👋 Hey. Welcome to issue #72 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter.
As of next week, these newsletters will be coming from a different email address. To make sure you keep getting them, add [email protected] to your contacts.
- Gmail: you can do it in 10 seconds here
- Outlook: Go to People > New Contact
Otherwise it will probably bounce or go to junk 
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (4.5 min read):
🏎️ Downshift recovery method
When we exercise, our working muscles need more oxygen.
So we start breathing harder.
And as a result, the body produces more carbon dioxide.
And when we’re really pushing it up, our working muscles need more oxygen than our breathing can deliver. And we go into what’s called an oxygen deficit.
So during repeat effort work or stop-start sports like rugby, we use the rest breaks to repay the oxygen deficit and recover. By:
- 🦵 Getting oxygen in (to fuel our working muscles)
- 🩸 Getting carbon dioxide out (to lower blood acid levels)
- 💓 Lowering the heart rate (to calm and focus the mind, energy system recovery, and optimal oxygen delivery)
This happens naturally.
But if we’re a little intentional about our breathing, we can recover faster.
XPT call it the downshift breathing method. Here it is...
Think about your cardio system as having 5 gears. 5 = max, 1 = cruise.
So if we’re in gear 5, we wanna downshift as fast as possible to 4, 3, 2, 1.
Here's how:
Gear 5: Fire breathing (1:1 Mouth)
- What to do: Inhale fast for one second through the mouth. Exhale fast for one second through the mouth. In-out-in-out-in-out.
- Why? It helps balance our gas levels (oxygen, carbon dioxide) fast. You probably only need to do a handful of these before you can go to gear 4.
Gear 4: Power breathing (2:1 Mouth)
- What to do: Still through the mouth, extend the inhale for two seconds. Exhale fast for one second.
- Why? The bigger inhales help get more oxygen in. Our fast exhales continue getting carbon dioxide out.
Gear 3 – Power breathing (2:1 Nose-Mouth)
- What to do: In the same power breathing pattern as gear 4, switch inhales from mouth to nose.
- Why? Nitric oxide builds up in our nasal cavity. So we can harness it when we inhale through the nose. Nitric oxide improves blood flow and oxygen delivery to our muscles.
Gear 2 – Recovery breathing (1:2 Nose-Mouth)
- What to do: Inhale through the nose for one second. Exhale through the mouth for two seconds.
- Why? By now our gas levels are balanced. We can help lower the heart rate by changing our breathing rhythm to focus on longer exhales. Exhaling activates our parasympathetic (rest and recovery) nervous system. So extending the exhale promotes recovery.
Gear 1 – Recovery breathing (1:2 Nose-Nose)
- What to do: In the same recovery breathing pattern as gear 2, switch exhales from mouth to nose.
- Why? It encourages us to slow our breathing further.
Depending how hard you’re working, jump into the appropriate gear and start to downshift.
If rest is short, you might not get into gear 1. But you’ll be more recovered than the opposition who aren’t downshifting.
Downshifting through the gears takes practice. A good place to start is by focusing on these 3 things:
- 🔥 Forcefully fire breathe for a few breaths
- 👃 Switch to the nose as soon as possible
- 🌬️ And then, start to extend your exhales
It's the kind of thing you'll feel an immediate difference with.
A competitive advantage that no one else is doing.
🤹♂️ Instagram page: @handeyebody
Humans didn’t evolve to run on a treadmill.
There's a time and place.
But for the everyday athlete, we need more play in our training.
Lots of ideas on the @handeyebody page.
Bit of fun before a session or in between sets. For the body and the brain.
😴 The hunter-gatherer sleep schedule
There’s a 2015 study that looked at the sleep patterns of some of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes – the Hadza of Tanzania, the San of Namibia, and the Tsimane of Bolivia.
(the researchers hooked them up with wearables)
Cut off from artificial light, screens and other distractions, these tribes probably sleep very similarly to what our ancestors did over 10,000 years ago.
Interestingly they found daylight didn’t dictate when they went to sleep. They generally went to bed about 3 hours after sunset.
Rather, sleep coincided with a drop in outside temperature (and therefore body temperature). No matter what season it was.
Blue line = body temp, Purple line = outside temp, Blue bars = sleep
That’s not to say darkness isn’t important. But it's only one ingredient.
A good reminder that the optimal sleep environment needs a combo of:
🧊 Cool + 🌑 Dark + 🤫 Quiet
Because if we nail our sleep environment, we get access to the most potent performance-enhancing drug on the planet... Good sleep.
That's it!
Have a great weekend 🤙
Matt
😃 Enjoying the newsletter? Got a mate who would too? Mind forwarding it on? It only takes a few seconds. Writing this one took more than a few hours. Plus when you do, I'll send you my Elite Sleep guide and you'll learn how to sleep like a pro (scroll down for more info).
📬 Did someone forward this to you? I send an email like it every week. Join free here.
👇 Thanks for trusting me with your time and attention. If it ever stops providing value, please unsubscribe below. No stress – it's not for everyone.
💬 Is there a specific topic you want to see in future issues? Got anything interesting to share? Hit reply and let me know.
Want more? Check out the Everday Athlete Toolbox
The Everyday Athlete Newsletter is not a licensed health service and is not a substitute for professional health advice, treatment or assessment. The information given in this email is general in nature, written for a specific audience. If you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional.
0 comments