How Athletes Boost Recovery by 46% With 5.5 Breaths Per Minute

Adam Ludwin [00:00:00]:
And clinically proven, you can speed up recovery by 46% by doing like down regulating breathing.

Nick Urban [00:00:04]:
So you’re listening to High Performance Longevity, the show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host, Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week we decode the tools, tactics and timeless principles to help you optimize your mind, body and performance span. Things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel and perform at your best across all of life’s domains. Adam, welcome to the podcast.

Adam Ludwin [00:00:57]:
Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Nick Urban [00:00:58]:
A mutual friend introduced us and he mentioned what you were working on. I saw the title of your platform, the name 5.5. What does that refer to and why is that significant?

Adam Ludwin [00:01:09]:
Yeah, so 5.5, I actually discovered it whilst reading the book Breathe by James Nestor. And he basically talks about the optimal breath for a human being somewhere between 4.5 seconds in, 4.5 seconds out, and 6.5 seconds in, 6.5 seconds out, and obviously averaging out to 5.5 seconds. But there’s more to it than that because it’s also 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out, but also 5.5 breaths per minute and 5.5 liters of air. So there’s this magic number of 5.5 has been floating around for a long time. That being said, that’s an average. Right. So some people’s optimal breath will be four and a half, and some people may be six or six and a half, but, uh, it’s kind of the magic number for ultimate breathing for a human.

Nick Urban [00:01:52]:
Okay. And so when you hit your what’s called resonant frequency breath rate, what happens? What’s going on inside your body that makes it a magic number?

Adam Ludwin [00:02:00]:
Yes. So I think from a physiological standpoint, obviously certain breathing techniques have different reactions to different people. But when you look at the key metric that you find when you hit that sweet spot is hrv, that’s kind of a really key indicator that you’re, you’re getting that resonance breathing pattern that is right for you. That being said, that also changes over time. Right. So we know that, you know, if you’re training for a marathon or you’re going to train in a certain way, your breath patterns also evolve. So it’s incredibly important from a biometric standpoint that Wherever tall people are using, which is why we’ve got biometrics in the app that we have, is to really measure not just where you are today, but also how you’re evolving over time and ensuring that ultimate breath pattern from balancing out your nervous system is working as it should. And that obviously has a whole host of benefits that I’m sure we’ll talk about in a lot of detail in this podcast.

Nick Urban [00:02:52]:
Yeah, so if I figured out my resonant frequency breath rate right now is say, average of 5.5 or 4 in, 6 out, and that changes over time. What do I do with that information? Like, how do I use that to actually make a change and how do I know if it’s a good change or a bad change?

Adam Ludwin [00:03:10]:
So I think there’s core biomarkers that everyone will monitor from our perspective, from an athletic perspective, a lot of people are focused on VO2 Max and HRV. There is obviously a benchmark. So not everyone has the same levels of these biomarkers. So over time, you’ll start to compare against your own benchmark. So if you’re having apps, be that Whoop or a Fitbit Garmin, the benchmark is obviously incredibly important because it’s obviously telling you where you were at and how you’re doing compared to that. And what we also find is, you know, people do try and compare each other and it’s just a dangerous game because, you know, we are all different, but you will start to see so many different effects as you kind of evolve in that journey. So let’s take, for example, hrv. You know, that obviously has multiple benefits from a body perspective, a mind perspective, a sleep perspective.

Adam Ludwin [00:04:01]:
So you can start to measure the sub metrics from all those. When you start to go into measuring deep sleep versus REM versus other forms of sleep. So wherever you’re starting, you can go deeper and deeper and get kind of a better understanding of how much data you want. And I think these wearables that exist, they’re not short of data. Right. You can go into a real rabbit hole and some people just like the top line data and they’ll focus on HRV VO2 max. And some people really want to get under the hood. So if you’re looking at hrv, there are multiple data points that fall under hrv, where we often look at rmssd, which is a really good indicator from a mind perspective what’s going on at sdnn, which also is used for a mind and body perspective.

Adam Ludwin [00:04:44]:
So these sub biomarkers, which a lot of wearables give you, but maybe the frequency isn’t as often as it should be. That’s really insightful if you want to get a level deeper as well into some of those metrics.

Nick Urban [00:04:57]:
Interesting. There’s also one called, I think it’s a coefficient of variants of HRV which is more resistant to like heart rate changes because I think it’s as your heart rate increases or increases, your HRV also increases. And so there’s more research around the code, the CV of HRV as it’s abbreviated for performance and other things. Maybe you’ve seen that.

Adam Ludwin [00:05:20]:
Yeah, well, there’s multiple types of hrv. Right. So there’s the short term hrv, long term hrv, standard hrv. And you know, if you’re, if you’ve gone for a run, you see your hrv, it’s not going to look like what it’s going to look in the morning, but actually when you look at following morning, that’s actually when you’re seeing the benefits of it. So yeah, so it’s again, knowing kind of your routine, knowing how you’re working out, knowing when you’re looking at them and not expecting kind of like to see certain results after a certain activity is one thing, but understanding which level of HRV you’re actually looking at is another thing.

Nick Urban [00:05:51]:
Because HIV is also one of those metrics where it can be really helpful. And I’ve been talking a lot about nervous system regulation on the podcast and it’s really like the core of like behavior change and of health. If you have a disregulated nervous system, things that are, quote, otherwise healthy are going to actually not work in your favor. They can work against you. And so knowing your nervous system status is great. But then if you’re working out frequently, you might notice your HRV declines. And it’s really about like the bigger picture rather than just like a 24 hour cycle. Is it high today, low tomorrow? It’s like that’ll be very, that’ll fluctuate a lot depending on what you’re doing.

Nick Urban [00:06:25]:
So it’s like understanding the trends and like you don’t want to see your HRV constantly low because you’re working out super hard. That might also be a negative thing sign. So you want to see like a good and.

Adam Ludwin [00:06:35]:
And that’s why we actually bought heart rate monitoring in the app as well because that’s a really good sign of where you’re leveling out from your nervous system perspective in the actual session live versus just trying to kind of give you kind of live hrv, which obviously, as you say, it becomes meaningless and can be distracting. Right. So, but if you’re, if you’re, if you have a deeper level on heart rate, you can start to understand where you’re at in terms of the activation of your parasympathetic versus obviously kind of other forms. And this kind of sympathetic versus parasympathetic is a really good gauge to understand where you’re actually at from a future HRV perspective as well. So heart rate is obviously an indicator for future HRV as well. So if you can really understand your heart rate better, you can also start to understand, you know, some of the other benefits you’ll get from building your HRV over time and, you know, increasing your, your, your benchmark as well.

Nick Urban [00:07:27]:
Do you think people are aware, like consciously aware? Okay, I’m feeling more stressed right now, and therefore I probably have a lower hrv. Or is it one of those things where it’s like, it kind of flies under the radar unless you’re specifically trained on how to spot signs of low hrv?

Adam Ludwin [00:07:44]:
Good question. I’m biased, right? Because I’m so aware of like breathing and the effects that it has in any moment. Yeah, so. So, you know, for me personally, I can only speak for me personally, but, you know, I’m, I’m, you know, very aware of what’s happening from a heart rate perspective, be that working out or chilling out and you know, giving, using obviously 5.5 as a tool to make sure it puts me into kind of a better state, which obviously overall will kind of help HRV in the long term. So, yeah, I’m biased. It’s hard to say. But, you know, what I do know is clearly there is so much more education out there and this is where the wearables have done such a great job to really give people as much data as they want and also to really simplify that data. So obviously you look at recovery scores or whatever you’re measuring that’s really informative to people because it gets rid of the jargon and that just understands exactly where you’re at at any moment in time, and that’s super valuable versus, you know, let’s face it, right? Most people don’t even know what HRV is.

Adam Ludwin [00:08:45]:
So if you just threw that up on the screen, you’re going to put a lot of people off. So, you know, I think the accessibility now and, you know, how to kind of comprehend that simply is a really good thing. And then people can really kind of go in their paths and understand more about you know, in those moments, what’s happening and how is HRB being affected? So to answer your question, there’s definitely this heightened awareness, but it’s of a certain type of audience who are more. More wearable, focus more tracking their everyday life. You know, when they wake up in the morning, they check their sleep at night to see how they’ve done. When they’ve done a workout, they check their stats, see how they performed. And they are obviously kind of very clued up in all this because of the data that’s available now.

Nick Urban [00:09:26]:
Well, with your platform, that makes me wonder, have you seen any trends? Because since you’re aggregating data, are you seeing that, like, people increase their HIV by 10% on average after a session, or they lower their resting heart rate or anything like, of course it’s going to differ depending on the type of breath work they’re doing specifically. But are there any things, like when they do restorative breath work, you’re seeing this or that effect.

Adam Ludwin [00:09:48]:
We see. So what. We kind of use our data to kind of inform our audience on how much you do and how often. So we see a direct effect on HIV and other markers when people are doing things frequently. So we recommend five times a week for five minutes a day. And that’s where we’ve really kind of seen, like, a good effect. So we obviously push towards that because we want everyone to get the most out of it in terms of other metrics. So the way that it works for us is in the app.

Adam Ludwin [00:10:16]:
We also have tried to simplify it for our audience. So we have a mind, body and sleep score. So the whole point is, you know, whenever wearable and they tell you HRP has gone down, you don’t know why, and you don’t know what to do about it. So in our lab, where you kind of come in, you’ll see your sleep score has gone down, or your mind score’s gone down, or your body score has gone down. But these are my classes you can do to get that, backup body classes you can do to get that, backup sleep classes to get that back up. And so we want to make sure. We’re obviously tailoring our recommendations of what you should be doing based off those scores in our app as well.

Nick Urban [00:10:47]:
Yeah, it’d be cool to see for each of the different goals, like, okay, here’s where you started. Your average sleep score, your average recovery score, whatever it is. And then after two weeks of five minutes, five, five times per week for five minutes a session, here’s where you are now and so you can actually see like, okay, this is what impact it has because otherwise it’s like, I think it made me feel better, less stressed, more concentrated. But I’m not sure. It could be placebo.

Adam Ludwin [00:11:12]:
Yeah, 100%. And you know, this is why wellness in general shouldn’t just be a feeling anymore. Right. You know, we’re past that. You know, we should be getting data, we should understand what effect did that actually have on me and versus this other breath work or something I did, what effect did that have for me? Let’s measure it, let’s compare and then, you know, see what, what the best kind of route is forward for, for every individual. Because again, yeah, we all have, you know, different, different lung capacity, different environments, different breathing styles, different pressures, different stresses, you know, different lives. And so it’s not a one size fits all. And that’s where, you know, for, for us, we see the whole industry moving to hyper personalization.

Adam Ludwin [00:11:50]:
How can you ensure in any moment in time you are doing the optimal breath for you in that moment? And that’s something obviously where the biometrics kind of coming through is incredibly valuable for us because then we can tailor our content to ensure that you are doing the best and most impactful class at any moment.

Nick Urban [00:12:08]:
So what devices do you guys currently support? Because I primarily rely on an ultra human ring and I don’t think you support ultra human yet.

Adam Ludwin [00:12:16]:
And so there’s two parts of that. So you’ve got our heart rate tracker which is like live in our app and that also gives you AI coach feedback and that’s integratable with all wearables that have Bluetooth or Apple Watch. So the only major one we don’t work with is aura right now from a Mind, body and sleep score that’s slightly different. That’s the kind of a beta feature that we’ve got in the app at the moment that’s only integrating with Apple Watch right now whilst we’re in beta. But we’re obviously going to be building that out. But we are working on some really exciting features that allow. We found that a lot of our users were, you know, they were doing sessions, they were going into, you know, their apps that were kind of tracking and trying to kind of piece it all together. And we just want to kind of make sure that’s seamless.

Adam Ludwin [00:13:04]:
Right. So you can see this is what we did, this is the effect it had and that we want to do for all wearables. To be honest, some wearables are harder to work with than Others. So, so we, you know, we are kind of at the mercy of some of the conversations that we’re having in terms of partnerships. But a lot of them now kind of make kind of integrations more accessible. So hence why we can kind of work with a lot of them on kind of a Bluetooth basis when it comes to heart rate tracking.

Nick Urban [00:13:30]:
Nice. Well, I didn’t realize that part, so I’m going to have to go in and try setting that up myself to see how it works.

Adam Ludwin [00:13:34]:
I should have told you to take.

Nick Urban [00:13:35]:
That out a minute ago. You were mentioning the role of breathing on different facets of performance. One of those being a very hot topic these days called VO2 max. Will you break down what VO2 max is and if breath work can have any impact on it?

Adam Ludwin [00:13:53]:
Yes. Yeah. So VO2 Max, it’s the Max amount of oxygen you can utilize when you’re doing a high performing task that could be, you know, running or really kind of stressing your body. We find that from a VO2 max perspective, there’s certain, certain types of breath work techniques that have been clinically proven to have a better effect than others. That being said, we also are aware that this kind of VO2 max is kind of quite well rounded from mind, body and sleep perspective. But if you look at the studies, what we kind of have found, and it’s. If you look at athletes to start, we find that when you have athletes that are training for a tournament, you know, what do they do? They go to high altitude training camps. Why? Because there’s less oxygen than the air.

Adam Ludwin [00:14:43]:
And what happens in that moment is they’re training to build up their carbon dioxide tolerance, which basically helps with red blood cell production and transportation of oxygen around the body through hemoglobin. Now that’s a really important thing that they’re getting there because they’re training their body to do more with less. So when they come down to call it kind of a fair altitude, they’re going to have a lot more available to them to work with because their body is just used to kind of producing more to kind of help them. So a lot of the stuff that kind of we’re seeing from VO2 max perspective is some of this carbon dioxide tolerance training. Now that is replicable without having to go to Kenya and training at high altitude. So that is, you know, a lot of like nose breathing techniques when you’re kind of doing kind of a high intensity classes or breath holding, certain type of breath holding when you’re doing high intensity. And so you can train that and simulate that at kind of your gym, on a treadmill, or when you’re just going for a run. We also find that a lot of kind of VO2 max comes from how well your body is utilizing oxygen.

Adam Ludwin [00:15:45]:
And, and that comes down to how well your body is kind of working to kind of from breathing muscle perspective to, to push more, easier oxygen transportation of oxygen around your body. So a lot of the stuff we do is also kind of diaphragm activation because that’s your core breathing muscle. So if you’ve got a really good diaphragm activation, you will also see a direct correlation VO2 max. Then you’ve got another side of it as well, which is around lung capacity. So there’s a lot of exercises that we do in the app as well, which is building your lung capacity so you can essentially have kind of bigger breaths. And there’s these tiny air sats called alveoli in your lungs. And when you’re kind of doing full breaths in, full breaths out, you’re waking up that, so you’re utilizing more of that lung capacity as well. But on the other side, you can also physically grow your lung capacity when you’re doing these exercises, which is why, you know, you have free divers that do a lot of these types of exercises, for example.

Adam Ludwin [00:16:43]:
So when you kind of combine all that together, you start to see kind of some of the, some of the tricks to kind of getting, you know, BO2 max in a certain direction. And that obviously comes with the other side of it, which is, you know, are you sleeping well? Are you getting good restorative sleep? And all these different aspects which obviously have kind of contributions. But when you look at a pilot study that was done by Patrick McKeown, who is our lead advisor and one of the, one of the top functional breathwork experts in the world, they saw that with, and this is with actual athletes, they saw a 8 to 11% increase in VO2 max in a 4 to 6 week period when doing these types of exercises. So we’ve tried to package it all up, put that in the app and obviously give that to the masses for your everyday athletes as well.

Nick Urban [00:17:30]:
That’s significant from only doing this like not even increasing training load or doing like typical VO2 max style training.

Adam Ludwin [00:17:37]:
Yes. So they stack on top of their existing athletic routine.

Nick Urban [00:17:42]:
Are there any diagnostics people can do at home to figure out, okay, what is my lung capacity? Perhaps how Easy is a 30 second breath hold or 1 minute breath hold or then also on the other side to gauge the function and health and strength of the diaphragm.

Adam Ludwin [00:17:58]:
Yeah, good question. So there’s something called the Bolt score test. It has its limitations, but it’s a body oxygen level test and essentially it is allowing you to benchmark yourself as to where you’re at on a certain scale. So the idea is that you breathe in, breathe out normally, and on the exhale you hold your breath and you count the seconds to the first kind of activation of the diaphragm when you first feel that, that kind of a diaphragm contracting the urge to breathe. But you can’t push yourself otherwise you’re kind of cheating. So there is. And that’s why it has its flaws, right? Because people push themselves and you shouldn’t. So that you can do your breath work and do your exercise routines and then use that as kind of some kind of metric on that side, uh.

Nick Urban [00:18:46]:
Which was what’s a good score there? So if, if you exhale all the way, then you hold your breath, you get that really uncomfortable urge to breathe. What kind of time elapse should be, should there be between the exhale and the first urge? That’s considered good. And then, yeah, will be considered great.

Adam Ludwin [00:19:03]:
If, if you are, if you are at the kind of 40 plus, you’re in a good spot in general. Okay. And, and again, it’s really important that, that you don’t. It’s not like you take a big breath in, a big breath out, because obviously that, that is kind of manipulating the process as well. It’s just having a couple of like easy breaths in, easy breath out as you would breathe normally and then doing it. And that’s how you kind of get kind of a good, a good, or should I say a true score. So, so that, that, that’s really helpful. And then.

Adam Ludwin [00:19:30]:
Sorry, the second part of your question, what was?

Nick Urban [00:19:33]:
Well, first, first on that, it’s like the purpose of this isn’t to compare scores with friends necessarily. It’s to do, get a baseline, then to implement some kind of practice that you’re seeking to improve your score and then remeasuring it. And if you cheat and if you make, if you go way past the first urge to breathe, you’re only really cheating yourself. So it doesn’t really make any sense to do that, even though it can be tempting. And then the second part of that, that’s the diaphragm, then also the like lung capacity.

Adam Ludwin [00:20:03]:
Yeah, so you mentioned about the specific diaphragm as well. And it’s really hard to even know if people are utilizing their diaphragm. Because diet, your diaphragm is like hidden under part of your rib cage. Right. So a lot of people think when they’re belly breathing that’s how they should be breathing. But the best way that I’ve kind of found to really see if you’re activating a diaphragm effectively is having your hands on the bottom sides of your ribs and then ensuring that your ribs, your kind of ribs are kind of going outwards rather than like as in hours to the side of filling up your hands on the side versus trying to kind of fill up your belly. Now there is quite a lot of exercises you can do, but what you find people like, you know, Steph Curry and people do is straight away when they’ve done a workout, they’ll lay down flat and they’ll put a weight on their diaphragm. And that basically allows you to start training your diaphragm because you’re kind of waking it up to make sure you’re moving that weight.

Adam Ludwin [00:21:04]:
And at the same time it’s also kind of activating, you know, your parasympathetic by you’re allowing you to kind of slow down that moment. So that’s kind of something that you know, I’ve kind of utilized before as well. And you see a lot of athletes do just to ensure that they’re forcing their, their, their diaphragm to, to be activated.

Nick Urban [00:21:21]:
I’ve also read in some research that women have a greater cortisol response than men from training and stressors and it takes them longer to metabolize to break down cortisol. And so it seems to me that like post workout, of course it’s beneficial for everyone to bring your stress hormones back down, but this kind of thing would be especially beneficial for women for that reason.

Adam Ludwin [00:21:41]:
Yeah, so I, I can’t say it’s an area that I’ve studied but, but there is this, this correlation also with your menstrual cycles and how females will be breathing any kind of certain instance, instance and menopause as well, you know, that does affect kind of breathing and the type of breath, what you should do. So unfortunately, you know, females do have a lot more nuances involved when it comes to breathing and certain kind of hormones that are activated, you know, such as cortisol. So yeah, it’s not something that, you know, I’m kind of over familiar with. But what we are trying to do is really understand the nuances from a biometric perspective when it comes to females versus males. So that again, everyone as an individual can ensure they’re doing the breath that’s right for them. Because you know, especially if that changes over a month period as well, you know.

Nick Urban [00:22:28]:
Are you finding that athletes, when they use your platform tend to gravitate towards the energizing performance, sympathetic activating types of training styles where it tends to be longer inhales, shorter exhales versus the calming restorative practices which are shorter inhales and longer exhales?

Adam Ludwin [00:22:49]:
It’s a bit of both. So you’ve got two parts of it. You’ve got your pre workout which is, you know, your carbon dioxide tolerance training. So that’s kind of very big for the athletes in our platform. But the other side is recovery. So you know, every athlete should be kind of doing certain breathing techniques to recover faster. Right. And clinically proven you can speed up recovery by 46% by doing like downregulating breathing.

Adam Ludwin [00:23:10]:
So for those that are less familiar, downregulating would be just slower breathing or exhaling for longer than you’re inhaling. So that’s kind of a really important factor that people do do if they are kind of. Well actually I actually just listen to an interview, interview I’ll customers on a daily basis. And one of the interviews we just listened to before this call was he was actually the, the number one triathlete in the US for his age group last year. And you know, he mainly uses the app for recovery. He does kind of his, his ice baths and saunas and then he kind of uses, he uses the breath work so that specifically he finds kind of really helpful for him. But you know, others kind of, we see a kind of a real mix of everything. And I think when you’re at that level as well and you’re, you know, professional athlete, you are a lot more in touch of what you need at any moment.

Adam Ludwin [00:24:01]:
So yes, they kind of are, you know, kind of habit stacking very effectively, but they also are aware of when they need kind of a certain type of breath away technique such as, you know, being more focused, let’s say they’re doing something competitive or let’s say they’re just not in the right frame of mind, then they might do a mind class to be more focused in order to get the best out of their performance as well. So yeah, they had that awareness which obviously not everyone has, but it’s helpful. So I’d say kind of the main things that they’re using is the performance builders which is the carbon dioxide tolerance as well as kind of recovery Classes, which we call cooldowns. At the same time, they take their sleep very seriously. So you know that they know that to have certain types of sleep is good for restorative sleep and ensuring that they can push hard the following day. So we do see a lot of kind of sleep going hand in hand with those performance builders because they’re aware of when they’re working out and when they need to downregulate and when they need to get more restorative sleep.

Nick Urban [00:25:01]:
Yeah, I mean, all the restoration occurs during sleep or a very deep meditation. But aside from those two times, there’s not much restoration that goes on during the day. And even then, athletes that are professionals tend to prioritize recovery way above what most people would think they do. The general consensus or the misperception is that athletes just train harder and they push themselves harder, and that’s why they’re so much more successful. And there’s a definitely an element of, yes, they work hard, but then also the dedication they put into recovery is one of the things that really sets them apart from the rest of the population, 100%.

Adam Ludwin [00:25:39]:
I actually think recovery is going to be the theme of 2025 for the remainder of 2025. I’ve seen this really come up a lot. And we are seeing this more and more where people just really want that recovery tool. And there is this direct correlation that they’ve done the maths. Right. They’ve seen the data. When you have kind of a certain level of recovery or when you speed up your recovery, your performance is better. Right.

Adam Ludwin [00:26:01]:
So the faster you can speed up your recovery, then obviously HRV also benefits as well and all the other kind of metrics that are important to them. So, yeah, that is crucial point. I’m pleased you mentioned it because it is a. A trend that we’re seeing go pretty quickly in that direction. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:26:16]:
And that was part of my foray into this world of performance. It’s like I realized that I was pushing myself harder. And the harder I push myself just to maintain, the more I would need to focus on recovery and build up my recovery. And if I actually like really focus on recovery, then I’d have more like reserves for the times that I need them. And if I need a recovery from an injury or just from like a really grueling workout, I’m not going to be putting myself in harm’s way.

Adam Ludwin [00:26:42]:
Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree.

Nick Urban [00:26:45]:
You mentioned CO2 tolerance several times. What is the role of carbon dioxide in all of this? I think people have heard it as described as an evil gas or a waste product. Why would you want to work on tolerance of it?

Adam Ludwin [00:26:59]:
So it’s really interesting because if you ask someone the reason why they breathe, they’ll say we need more oxygen. And it’s actually not true. Right, so, so the urge to breathe comes from your carbon dioxide tolerance. Our cells have, you know, 97, 98 oxygen in them. Even if kind of you’ve done exercise, you know, that’s not changing much. So the urge to breathe comes from your carbon dioxide tolerance. So really important that if we kind of train that, you know, certain like breath holding techniques and other forms, it really helps you, you ensure that your, your, your resting heart rate can decrease. You can kind of start to get all the benefits that you get from just breathing slower and you know, towards that, you know, 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out in everyday life, which is obviously near on impossible, but, but it’s just good to ensure that we are slowing our breaths in everyday lives.

Adam Ludwin [00:27:47]:
So yeah, there, there is this kind of view of like carbon dioxide, nitric oxide as well. It had the same view. But these are very powerful things, you know, that are incredibly important for performance. Specifically that people do need to understand a bit better in order to make sure that, you know, they are, you know, being attracted by, you know, the right words rather than kind of put off by the wrong words.

Nick Urban [00:28:12]:
Yeah, there’s actually a whole trend around carbon dioxide these days. At the recent biohacking conference I was at, there was a company at the Health Optimization Summit here in Austin also that has a carbon dioxide therapy system where you actually inhale. I think it’s about 2 to 6 or 7% carbon dioxide air and normal air enriched with that. And it’s another way of training carbon dioxide tolerance. And when you do that, you get vasodilation and you get a lot of different benefits that help with training. And MMA and martial artists use this kind of therapy to enhance their performance. Even though it’s like not widely recognized yet, there’s some interesting data around like the long term effect of increasing carbon dioxide tolerance.

Adam Ludwin [00:29:04]:
Yeah, that’s super interesting. And you know, I think this is, this is the same with, you know, altitude training of kind of, you know, wearing masks when you’re running and all these things and altitude chambers that a lot of people use. It’s all kind of very similar in kind of, you know, the effects that you’re getting. I think, you know, the question is, can you benefit more from those and kind of just holding your breath for longer, for example? I Don’t know enough about it. But, but, but, you know, you’re obviously kind of. The carbon dioxide tolerance will be getting to a certain point, whether or not you’re kind of using certain tools or not. But how much can you push? That is obviously important. There is obviously this other side which is, you know, people do push too hard and that’s also could be quite dangerous.

Adam Ludwin [00:29:42]:
So, you know, you literally have Olympians that faint right when they kind of really push too hard. And so really important that if you are doing these types of exercises, you’re aware you’re guided, be that kind of from coaches or again, like using an app like ours to ensure that you’re not pushing too hard, that, you know, you’re, you’re. And you’re getting that level of comfort. And I think people be surprised as well that you can build this really quickly. Like, really quickly. I do five minutes every morning. Um, and you know, I would say I’m probably fitter than most of my friends that run for like 30 to 60 minutes, like three, four times a week, you know, so. So you can build it, you build it really quickly and you know, so don’t just rush to try and get there.

Adam Ludwin [00:30:24]:
But you’ll see just like any, you know, muscle building you see, you see gains pretty quickly. So, yeah, just something time to be aware of when people do start for.

Nick Urban [00:30:32]:
The first time and to build this ability. Specifically, it comes down to like doing a breath work practice that you get to the edge of the air hunger, where it’s like you feel the need to breathe.

Adam Ludwin [00:30:45]:
Yeah, we say like moderate. Yeah, moderate air hunger. Because you bear in mind there’s many factors that will distinguish how fast you’re building up. Like, how fast are you going, Are you walking up a hill? And all these types of things you need to consider. So it’s not, you know, you have to use your own judgment as well because, you know, your body versus trying to be led by, you know, kind of where you’re at and what environment you’re in in that moment.

Nick Urban [00:31:08]:
Yeah, you’re not going to get this from just doing like a really simple, let’s say four, four, four box breathing, where you’re inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for four. You have to actually, like, push yourself a little to where it gets uncomfortable.

Adam Ludwin [00:31:21]:
Yeah. That being said, like, you know, we do have those types of techniques in like, these types of classes as well, which is also really hard because if you think you’re. You’re breathing in for four in that example, and not breathing, you know, 4, 8, 12. So. So, you know, that is still a good ratio of not breathing that you will get like a fair amount of common Dr. Tolerance training. But at the same time, yeah, there’s kind of different ways that you can do that. What we do find as well is, you know, a lot of it depends on the zone that you’re in.

Adam Ludwin [00:31:47]:
You know, zone two versus zone five. You obviously have a very different tolerance for how far you can go. So if you’re doing a zone two training, then, you know, really want to focus on your nose breathing only versus zone five. You know, it’s going to be very hard for you to maintain nose breathing throughout zone five right when you’re pushing that hard. So it also depends kind of where you’re training, what you’re trying to get out of. But what you’ll find is by doing these exercises, you also be obviously adapting your heart rate because of that. Let’s say, take hold, for example, when you’re doing a hold, you’ll see your heart rate decrease, which obviously keeps you within like a certain zone. So you’re able to expand the zone more in order to get the most benefits out of like a zone 2, in that example than what you would do otherwise as well.

Adam Ludwin [00:32:34]:
So we’re doing some testing on this at the moment, which is pretty exciting. But there hasn’t really been much studies that look at breathwork for zone training. But there’s just a very direct link to it that makes total sense. And one of our advisors, Dr. J. Wiles, he trains many of the world’s top athletes. And you know, he’s kind of very looking at this very closely with us as well to see kind of how can we really kind of bring in these elements to ensure that, you know, these types of athletes or, you know, everyday athletes can get the most out of that type of training.

Nick Urban [00:33:03]:
Yeah, that’s something I implemented myself about, about 10 years ago. When I was training. I would eventually I stopped breathing through my mouth entirely. Even as I was like building up. I would start off like just trying to breathe through my nose in zone one, like the easiest efforts, and then eventually through zone two. And then I kept building into the point where now I can do sprints. And granted it can’t be 30 second, 45 second sprints, but like 20 second, 25 seconds, I can still breathe through my nose entirely. And it’s difficult, but it feels like it’s a good challenge.

Nick Urban [00:33:39]:
And I’m sure it’s building something internally and there’s someone Else who popularized this concept that when you’re able to keep breathing through your nose, you’re able to keep some energy, some sympathetic activation in the tank, so that when you need to use it for a burst, say, in sports, to go the extra 20 yards or whatever, then you’re able to activate it there. But once you activate, you go into sympathetic. You deplete your energy reserves a lot faster than you do if you’re able to maintain some level of parasympathetic activation even while exercising.

Adam Ludwin [00:34:14]:
Yeah, we’ve heard and seen the same from studies that we’ve looked at as well. It’s like, it’s used as, like, you know, that secret booster, which you’re at a good level. Yeah, that’s really good to be at that stage. And I’m not surprised it’s taking you a while to get there. But that’s like the holy grail where people should be aspiring to get to.

Nick Urban [00:34:32]:
Yeah. And it’s like a simple thing to start. Like, you, in your next workout, try and breathe through your nose when possible. You need to open your mouth and breathe through that. It’s fine. I see people like, taping their mouth closed with, like, actual physical tape. And that might work, but, like, I don’t see. You don’t really need to do that if you’re just, like, aware of the fact that you’re breathing through your nose.

Nick Urban [00:34:51]:
And then, like, I don’t know if it’s safe, but it seems like if you need to, you could always rip the tape off. But that’s something I’ve seen people doing at the gym also.

Adam Ludwin [00:34:59]:
Yeah, yeah, we’ve seen it. And again, at least you do do that. I agree with you. I think if you’re aware enough, you know, you should be able to, you know, control that. But, you know. Yeah, sometimes it could be kind of psychological for them as well. Right. So get those benefits.

Adam Ludwin [00:35:16]:
But yeah, we haven’t spoken about mouth taping at night because obviously. Yeah, that obviously leads, you know, hand in hand to being able to do some of what you’re doing as well. Just kind of getting yourself in that rhythm at nighttime of just breathing through the nose so that in the day kind of, it becomes like a second nature as well, which, you know, we often see. That’s kind of a hugely influential as well, in how fast people can progress as well.

Nick Urban [00:35:40]:
Yeah. And that’s something that I been doing since I read. I think it was breathe way back when also of mouth taping. Very long time at this point. And there’s also A misconception that you need to actually like physically tape over your entire mouth. So not like no air at all can get through. But a lot of the benefit comes from like physically manipulating the airway, opening the airway and changing the like alignment of the mouth and jaw and everything. And so I found that these days when I do it, I just use a little strip of vertical tape instead of horizontal going across the entire mouth and it works fine.

Nick Urban [00:36:12]:
And if I need to in an emergency, I have like a stuffy nose or something. I can still breathe through my mouth if I need to, but like it’s a reminder. And also it really reduces my propensity to breathe through my mouth.

Adam Ludwin [00:36:27]:
Yeah, totally. I similar you just kind of a micropore tape and just, just you know, like a little kind of a slot in the middle which, which, which works incredibly well. I’m actually now debating to give that to my children or not. And my son’s turned seven. He asked me all the time to, to start to mouth tape at night. And obviously there was a lot of benefits that come from bringing this in at a young age, right from a facial structure, from a dental structure, but more importantly from a kind of a, a immunity perspective as well and ensuring that your children are learning how to breathe effectively, to manage kind of future kind of stress and building up their stress tolerances. But what’s amazing is kind of the physical changes that can happen from a mouth breathing at a young age versus nose breathing at a young age. And again, this has all been kind of well documented, but something that, you know, I’m now at this time, I was always kind of waiting for the right moment.

Adam Ludwin [00:37:27]:
It feels like now, now he’s seven, I think kind of he’s ready for it. But I think it’s also important that, you know, there are different mouth tapes out there that you can do where like, so Patrick McKeown, our advisor, so he’s released one called Myotape, which is kind of a child friendly one. So actually tapes around the mouth so it looks a bit weird but, but it kind of closes the mouth. So they can still open the mouth if you need to. And they’ve got adult versions as well. I don’t use that, but I think for my son that’s probably what I would use just to kind of get him going and get him more familiar.

Nick Urban [00:37:56]:
Okay, yeah, you mentioned several things there. You mentioned that it impacts facial structure and immunity. Let’s go into that because I think people might have heard how this can influence stress. Now perhaps performance, what Are the other things that fixing breathing can do?

Adam Ludwin [00:38:14]:
Yes. So if we kind of look at, and as you mentioned, your autonomic nervous system, so your sympathetic versus your parasympathetic. Now we know that a little stress, a little sympathetic activation isn’t a bad thing, but it only isn’t a bad thing if you know how to downregulate and get to that parasympathetic state. So that’s kind of incredibly important for people to remember. First, it’s not about always being in parasympathetic. It’s the balance of everything. Now, by having that, that variability between them and being able to activate your parasympathetic, that obviously gives you a whole host of benefits from the effects of what otherwise, if you’re living in a state of stress and anxiety would cause in your body and the, the chronic stress conditions that come off the back of that. And there are many, many, many that come off the back of it.

Adam Ludwin [00:39:04]:
So if you know from a young age how to control that, because your body doesn’t know if you’re stressed out, your body doesn’t know if it’s kind of living something or you’re thinking something, right? You’re just acting in a certain way. So really important that to be aware of that and you’re breathing a certain way. You’re not getting the physiological damage that comes from a stressed body. So you can still have kind of thoughts and all those things, but you’re not, you’re not, you’re telling your body it’s okay, you know, to, to breathe, you’re safe, and all these things that just allow you to, you know, not get those negative effects. So that obviously kind of goes into the world of immunity, which there’s a whole host of things that’s just one aspect. Then you’ve got the other aspect, which is, you know, how activating your sympathetic could fight off, you know, certain viruses and, and conditions. And this is where things like Wim Hof come into it, where I’m sure everyone’s very familiar with Wim Hof, but you know, how, you know, when he got injected with E. Coli and you know, and was, you know, done his breath work techniques and kind of got rid of it and they thought he was a medical phenomenon.

Adam Ludwin [00:40:10]:
And then he was like, not at all. Let me train like another dozen people on how to do what I did and I’ll show you exactly the same thing. And all of them obviously kind of repelled these E. Coli in that instance. But of many other things, they tested against as well. So. So breath work can be used for different things. And so essentially, if you’re using it as a tool to balance your autonomic.

Adam Ludwin [00:40:29]:
Autonomic nervous system to be more balanced and more, you know, so less affected by stress, that is one thing. But also if you. Andrew Huberman talks about this as well, where if he has a cold coming on or not feeling quite right, he’ll do certain breathing techniques that activate the sympathetic to get your body to kind of fight it off. And then you’ve got other forms as well, which is just kind of the efficiency of breathing. So, you know, lung capacity, for example, is. And just respiratory efficiency. And that comes from, you know, your diaphragm as well. How well are you breathing? And that obviously has a whole host of benefits from an immunity perspective.

Adam Ludwin [00:41:05]:
So, yeah, there is a lot of. Lot of stuff that. That, you know, comes from the benefits of breathing a certain way. But also knowing how to breathe in a certain instance is obviously beneficial as well. But it, for the beginner, if. If that’s kind of what they’re looking for, it’s more about the awareness of how are you breathing at any moment in time? Are you breathing through the nose versus the mouth? Are you breathing from a diaphragm versus upper chest? Are you breathing short, shallow, or, you know, long, kind of slow, deep breath? So that awareness is always the first thing just to kind of make sure that people know of. And if they know that, then that’s kind of the step one of kind of getting to a healthier version of themselves.

Nick Urban [00:41:44]:
Yeah, the stress hormones like cortisol are interesting because they are like immunosuppressive over the long term, when it’s cr. When there’s chronic stress, but acutely in the short term, it has the opposite effect. And it actually can bolster your immune system and help fight things. So it’s like, that could be a useful tool. And I wonder maybe, you know this, but would Wim Hof use anything to activate his parasympathetic? Because I know a lot of his practices, his breathing and his proclivity to take long baths in ice would obviously engage the sympathetic. But then would he do anything to counteract that?

Adam Ludwin [00:42:21]:
I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t actually know. But, you know, you would think that just trying to put two and two together here, obviously when he’s. When they’re doing an ice bath, he’s not breathing the sympathetic state in the ice bath. Right. When you get in the ice bath, you activate parasympathetic. So it’s all about the activation of a sympathetic before hitting the ice. And then when you’re in the ice, you have to just tell your body, you know, just relax and you breathe very slowly.

Adam Ludwin [00:42:48]:
So when I’m in, I do ice baths every day as well. So when I’m in an ice bath, I’ll just generally do four seconds in, eight seconds out, perhaps, or something along those lines. So I’m forcing my, my, my body to activate the parasympathetic and after five seconds I’m not feeling anything. So, so you can really kind of make sure and always exhale as you go into the ice bath as well. Don’t breathe in as you go in. So you want to activate your parasympathetic as you’re going in. So automatically you’re, you’re getting into the state straight away. Otherwise people go in the nights and then they’re trying to work on the breath.

Adam Ludwin [00:43:23]:
It’s not a good look.

Nick Urban [00:43:25]:
Yeah, it’s not a good look. And it’s also dangerous to hyperventilate beforehand and then continue doing that while you’re in there. And that’s where people run into trouble when they combine the two water plus the WIM hof, especially if they’re not supervised. They haven’t done it before. People have died from that combination.

Adam Ludwin [00:43:42]:
Yeah, it’s a dangerous thing to play with. The parasympathetic when you’re in the water is like what you have to do in that moment.

Nick Urban [00:43:51]:
And then for kids you mentioned facial structure, like breathing affecting facial structure. How does that work?

Adam Ludwin [00:43:57]:
Yeah, so it kind of, it starts with, with dental. So what we kind of found is that, is that in this research is that when you breathe your mouth open, you have kind of a, you know, a longer face, essentially. And what a lot of, a lot of the time, a lot of the dental structures is what is indicative of your facial structure in the future. So if you’re with your mouth open, then you know you’re going to have kind of this, this, your dental structure will be more narrow, in which case your lower face will be more narrow, but it then also goes kind of through kind of to the nose as well. So if you’re, let’s say you sleep with your mouth kind of taped or closed, then your tongue is resting at the roof of the palate. So, so your nose is actually like, like the roof of your mouth is the back of your nose. So, so what we kind of want to make sure is there’s not. And this is kind of what can Collapse over time if you’re a mouth breather.

Adam Ludwin [00:44:54]:
So if you’re also breathing as you should, mouth close, tongue, roof of mouth, then you’re also essentially changing the facial structure of your nose from your mouth. So, and that’s how. And so there’s a kind of this restful state of how we should be. Now what we’re finding is, and there’s a good way of testing this is. So when you look at your tongue, I won’t do it live on camera. When you look at your tongue, do you see, are you seeing teeth marks on the side of your tongue? That’s quite indicative of, you know, how you’re breathing. Are your teeth kind of. Right, because realistically, you know that that shouldn’t really be happening.

Adam Ludwin [00:45:31]:
So, yeah, there’s a lot of stuff that influences your facial structure, but it all kind of like starts from kind of, you know, your mouth.

Nick Urban [00:45:39]:
Does it make a difference if you have your tongue on the roof of your mouth or the floor, the bottom, when you’re doing breathwork?

Adam Ludwin [00:45:48]:
Good question. I’m just doing it to see if there’s a difference as well. I’ve not seen anything written, but in terms of our training, it’s always top of mouth and that’s what we would always advise. I think what will, what will happen is I’m trying to do it now, but if you, if you put it at the bottom, you actually, you actually. I can feel it. Right. I’m, I’m. My throat is kind of going backwards, so my airways is less clear when I’m doing that.

Adam Ludwin [00:46:16]:
And that also would be, you know, what could cause snoring and things like that. So, yeah, not that I’ve kind of seen anything written. Just my training on this is always to have you always said kind of rest, it kind of top of the mouth is, is where it should be.

Nick Urban [00:46:27]:
Yeah, I used to hear the opposite. And then maybe seven or eight years ago, I learned that it should be on the roof of your mouth. And in fact, like, some of the exercise scientists who are really good will actually say that when you’re doing weight training, say you’re doing heavy squats or something, the position of your tongue actually makes a difference in the whole kinetic chain. And like, if you have your tongue on the floor of your mouth, you’re going to have more potential issues and higher injury risk. I don’t know by how much compared to putting it on the roof of your mouth.

Adam Ludwin [00:46:58]:
Yeah, Interesting. Now, I haven’t heard of that before, but. But yeah, super interesting. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:47:03]:
Wow. Okay. Well, we’ve covered a lot so far. What are some of the common misconceptions people have around breathing and breath work?

Adam Ludwin [00:47:11]:
I think the general perception is breath work is woo woo, you know, it is spiritual. You know, you have to kind of be doing a sound bar when you’re doing it, you know, and, and the truth is everything but that, you know, And I think there’s these two worlds. You’ve got traditional breath work which maybe sits in that field, and then you’ve got functional breath work. So we are a functional breathwork company. Right. So that’s all we focus on. And, but educating people on that is obviously something that takes time as well to realize. There’s this whole world of functional breath work that is used by athletes and longevity experts that people don’t know about.

Adam Ludwin [00:47:47]:
It’s not quite what they thought it was. So we have found that there is kind of this educational piece that goes hand in hand with what we’re doing. Because, you know, a lot of these, the breath work techniques kind of that exist are in meditation apps which are very specific to a certain type of breathing. But yeah, I think that’s the biggest misconception. And the other one is, you know, like if you spoke to someone, you know, an older, an older generation, they, they would say, you know, I’ve been breathing all my life, you know, of course I know how to breathe. You know, everyone thinks I know how to breathe, but actually, obviously they don’t. Right. You know, the vast, vast majority of us are breathing dysfunctionally every day, which is what’s causing so many, like, illnesses off the back of it.

Adam Ludwin [00:48:31]:
So that’s another, you know, conception, which is that I know how to breathe because what, because I’m living. It’s ridiculous. But that’s, that’s, that’s what people think, you know, So I think there is this education, don’t get me wrong, like, you know, I think generationally, you know, there is this education now that happens naturally, you know, in a younger audience. But there are people that breath work is scary and they don’t really understand and, you know, they think it’s just kind of like breathing, but they breathe anyway. So I think that’s the other one that I’ve come across a few times. I try not to like, overly engage with those types of conversations, but it comes up from time to time.

Nick Urban [00:49:07]:
Yeah, well, it’s one of the fastest ways we can shift the state of our nervous system too. Like it’s within 60, 90 seconds. Most people can feel a difference from an intense form of breath work?

Adam Ludwin [00:49:19]:
Yeah, absolutely. It is the fastest way to hack your nervous system. Right. So, so we know that if I, if like in this moment, let’s just say like, I’m like, okay, really stressed. Breathe out and hold your breath. You know, like straight away there is a physiological and biological effect that is happening in that moment straight away. Right. Like, and that’s with anyone, you know, and even with my, I have a 4 year old as well.

Adam Ludwin [00:49:44]:
And he, you know that the part of the brain that manages kind of the, the emotional side of things hasn’t actually even developed yet in a four year old. Right. So how can I kind of get him to rethink when he’s, when he’s, when he’s, you know, upset about something? You know, you can breathe in that moment, just take like even just a deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out, in for your nose or a big sigh through the mouth. And in that moment, straight away, he’s, he’s regulated. Right. So it’s a really powerful thing, which is why I’m so passionate about, you know, making sure that we can get this into schools as well eventually in the future. Because it is the fastest way that you can kind of manage things.

Adam Ludwin [00:50:20]:
And you know, you mentioned before about, you know, recovery kind of using meditation to, to recover and people do, but it’s actually the. Unless you’re doing visualization, which is something obviously quite different, it’s actually how you’re breathing in that meditation which is what’s causing the recovery. And it’s super interesting because a lot of people don’t know this, but breath work is the gateway to all of these aspects and meditation is one of them. But the other part is also music. So Andrew Huberman spoke about this study where there was music that was often thought to have like a neurological effect that created physiological effects. And actually what was happening was the physiological effect that was coming was actually from listening to slow music versus fast music and how they were breathing to the music. So obviously if you listen to a slow music, classical, whatever it might be, ambient music, you’re breathing more slowly and you’re therefore getting a certain effect. If you listen to rock music, fast music, you know, then you’re always going to be breathing faster and getting a certain effect.

Adam Ludwin [00:51:24]:
Um, so there’s this kind of unknown, which is obviously why we’re really pushing this out there and why I’m doing podcasts like this to really educate people that, you know, breath hook is the gateway to so much, if you just know how to use it.

Nick Urban [00:51:36]:
Yeah, it’s, it’s a hidden factor. It’s like, as you’re mentioning, if you listen to something that’s 120 beats per minute music, then it’s going to entrain your heart rate up towards that 120 beats per minute from your resting heart rate of, say, 70 beats per minute versus something slow and melodic that’s going to have the opposite effect. Which is why you see and you hear in gyms, like intense rock and like metal and stuff like that. You don’t hear classical piano for a very obvious reason. People, people, like, they intuitively know that in that they chase what they think is going to help them excel at whatever the task is.

Adam Ludwin [00:52:14]:
Absolutely. And actually, like, the funny thing is it’s actually kind of the opposite. Right. Because, yes, you want to be energized, but, you know, if you’re breathing too quickly, you are not going to be performing at your best, you know, so for people listening to this music, they’re just trying to get pumped, but actually, you know, questionable if that’s actually getting them the results that they want as well. But obviously you can’t go to the extreme and listen to like, sleep music because you’ll be falling asleep on a bench press. But, but yeah, there is. There’s obviously kind of things that, you know, to consider to kind of. Again, it will come down to awareness, right.

Adam Ludwin [00:52:46]:
When you are listening to certain music, getting you pumped, maybe kind of listen to like that to kind of get you there and then kind of come into your zone or if it’s, you know, kind of listen to that music, but being aware of your breath at the time of listening to that music. So a whole host of things to consider.

Nick Urban [00:53:01]:
Yeah, that’s in my own training. What I’ll do is I’ll listen to like, just, just some normal music for the majority of it or a podcast or something. And then around my hardest sets, I will strategically change the music. Kind of like what I was doing consciously with my breathing during workouts. I’ll change the music to entrain, like, whatever I need to get that extra last couple of reps that I’m chasing on the, say, bench press, as you mentioned. But then I’ll go back afterward and I’ll downregulate myself with a different music or audiobook or podcast choice.

Adam Ludwin [00:53:34]:
Good move. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:53:36]:
And then something pulling. Think about really, like, is the whole role of breathing and breath work in, like, athletic performance. Like when I was learning about, like, holistic training and integrated movement science, the breathing patterns are on the very top of the totem pole. And if you have those, if you haven’t pay attention to those, you haven’t fixed your breathing pattern, then you start adding on things that tax the core and they require core stability. But you don’t have your breathing patterns down right. You’re setting yourself up for a massively increased risk of injury down the line.

Adam Ludwin [00:54:08]:
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s very much linked to a diaphragm. So if people are activating the diaphragm, utilizing the diaphragm correctly, you would get, you know, better balance, less risk of injury. And if it’s, it’s essentially core stability. Right. So that’s not just affecting kind of, you know, your front, but is affecting your spine and everything that is supporting, you know, above that point. So. So yeah, that is incredibly important, especially for, like, runners, endurance athletes, that the, you know, they are training their diaphragm like a muscle because it is a huge muscle that is most of the time not utilized properly, you know, and.

Nick Urban [00:54:44]:
Then also certain activities and lifestyle things and sports actually train the wrong breathing patterns. Bikram yoga teaches inverted breathing. I’m not sure why, if that’s intentional, but I’m like, looking at it like you’re literally teaching people the exact opposite of what they should be doing to, like, regulate their nervous systems.

Adam Ludwin [00:55:04]:
Yeah. It’s funny because Patrick McKeown, he is written, I think, like 13 or 14 books just on breathwork now and the one before last, I think it was released last year. He teamed up with a yoga expert and basically he, you know, they want to rewrite how people are breathing during yoga because actually what, what they’re saying is yoga never used to be like that, you know, so the breath work, it evolved over time and they’re now like, rewriting the playbook. I hadn’t read that book yet, but it’s on my list to get to. But it specifically addresses exactly what you’re talking about.

Nick Urban [00:55:43]:
I know because when I, before I learned about breath work, I learned and I went to a bunch of Bikram yoga classes and they taught us how to breathe. And I made sure I was following their instruction to a T throughout the entire class. And then I later realized that, oh, how did I develop this, like, inverted breathing pattern? Oh, it was because of the yoga classes that I went to for a little while.

Adam Ludwin [00:56:03]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it kind of changes over time. Right. And yeah, I’m going to read the book soon. It’s next on my list, so I’ll definitely kind of share my views off the back of that.

Nick Urban [00:56:13]:
And then also, let’s go explore your platform a little bit while we still have a few minutes left. I want to understand, like, where you guys are going and, like, how this differs because there’s a lot of different breath work apps and practices out there. And from when I’ve explored some of your classes, the quality is certainly a couple notches above most. It actually feels almost like a class that I’m physically there, a part of. And I love that you guys are integrating data into the whole process. Walk me through your backstory. Like, why did you decide that you needed to enter this already seemingly crowded market?

Adam Ludwin [00:56:50]:
Yeah, you know, I think for me, you know, I. I discovered breathwork more from, like, a stress and focus perspective. And then when I studied, I saw this whole world of performance, and it really, really grabbed me. And then I started to explore some tools that existed out there. And, you know, even. Even a flooded marketplace doesn’t mean, you know, there’s kind of the best products out there. So I kind of, like, played with a few and saw the circle getting bigger in house. I can get it getting a smaller exhale.

Adam Ludwin [00:57:21]:
And I was like, there’s so much more to this. Right? We know that if you’re not. If you’re not kind of in the right posture for a breath work session, you will not see the right benefits of it. So how can you look at someone? How can you get guidance? How can you get the most out of it? How can you get reminders? How can you be pushed in a class? So the first thing was just getting great coaches that can actually guide you through everything. And then it was about, how can we bring in this world of data to ensure that everything that we’re doing is measurable and wellness should not just be a feeling anymore. Right. We’ve got the ability to measure the data and see that data. So how can we bring in wearable data? And you can see exactly the effect that a class is having on you.

Adam Ludwin [00:58:03]:
So in that kind of first instance of when you do a class, you connect to your wearable and you can track your heart rate live. And heart rate is a really key indicator of, you know, your autonomic nervous system. And then on the back of a class, we have AI coach feedback that says, you know, what worked well, what didn’t work well, what you need to improve on for. For your next class. Based off those biometrics, how are you breathing compared to. Compared to what the. What the instructor is telling you to. So that for Me was something that was really important to get that guidance, get that data and get that measurability that what I was doing was worth my time.

Adam Ludwin [00:58:36]:
I can see it’s working. Rather than just these feelings. And then when you kind of move forward, what does that look like for us? There’s this kind of hyper personalization aspect. How can we ensure that we are giving you the best class at any moment in time based off your data? And that could be based off your goals of wanting to run a marathon and training and building lung capacity and certain tolerances and all these things, versus just getting to sleep better or living kind of a healthier, happier life, whatever you’re looking to do. And so, you know, your will kind of put you in a direction based off your biometrics, but also based on where you want to be based off those goals that you’re obviously setting. And for me, it was, you know, I wanted to have a data driven coach in my pocket at any moment in time. And that’s kind of what we really focus on doing. And the other part is how can we ensure that, you know, people can listen to kind of music in those classes that they love as well, and how can they ensure that, you know, classes are more entertaining for them rather than just kind of getting bored with, you know, the same type of genre of music again and again, which, which I became.

Adam Ludwin [00:59:40]:
So we wanted to make sure we have different genres for different people. You know, music is, is very selective. Everyone likes different things. So we have your ambient music, we have your pop music for, you know, certain kind of like treadmill style classes. We have kind of your more, you know, lo fi music. So a real kind of mix of, you know, electronic chill as well, which I personally like that, that can really kind of help elevate you and the outcome that you’re trying to get. So for me it was about guided coaches. More entertaining, more fun and more measurability to ensure that what you were doing was right.

Nick Urban [01:00:11]:
Yeah, I also like that for the people who care about the science, you have a sciency bit section around each track so you can look and see. Okay, how is this working? Why is it working the way it is?

Adam Ludwin [01:00:21]:
Yeah, and you know, we actually, we, we have removed classes that we’ve kind of taken before and we didn’t even put them in the app on our launch because we didn’t feel there was enough science behind some of them. We are very science first and there’s a lot of kind of different techniques out there and some have been tested you know, really, really well, and some of them are yet to be tested. So, you know, for example, there was a lot, a lot coming out now about, you know, the left nostril versus right nostril and you know, how left nostril links to your right side of your brain, the hemisphere of your brain, and, and the right links to the left. Now if I would have told someone, you know, when we launched, just, you know, we’re going to do this whole session through our left nostril. And these are the reasons why there wasn’t really enough data to really kind of show them, like why that was the case. And so everything we look at, study after study to make sure that what we’re doing is the most effective thing to do in that moment. But now we’ve got that data, so that could be something that we start to kind of bring in. So rather than doing like a left nostril session to really kind of activate the right hemisphere of the brain and, you know, being kind of more, more kind of of a relaxed state and which is supposedly linked to your parasympathetic, now, you know, we will focus more on alternate natural beaver.

Adam Ludwin [01:01:33]:
So you’re balancing out both sides of your brain. So as the science evolves, and there’s a lot of studies that are coming out now, our techniques are also evolving, which is also really important because there’s so much going into breath work now that it was kind of like it was all about meditation like five years ago, but now it’s all about breath work. So, yeah, great to see that’s coming through. And our classes and techniques are obviously evolving as the industry evolves as well.

Nick Urban [01:01:58]:
Yeah, it’s cool to see too that a lot of the wisdom and teachings of the ancient systems like Ayurveda, where breath work really originated, are now being validated by the latest Western modern science.

Adam Ludwin [01:02:10]:
Totally.

Nick Urban [01:02:10]:
Yeah.

Adam Ludwin [01:02:11]:
It’s coming in cycle. You know, it’s kind of a shame that it was, you know, lost for so long. But yeah, there were. And it’s kind of been on the. It’s been known about for so long and it’s been. You have to know the right people to get the right training. Now, like, for me, it was a case of like, well, yeah, these athletes, you know, have these teams of coaches, they have their own breath work coach. Right.

Adam Ludwin [01:02:34]:
Most of these athletes, but, you know, your average everyday person, like, they can’t, they don’t have access to that. So how can we create a tool that actually gives them all the content and the know how and you know, makes it specific and hyper personalized for them as an individual, as if they had their own personal breath work coach, you know, so that for me was all kind of really important.

Nick Urban [01:02:55]:
It did feel like that in the sessions I’ve done. And I think the biggest barrier most people have to this, they’ll listen to a podcast like this, they’ll be like, okay, it sounds great. I can see the value or the importance of adding this into my routine. And then it comes time to actually do it. It’s like, do I want to spend five to 20 minutes sitting there just breathing in and out and maybe notice the difference? Maybe not. And I know personally that’s been a barrier for me. But then your classes do make it a lot more engaging and fun and almost feel like an actual class in person. And perhaps if I was to get some friends together and all be gathered around the phone, it would make it actually feel like an in person class.

Nick Urban [01:03:35]:
But this is like the next closest thing I’ve come across so far.

Adam Ludwin [01:03:38]:
Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. Because, you know, that is something we’re kind of looking to do in the future as well. And you know, we have a lot of people, like couples that are using the app and just plugging it to their tv, you know, and by saying that it is not built for TV integration so it doesn’t look as it should and everything else, I want to caveat it, but I know people are doing it, so I’m going to say it eventually. We will create like a purposeful televised version and that allows people just seamlessly kind of attach it to their TV and get the full benefits and see their kind of their scores in real time. But, but up until now, you know, it’s great to hear that there is this kind of community, this hidden community aspect, you know, that people are doing breath work together and is bringing people closer as well. And you know, it’s not something that was intentional coming into this, but it’s something that is a really amazing outcome that’s come off the back of it, which, which is really amazing to see.

Nick Urban [01:04:31]:
Yeah, the social leaderboards, gamification is also cool. I don’t think you have that in your platform yet, but at some point it’d be nice to see that because seeing your friends just completed their five minute daily session is a little bit of extra motivation to complete myself.

Adam Ludwin [01:04:45]:
Yeah. Yes. So I can’t say too much, but. But yeah, we’ve got like a really cool version of that, like in the roadmap, essentially. You know what we can do is one step better. Right. Because we can measure how you performed. That takes it to a whole new level when it comes to the mate.

Adam Ludwin [01:05:07]:
Right. So yeah, there is something there that is kind of in the works, which I’m very excited about as well.

Nick Urban [01:05:14]:
Beautiful. Well, if people have made it this far, they’re probably curious about where they can find this. We referenced the name several times throughout, especially more towards the beginning. How do people find your app, connect with you and go from there?

Adam Ludwin [01:05:27]:
Sure, yeah. So, so we’re in US only at the moment. So we’re in the iOS and it’s iOS only at the moment as well. So you can find us in The App Store 5.5 all spelled in words. You can follow us on Instagram, underscore 5.5 as well. I’m pretty active on LinkedIn, so people can just add me on LinkedIn as well if they kind of want to chat as well. But in terms of coming into the community, we have like a team that’s incredibly responsive to really supporting people on their own journeys. And we get, you know, there’s a lot of emails that come through and some of them I personally respond to.

Adam Ludwin [01:06:01]:
If they get to a certain level of kind of, you know, technical questioning, the people really want to know what to do in certain situations. So I had a kind of a very big influencer, you know, reach out to me today, just. And they’ve got like, they’ve got a medical condition which is quite rare, but they’re, they’re running a marathon. And so for them, you know, there are nuances involved in, in their condition and how to get. So we just want to make sure we’re supporting everyone is to the best of our ability. And yeah, there’s kind of a really nice kind of support function in the apps. People can ask questions at any time if they just want kind of some more guidance or direction on things as well. Because we appreciate that, you know, obviously you know your stuff, but majority of people will be coming in and being like a beginner or beginner plus.

Adam Ludwin [01:06:46]:
But if you are kind of a frequent breath worker, you know, we do have advanced sessions as well. So four levels, beginner, beginner plus, intermediate or advanced. So depending on what you select in your onboarding journey is where we’ll start to kind of push certain types of classes to you.

Nick Urban [01:07:00]:
Perfect. Do we set up something for high performance longevity listeners to get a taste of what this is?

Adam Ludwin [01:07:06]:
We haven’t yet, but we will. So if you announce the code and we’ll. We’ll ensure we build it.

Nick Urban [01:07:12]:
Sure. Let’s do urban then.

Adam Ludwin [01:07:14]:
Urban. Okay, perfect. Yeah. So yeah, what we can do for your listeners is give them an exclusive seven day trial to try it and see for themselves. Typically we do a three day trial, so just give them the opportunity to try it for longer than kind of your standard user.

Nick Urban [01:07:31]:
Awesome. And they can get the full 5 days of 5 minutes per day and that way too.

Adam Ludwin [01:07:36]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Urban [01:07:37]:
All right, Adam, before we part ways, what is a controversial take you have around breathing?

Adam Ludwin [01:07:44]:
I think there is going to be a lot more data coming out of the link between people that do breath work and some of the biggest conditions that people can compete, people can suffer from. And yeah, I feel, I feel that this is kind of the start of it and there is obviously kind of, there’s a, there’s a logic there. Right. Which is certain conditions are developed when you’re living in a certain state of kind of stress. And you know that, that we spoke about the physiological effect that that has on your body and what that causes the chemical reaction that that causes and what that, what damages that does and what that can cause in the long term. And I think, I think there is going to be some stuff that kind of gives a bit more kind of concrete aspects to bringing in breath work into kind of people’s lives that you want to try and ensure that they are just living healthier and don’t get down that road or maybe even people that, you know, are, you know, already kind of find themselves with certain conditions and want to try and you know, turn, turn that around.

Nick Urban [01:08:47]:
Awesome. I’m excited to see that unfold.

Adam Ludwin [01:08:51]:
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you.

Nick Urban [01:08:54]:
Thanks Adam. It’s been a blast chatting with you, talking all things breathwork and what you’re building at 5.5. And I look forward to seeing some of those updates connecting my wearables. And as soon as you guys support Ultra Human Ring, that will also be great.

Adam Ludwin [01:09:09]:
Yeah, well, we, we do support it on the heart rate tracker at the moment, but, but we just don’t support it. So there’s two sections I should add real quickly. Sorry. The heart rate tracker integratable into kind of all major wearables apart from Aura right now. But the, the performance section, which is like a mind, body and sleep score that’s under beta right now. So that’s only integrating with Apple Watch for the time being. But you know, in the next kind of four to six weeks we’re going to be bringing in other wearables into that as well. But you can still kind of get kind of.

Adam Ludwin [01:09:39]:
Yeah, all the kind of good stuff from those types of wearables as well.

Nick Urban [01:09:42]:
Okay, well, look forward to checking that out. Thanks Adam.

Adam Ludwin [01:09:45]:
Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Nick Urban [01:09:47]:
Thanks for tuning in to high performance longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade their health span. You can find all the episodes, show notes and resources [email protected]. until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.