training sessions each day matters tremendously. You must stay positive and optimistic as you approach each day, develop rituals. Understand the performance goals for each workout are important, but they don’t dictate your mindset. Athletes who struggle seem to have high expectations of each and every performance. Never letting one bad day go. Unfortunately, approaching your training in this way leads to disappointment after disappointment. It’s your own fault. Train your mind to be positive. Look at each race as an experience. An experience you’ll probably never get again.

Personally, when I race these days, I think about the people who inspire me the most. Not just with my training, but those who push me to live a better life. The athletes I’m fortunate enough to coach and the exciting opportunities I have to keep growing professionally. What I know is, gratitude can cultivate the athlete’s mindset and our perception of everything matters. For me, the majority of my thoughts are cued to the people who are most important in my life. Like many of us endurance junkies, my wife has supported me at just about every endurance event. Waiting around on an Ironman course takes training in itself. These are the types of thoughts that keep me going, the deeper motivation to work my hardest. My best advice for you is to think about what truly matters as the distance gets greater and as your training progresses.

The results may surprise you.

Sharing this perspective with my athlete, he took some of my thoughts and executed at his last Olympic distance triathlon. Mind you this was his first Olympic distance, he finished in 2:45 blowing expectations on all three of his projected paces for each sport. His paces were almost faster than his first sprint, which is wild because the distance was almost double. Most likely this was a testament to his self-reflection. Where do you think his confidence is now?

What you can take from this is that your mindset matters. Create your mindset around the important things in your life. Apply it to game day and in your training sessions. When you begin to approach your workouts with positivity, you will dictate your own success.

Year after year, it seems like there is a new set of races to attend. No matter where you live nowadays, if you desire to hit a road race, it’s entirely attainable every weekend in the good weather months of the year. According to Running USA, growth in road running has been exponential since the 1990s and peaked in 2013. In 2014, Female athletes accounted for 10.7 million finishers nationwide and males represented over 8 million finishers. Overall, there were 18,750,000 finishers in the U.S. in 2014 down only 250K from 2013. With the rise in road races and hike in registration fees, it leaves athletes wondering where to prioritize. Not to mention the addition of obstacle course racing, relay races and trail running exploding in popularity.

My early running.

When I began running in my early twenties, fees didn’t matter. I had the desire to race every weekend, no matter the cost (body included). I was young, excited, and couldn’t get over the rush received from crushing the streets. Primarily a road specialist, I’ve now found myself (as an athlete) prioritizing quality events over the quantity. With shifts in my career and the opportunity to save money and time for my family, racing has become less important. The difficulty now is deciding which races deserve priority? How many do I need to race in order to keep that rush and enthusiasm?

Running for a cause.

As recreational athletes, we all race for different reasons, but as we evolve, it’s important to take a deep look at what races really matter and the events that correspond to your long game. Always looking at racing as a metaphor for life, I’ve carefully carved into the athlete I am today. A couple of years back, I did my first and my last 50 milers, all with the motivation of raising money for a little girl named Livia. Livia was born with Bronchomalacia, which is a collapsed bronchial tube, requiring Doctor’s to put in a trachea tube at birth.

She has lived with this condition her entire life, so the least I could do was start racing for something greater. Collectively, my friends and family raised over 5K, all with this little girl in mind and my willingness to tackle an Ultra run on less than twenty miles a week of training. Out of all my race experiences, it has truly been the most memorable, not because of the distance or result, but the purpose behind the event. It was certainly an event that can be added to my legacy.

Finding Inheritance of Hope

With my recent move to Brevard, North Carolina, I have stumbled across an amazing cause: the Inheritance of Hope. This has become more important to me as I continue to dive into its mission. Only hearing about this non-profit a month ago, I’ve learned that 1 in 20 children will lose a parent before turning 16. What an unimaginable circumstance for any family. Inheritance of Hope inspires hope in young families facing the loss of a parent and approaches achieving their mission by providing life-changing Legacy Retreats®, Legacy Scholarships, outstanding resources, and individual and group ongoing support.

Reflecting on my own life.

After learning their story in a 4 Minutes or Less episode, it pushed me to take a closer look at my relationships with my family. How much time am I truly devoting to my loved ones? Can the time be considered quality? I’ve instantly become connected to their vision. I’m excited to share that they will be leading their first half-marathon on April 30th. In conjunction with their already established 5K Legacy Run. This is certainly a race that will leave a legacy every year. And is a prime example of a race that fits with the fees as the road-racing scene grows greater.

Half-marathons are growing at an annual increase of 4% finishers (2.046 million, another new high) so it’s fantastic to see races popping up with deeper meaning in this market. As I mentioned, my racing career has switched away from solely being results driven or motivated by personal records. At the end of the day, I ask myself, why does it really matter if I finish first in my age group? Or achieve a PR? Yes, these are still important goals, but have an intention for pursuing them. Simultaneously, you can positively impact your community with how you approach racing. Too often we forget about that the memories and race experiences, the things that we’ll actually remember. Prioritize your legacy and how you impact the people around you.

Now, I’m no expert when it comes to the bridge between the neurological side of working out and the physical side, but I know that if the first thing that you’re doing when you enter the gym is grabbing a foam roller and laying down, you’re wrong.

Let’s talk about the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS). The PSNS is essentially the building block for relaxing activities such as sleeping, eating, and watching TV. To strengthen this system immediately prior to working out is counterintuitive and could be destructive in the long run.

Try this example.

I want you to put yourself in your dog’s shoes (I like dogs… A lot); If it’s time for a stroll through the park with your little pal, the first signal is usually asking the little guy or gal if they’re ready to go for a walk, right?

Now, I want you to imagine changing the routine. If every time you’re going to take little Fido for a stroll, you have him lay down on his bed prior to your adventure, do you think that he’s going to be as enthused to run free as he would if you psyched him up prior to the walk? The answer is no.

What I’m trying to get at is that if the first thing that you’re doing is laying down onto the floor to “mobilize” (you’re really just being lazy), you’re pretty much priming the body to react in a way that would form into a mindset of not wanting to be in the gym (i.e. laying down on your couch after a long day of work while dinner still needs to be made). Primarily, we want to strengthen our sympathetic nervous system (more action-required tasks) during our time in the gym, not our PSNS.

To be clear, I’m not saying to not mobilize upon your arrival in the gym… You need to. It’s good for you. It has to be done the right way.

“So, how do I prime my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system the right way?”

I’m glad you asked, it would be beneficial to do something that will stimulate the mind as well as the body upon the start of training. Have a plan. A blueprint, as well as a positive mindset, needs to be established before you walk through those doors. The mind is everything. If you’ve decided that you’re mobilizing before your dynamic warm up/workout, make sure to know exactly what you will be tackling and how you will be tackling it. Lying down and being passive on a foam roller probably isn’t the best way to tackle things.

So, the next time you walk into your wonderful affiliate or track, be excited (stay tuned for what to do on days when you’re having a hard time getting motivated about training). Be ready to attack the workout with unparalleled vigor and dedication. I promise it’ll pay off in the long run.

Happy training!