"Training Secret for The Next Generation"
Guest Blogger Chris Giesting - Olympic 400 Meter
Living at near sea level in Granger, Indiana, it’s almost
impossible to get the kind of high altitude training if we were in Colorado or
New Mexico...until now.
For the last month the three of us have been working with a team
from High Performance Breathing Technologies that has been helping us to
develop our own high altitude training regimen right here in Granger, Indiana USA. And to
think they said Indiana was all corn fields.
Patrick McKeown, the author of The Oxygen Advantage, is an expert
at utilizing the breath to improve one’s health. He has been working directly
with us since August in order to coach us and teach us the techniques necessary
to benefit from this program.
At the elite level in track and field, the difference in winning
and losing comes down to a hundredth of a second. We can’t tell you have many
times we’ve lost by a hundredth or a tenth. Who even keeps count of the one,
two or twelve times it’s happened. We aren’t bitter at all. They are just lucky
we had the sun in our eyes, and the wind facing the...anyway, like we were
saying, track and field is determined by these small fractions of seconds. So
much so that even the slightest of edge can make the difference. With the High
Performance Breathing Technologies practice, we believe we can take up to a
mind-boggling half a second off of our times.
That’s like the time it takes a college kid to get dressed before
an 8 am class!
In our sport, it really does make the difference in being a
champion and watching from the bleachers.
So just to give you a sense of what type of exercises we are
doing, here is one of our favorites:
First things first, you must have your mouth closed for the
entirety of these exercises. It’s paramount you perform nasal breathing only.
Science. So we start off walking at a moderate pace breathing through the nose.
Then we’ll pinch our noses shut and walk 15 steps, and then go back to nasal
breathing after the 15 steps to catch our breath. Then rinse, wash and repeat. After two times, we’ll move up to
20 steps for a couple times, and then 25, 30, 35 and so on and so forth until
we reach 80 steps while holding our breath.
One thing to note here is that you’ll catch a lot of odd looks
when you’re walking around holding your nose. We believe that when you hold
your nose in front of people, it releases a strange light that attracts
newcomers. The jury is still out on that one though!
What Patrick and his team have been able to accomplish with their
research and practice is astounding. They have introduced certain types of
exercises similar to the above that call for you to hold your breath while
walking, jogging and sometimes running. Like running wasn’t hard enough
already.
Essentially, they’ve figured out a way to improve your ability to improve
oxygen carrying capacity and deliver more oxygen to your organs and muscles.
Another goal is to train the body to reduce lactic acid build up, thereby delay
the onset of fatigue. Lactic acid is the
cause of your gluteus maximus to lock up at the end of the race. Are you not
entertained?!
Now, with their help, we are able to “live” at high altitude
without actually living at high altitude. “live high, train low”. That’s what
Patrick emphasizes and we’ve already seen benefits within a month of
incorporating these exercises.
We’ve seen an increase in our ability to hold our breath, which is
a good indication of your VO2 max level, and we’ve experienced an
ability to complete workouts easier than before. On a smaller level, we’ve reduced
our nasal airway congestion and been able to sleep throughout the night without
having to get up to pee. Trust us, when you hydrate like we do, you typically
have the nighttime bladder capacity of an 80 year-old man. BUT NOT ANYMORE!
No other athletes are using this program...yet, so we have the
ultimate advantage, or the oxygen advantage, if you will. But once they realize
the difference it makes, this will revolutionize the way we think about
training.
It’s certainly been an enlightening experience getting to work
with the High Performance Breathing Technologies team and we’d like to thank
all of them for choosing to work with us while we train for the Olympics. This
could be the difference it takes to set us apart.
Don’t forget to check out our donation page link! All donations
help us fund our training and racing efforts for the year.
Go Irish!
Chris Giesting - Jade Barber - Patrick Feeney
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#2016summerolympics #riodejaneiro #brazil #usatrackandfield #notredame #patrickmckeown #markiez #markandrewzwartynski #markandrewz #doctormartindenbar #davidcraig #ioc #usoc
