The BEST Breathing Exercise to Boost Performance From A 4X World Champion

Hey there, I'm Justin Goodhart from the Move smart podcast and wellroundedathlete.net and today I have an amazing piece of advice for you guys about how to improve your breathing to improve your performance. Filmed exclusively for you guys over here at Ben Greenfield Fitness. I think you're really going to love this. You're going to get a lot of practical value from it. Hope you enjoy. Alright, so last week I recorded a podcast episode with Stig Severinsson, who is a four time free diving world champion. He's the Guinness Book of World Record holder for breath holding. He's held his breath for nearly nine minutes, you know, just under normal circumstances and 22 minutes with oxygen saturation. So, you know, it may seem funny to talk about breathing tips from a guy who can hold his breath that long, but really to do that, to hold your breath that long, you have to understand breathing and the anatomy and the mind and body connection in a very, very deep way. So his number one tip for you, right? I talked to him directly, directly from him, the best breather and probably best breath holder in the entire world. His number one tip was first, building awareness of your breathing and second, do what he calls one, two breathing. So let's get into that in a practical way. You know, building that awareness. That's not trying to change your breath at all. That's maybe sitting, I would say, for one to two minutes, just sitting and observing your breathing. Just notice, you know, where do you, are you breathing through the nose or through the mouth? Are you breathing into the diaphragm? Are you breathing more with the shoulders? You know, they're going up and down. Just notice, build awareness, one to two minutes. The second piece is one, two breathing. And basically that's just having inhale through the nose and then breathing deep into the bottom of the lungs. You know, diaphragmatic breathing. So you're doing, basically inhale is half as long as the exhale. So you're doing the inhale right deep into the diaphragm through the nose, maybe takes three seconds or so. And then you're exhaling for five to six seconds and you're pausing slightly at the bottom of the exhale and you're just repeating that for, I would say again, 12 minutes. And that's on the low side of things. As you build skill in this exercise, I would maybe encourage more five, six, ten minutes. But those two things come from one of the best breathers, the best breath holders in the entire world. And I wanted to pass them on to you. Now, a couple of things worth noting here is that, you know, you will notice an immediate difference when you start this because, you know, the long exhale that actually emphasizes the kind of rest and digest portion of the nervous system, right? The parasympathetic nervous system that encourages more that calming and that relaxation and that focus. And so that's a big piece of why you're exhaling. But also another thing to consider is that just like strength training, if you went in, haven't worked out, or haven't trained in years, and you go into a session, you know, you may not notice a ton of results from that single session. It's more just like with anything else, it takes time. You build up full adaptations over time and you get this compounding effect where a single session may not make a ton of difference, but you add up those sessions over a month, three months, a year, you know, two years, five years, 10 years, whatever, and you have this compound effect where suddenly you are just orders of magnitude stronger, your orders of magnitude better at breathing, your orders of magnitude better at calming yourself. Just really, really observing your breath and bringing yourself down into that state of relaxation of rest and digest. That's the most important thing you can do for your breathing. Another thing to add is that you breathe probably more than any other thing in your entire life. Like every day, you breathe probably 24 to 27,000 times a day, right? And the body is the most sensitive to oxygen above all things. The organs are most sensitive to oxygen above all things. Really? Really, the brain as well. So the way you take in oxygen is your first form. It's the first resource that your body demands. It's what you're most sensitive to and it's what you do the most. It's really your first form of detoxification and it's your first form of nourishment to the body. So that is why breath holding and breath work. Breath awareness is so important. I want you to take this and just right now, spend one to two minutes being aware of your breathing, noticing how you're breathing. One to two minutes doing one, two, breathing. Inhale is half as long as the exhale in through the nose. Deep diaphragmatic breathing, three seconds in, five to six seconds out, let me know and really try to build this into your practice. Whether it's in the morning, whether it's post workout, whether it's before bed, those are all really great times to do this and try it out and add it in there. First build the habit, then build the capacity I'm a true believer in that. Alright, so that's it for today. I hope you found this useful. Be sure to apply it. I know it sounds simple, but it's extremely powerful. And be sure to keep an eye out for all the great stuff Ben has coming down the pipeline. If you want to connect with me, Wellroundedathlete.net is where you can find me. It's kind of my hub for all that I've got going on. Got a podcast, blog, I publish regular videos, all that good stuff. So thanks so much for watching. Keep building your practice. I'll see you next time.

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