Gimmicks, Devices, & Pseudoscience, Oh My!

Don’t get caught in the Monkey Trap

One of the things that Breath Runner has tried very hard to do is to ensure that we can back up everything we’re saying with reliable sources.  It’s a challenge, as the Breath Runner Method has no “direct” peer-reviewed research.  It’s a new concept, even if it’s based on an old — VERY old! — idea.  People have been syncing cadence to breathing patterns ever since Armies learned how to march in formation.  For runners, this entrained method of cardiorespiratory locomotion (as the scientists like to call it) is a fundamental, evolutionary aspect of running.  Researchers at the Department of Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado, Boulder, state, “Humans naturally select several parameters within a gait that correspond with minimizing metabolic cost.”  However, in that very report, the study participants were pretty much evenly divided between how they chose between minimizing metabolic energy, minimizing movement time, or none of the above (could not be explained by minimizing a single metabolic cost).  So what does this mean for us?  It means, essentially, that running is a complex activity, and there is not a single, ultimate “right way” to run that works for everyone.

Equally confounding is the fact that there is so much scientific, peer-reviewed research out there that it’s extremely easy to cherry-pick through papers which adhere to one’s pre-conceived notions; also known as Confirmation Bias.  One area which is rife with such abuse is in the diet and nutrition realm.  To help address this, the International Food Information Council published a paper called, “10 Red Flags Of Junk Science”.  They created this list to help “anyone determine the credibility of scientific findings.”

1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix.

2. Dire warnings of danger from a single product or regimen.

3. Claims that sound too good to be true.

4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a complex study.

5. Recommendations based on a single study.

6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations.

7. Lists of “good” and “bad” foods.

8. Recommendations made to help sell a product.

9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review.

10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals or groups.

We welcome anyone to go through our website and find were we may have strayed from these ten points.  If we have, we will correct it and publicize that correction.  We have reached out to researchers and medical professionals asking for their thoughts and  corrections; to date, no one has taken issue with anything we have said or how we have said it.  In fact, one doctor not only reviewed the website, they became a Breath Runner!  Here is an actual text message we received from them:

* “How do people run long…” is what they meant to say.

It’s not just us that’s concerned with the ‘infotainment influencers’ who boast the greatest training methodology, or nutritional supplement, or other wellness ‘hacks’.  Rick Prince, founder of United Endurance Sports Coaching Academy (UESCA), a science-based endurance sports education company, just published an article entitled, “Beware of Shiny Objects.”  The same day that hit my inbox, I got another email from Dr. Peter Attia, promoting a video on his YouTube channel entitled, “Why rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is the best metric for identifying Zone 2 training”.  We really enjoyed both of these, not only because they are full of excellent information from highly regarded experts, but also because they basically were echoing things we had already written!  We talked about the “Shiny Object Syndrome” (not an actual syndrome, and not exactly what we had called it) in our post New Year, New You.  And we talked about the variations and vagaries of Zone 2 in our post entitled (*ahem*): Zone 2.

More than just that, though; both emails, for me, were cautionary tales of blindly following the latest piped piper off the cliff.  Both of these experts were saying, in principle, that the most important thing we can do as runners, as athletes, is for us to do our own due diligence and find those things — whether they are devices, metrics, or foodstuff — which work for us, individually.  I’ve long since lost count of the number of posts I’ve seen on social media by people honestly inquiring what their “correct” heart rate should be for this Zone or that.  And many well-intentioned people (often numbering in the hundreds) respond with well-known tropes such as “220 minus age” as a way to determine the “correct” heart rate.  There’s just one problem with that formula: it doesn’t work for individuals.  It is meant for age-group populations.  It may well get you a ball-park estimate of your heart rate zones, but then again, that ball park may be in a completely different city from the one you live in.  The only way to know for sure what your *exact* heart rate parameters are is to undergo a metabolic test under the supervision of a qualified medical expert or coach certified to conduct such tests.  Even then, as we have previously written, there are literally dozens of influences, both internally and externally, which can change the numbers on a day-to-day or even an hour-to-hour basis.    

One of the primary areas of focus for us, and one of the foundational principles of the Breath Runner Method, is the strengthening of the respiratory muscles through the process of running with deep, controlled breaths.  Again, syncing run cadence to breathing is not new.  It’s been around for a LONG time.  And it’s a proven concept of using breath patterns to sustain high effort running, especially sprinting.  We like to think that our contribution to this august lineage has been the addition of the long breath patterns, the 7-Step and 9-Step patterns.  To our knowledge, this has never been used as part of a systematic training protocol.  Again, if anyone has knowledge of this, let us know and we will correct our statements.  It should be noted that when we first came up with the Breath Runner Method, we envisioned the long breathing patterns primarily as a pacing metric; a way to hold us back in our efforts, yet do so while encouraging quick feet and good running form.  Over the past year or two, as we have researched running, respiration, and training modalities, we gained certifications in Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Polarized Training (a.k.a., the 80/20 method), breathwork, and became a Certified XPT Performance Breathing® Coach.   

What we have learned through this process is that the benefits of deep, controlled breathing while running at a relaxed pace were far beyond our expectations!  Yet even as impressive and extensive the performance gains are, it’s still a matter of basic physiology.  All the hype in the world won’t make the improvements appear if the fundamental aspects of training aren’t in place.  A good, full night’s sleep; a healthy balanced diet; LOTS of reasonably low-effort, long duration training spiced with bouts of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT); and most of all, consistency.  On ALL of these.  These are the things which make us perform at our best.   

Human Performance Specialist Robert Wilson says, “When identifying indicators you might choose to help you pilot your health and performance more effectively I recommend asking the following: Is it valid? Is it reliable?  Is it accessible?”

Well, let’s apply these metrics to the Breath Runner Method and see where we stand.

Is the Breath Runner Method valid?  I think so, and while there’s no studies that we can find that directly relate to it, it does seem that there is good scientific evidence to suggest that we’re at the very least heading in the right direction.  A recent study published by Dr. Eric Harbour, MSc, and his team from the Department of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Salzburg, Austria, entitled Breath Tools: A Synthesis of Evidence-Based Breathing Strategies to Enhance Human Running, states, “While direct experimental evidence is limited, diverse findings from exercise physiology and sports science combined with anecdotal knowledge from Yoga, meditation, and breathwork suggest that many aspects of breathing could be improved via purposeful strategies.”  This is an expanding field of research, with new tools becoming available to make it possible to do testing of the various metabolic parameters in real time without adversely affecting performance while the test is ongoing.

Is the Breath Runner Method reliable?  How reliable is your ability to breathe while running?  There are no batteries that need to be recharged, no software to download, no WiFi, Bluetooth, or cellular connection required.  All you need is your running shoes.  You don’t even need a watch, although the Breath Runner Method training plans use time rather than distance for the vast majority of workouts.  Only the long runs of the Half Marathon and Full Marathon training plans (and eventually the Ultramarathon plans we will be producing soon) use a fixed distance.  It has been our experience that once accustomed to Breath Running, the shifting between the various modalities is rather intuitive.  It is also our contention that by giving what we feel is a better, more actionable pacing metric which encourages good running form, it decreases the incidence of running related injuries, and therefore allows for more consistency in training (but this is speculation on our part, pending studies).

Is the Breath Runner Method accessible?  Is it limited to a certain class of runner?  Is it bound by strict rules or limitations which define its usefulness?  Can it be used by para-athletes, neurodiverse athletes, or athletes facing other challenges, whether physical, mental, emotional, or a combination of all three?  We have found it useful for ALL.  We have had Breath Runners who are world-class para-athletes.  We have introduced it to kids.  We have used it with Run-Walkers.  Again, strap on your sneakers and go run.  Settle into the rhythm of the pattern needed/chosen, and go enjoy yourself.  What if your mind wanders and you lose track of your breathing pattern?  So what?  It’s a metric; it’s there for a purpose, to be sure, and the more it’s used, the greater its effectiveness, but in the end, it’s a means to a goal.  It is not THE goal!

Are there other ways to strengthen one’s respiratory muscles?  Absolutely!  Are they valid?  Yes, but then again, buyer beware.  To select the most appropriate device, it is also necessary to consider one’s specific health condition, the nature of the respiratory impairments (if applicable), and the purpose of the training.  Respiratory Muscle Training (RMT), also known as Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) — breathing through a device which restricts airflow — has been shown to help with “intermittent” sports (like soccer, lacrosse, or other sports which require short bursts of high intensity running and lots of walking and easy running), but it remains unclear if it’s useful for endurance sports, where it’s primarily low to moderately hard exercise for a prolonged period of time.  Then again, it’s been shown that HIIT training is an effective way to build respiratory muscles.  So is yet another gadget needed?  Even health professionals are sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of disparate and conflicting information out there.  It’s no wonder, since the Health and Wellness industry is a $4 Trillion business (TRILLION!!  With a T!).  The level of misinformation is legion.  And we haven’t even touched on the issue of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), and what it’s impact has been in it’s very short existence so far, and what it means moving forward.  We’re not Anti-AI, but we’re not using it to pump out a thousand social media posts a week, either.  We are, however, moving forward, cautiously.

We feel we can say with confidence that the Breath Runner Method works.  Beyond the inherent respiratory muscle training that’s “baked in” to it, Breath Running helps us settle into the appropriate effort level, given the environment of the day, and given the physiological challenges we may be facing.  It helps train us to run with quick feet, even at an easy pace, which is proven to reduce impact forces.  Less impact on bones, joints and tendons means less recovery time between runs, which enables a more consistent training schedule.  More running means the better we hone our running economy, which allows us to run faster with less effort.  Notice the lack of advertising on our website.  We’re on social media, but we’re not blasting into every fifth frame while one is enduro-scrolling™ (insert LOL emoji here).  We have some things to sell, but we’re not shopping for yachts, yet.  We like our gadgets too.  We just don’t want to be messing around with them while we’re running, and we certainly don’t want to be incapable of running if we don’t have them available.  We don’t need to make up a bunch of crazy half-baked claims to hype the Breath Runner Method.  We’re confident that if you try it, you’ll like it.  We’re just trying to do a better job of explaining how it can help your running.

Welcome to Breath Runner — it’s like running on air!

The Peter/Paul Principle

Running takes a toll on the body.  But to whom does that toll get paid?

When we run, we engage a massive amount of skeletal muscle, provoke enormous hormonal action, and light up our entire neurological network.  When we are running, throughout our body there is a never-ending stream of trade-offs happening between energy stamina versus fatigue resistance, muscular power versus endurance strength, and core-system regulatory function homeostasis versus survival instincts, all developed across the millennia by the evolutionary process.  But as we have previously noted, the body is biased towards doing the least amount of work possible for the most result.  Accordingly, distinct controls over, and adaptations to, endurance and strength-based activities have evolved in humans.  We’re not going to go over the entire litany of physiological actions in running here.  We’re going to focus on our respiratory muscles, and the critical role they play in our running performance.  Or, more precisely, the role they play in our inability to have the running performance we desire.

Quick recap on the aerobic process in running.  We take a breath.  Air filters down into the alveoli, the microscopic balloons in our lungs where the exchange of oxygen (O2)and waste gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), occurs.  The oxygen molecules travel via red blood cells (RBCs) through the bloodstream down to the muscle fibers, where they are absorbed into the cell’s mitochondria, the powerhouse of the muscle fiber.  The mitochondria uses O2 and glucose, the most basic form of sugar, to power the reactions which cause the muscle fibers to move.  This chemical reaction creates waste products, mainly CO2 and water (H2O).  These waste gases are dispersed back into the bloodstream to be expelled by the body via the lungs.

Two things to note in the preceding paragraph: One, how the process of aerobic respiration starts.  We take a breath.  Two, the location of the muscle fibers to which the O2 molecules travel is not disclosed.  Are these fibers we’re talking about in the leg muscles?  The chest?  The heart?  The answer is, of course: All Of The Above.  Every single muscle fiber in our body, from our head to our toes, goes through this same exact process (also note we’re sticking to the aerobic process only - things get complex as we move into the anaerobic realm).  So it’s these two primary functions — the act of breathing and how it powers aerobic muscular respiration while running — where we’ll be focusing our discussion.

So to begin, let’s take a look at the physiology of our respiratory system.  There’s two channels by which air enters our lungs: our nose and our mouth.  Both channels empty into the trachea, which then branches out throughout the lungs into ever smaller and smaller channels, until the air that is pulled in reaches the alveoli.  What is interesting is this evolutionary dual-channel design; we can choose which route we wish to have the air enter and exit.  We can even choose both paths simultaneously.

It is known that for daily living, the most beneficial way to breathe is by inhaling through the nose.  This has a number of important benefits for our health, such as filtering the air before it gets down to the lung tissue, warming and humidifying the air so that it matches the ambient conditions within the lungs, and nasal breathing generates nitric oxide (NO2), also known as Laughing Gas at the dentist office.  Nitric oxide relaxes and expands the blood vessels, allowing the heart to pump more oxygen-carrying blood cells throughout the lung tissues.  It has also been shown that by breathing through the nose, we increase the lung’s capacity to absorb oxygen due to the added pressure resistance.

All good things come to an end eventually, and it’s no different with nasal breathing.  When running, at a certain point, our metabolic demands overwhelm the ability of nasal breathing to take in enough oxygen to meet demand.  This is the point when mouth breathing becomes dominant.  Again, it must be stressed that at this point, which for most occurs at or slightly above the first ventilatory threshold (VT1), while there is a slight increase in demand for oxygen by the muscles, it is actually the need to get rid of carbon dioxide and other waste gases that is driving the demand for faster and/or deeper respiration.  While there are some individuals who have adapted to and are comfortable in breathing exclusively through their nose, even at maximal effort, these individuals are the exception to the rule.  We at Breath Runner encourage as much nose breathing as practical, but do not want anyone to artificially limit their performance on the basis of some influencer’s recommendation, no matter how well-intentioned.  Keep in mind, that if nose breathing was the End-All Be-All Greatest Way to Breathe Ever For All Things, we would have evolved with completely separate respiratory and digestive tracts, like dolphins and whales did.  But we didn’t, and need to respect the fundamental realities of our body’s needs when we’re pushing the limits.

That being said, it’s equally important to understand that that “running out of oxygen” feeling when we’re pushing ourselves to our limits is NOT actually a lack of oxygen!  It’s a overwhelming build-up of carbon dioxide in our bloodstream, and it is our tolerance to that, as well as the accompanying acidification, which ultimately determines both our ability to nose breathe as long as possible, as well as the amount of time we will be able to spend at our upper limit.  It is in THESE dimensions of aerobic performance — our CO2 tolerance, and our lung capacity — where we feel the Breath Runner Method excels.  Let’s dig in to see how.

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Cross-training for Runners

What is Cross-Training?  And why should I care?

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The Breath Runner Method strongly advocates cross-training as part of every run training program.  What exactly is “Cross” training?  How does it work?  “I just want to run; shouldn’t I just stick to doing that?” some athletes may say.

Cross-training simply doing something other than running on days where no running is scheduled.  It’s encouraged that the activity is something that does NOT put a lot of strain on the skeletal system.  Running does more than enough of that, thank you, and that’s why days “off” in-between runs are called for.  But we still want to work our cardio-vascular and muscular systems, so doing an alternative activity like swimming, biking, yoga, strength training, or similar can be beneficial.  Keep in mind that we still need to take a day off (sometimes two) from ALL activity, just to allow the body to recover.  Let’s dig into the nuances.

Swimming is considered by some to be the ultimate cross-training activity for runners, as there is zero skeletal impact (unless you swim into the wall, but we’ll assume that that won’t be an issue).  Swimming is a “full body” activity, since both the upper body (arms and chest), lower body (legs and hips), and core (which I define as everything between the knees, elbows, and neck) are engaged.  The problem for most who identify as a single-sport run athlete is that the aquatic environment is an alien world where the laws of physics goes sideways, and the their body seems to go in only one direction: down.  It doesn’t have to be this way, and AquaTerra Coaching has the program and knowledge to help those who have no swim experience.

One of the unique aspects of AquaTerra Coaching’s swim training is an emphasis on breathwork as well.  This isn’t surprising, once you learn that the Breath Runner Method was borne out of AquaTerra Coaching swim experience.  Yet the journey of discovery that the Breath Runner Method created has given new depth and meaning to AquaTerra Coaching’s program.  Swimming creates unique challenges for the athlete which is not familiar with the entrained breathing patterns that swimming demands.  Because of the head-down, face in the water nature of swimming freestyle, we have no choice but to sync our breathing with our arm cadence.  For someone who is used to breathing “on demand” (“I’ll breathe when I want, how I want, as much as I want!”), this limitation to their breathing pattern can cause a host of issues with their swimming.

Swimming is widely considered the most technically demanding sport because of the dynamics involved with trying to self-propel through water.  By far the biggest factor is drag; water is nearly 800 times more dense than air, so every little thing that we do that causes unnecessary drag in the water is magnified to ridiculous proportions.  Olympic level swimmers can spend years fine-tuning their swim stroke to gain one or two seconds on their best time.  Not minutes; seconds.  Often micro-seconds.  Take notice of your three longest fingers for a moment: the distance between the tips of the fingers is often the distance which defines 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in an championship swim event.  The level of finesse in technique required to perform at this level is mind-boggling.

So what hope is there for a runner who can barely make it from one end of the pool to the other without drowning?  There’s more than hope — there’s a entire new world of adventure awaiting, once the fundamental aspects of swimming are understood and implemented.  And for most, the key component is their breathing.  That “Out of oxygen” panic feeling that we experience when we’re at our limit in the water?  It’s not a lack of oxygen.  It’s an intolerance to CO2 buildup in our bloodstream.  It’s the same exact phenomenon we deal with in running, and it’s learning to tolerate the intolerable (within reason) that is what spawned the creation of the Breath Runner Method.   

But in the water, there is an added dynamic which causes us a spot of bother.  It is, in a word: water.  Our bodies are on average 60% water, yet our respiratory system, which can expel up to 1500 ml of water per day when exercising at high altitude, is entirely intolerant of water in its liquid form.  This causes most novice swimmers to do the worst possible thing: Hold their breath while trying to swim.  Try running 200 meter threshold repeats, but only taking one inhale and exhale on every 8th or 10th step; hold the breath in-between those ultra-fast gasps for air.  How long do you think you’ll last?  Yet this is what people who don’t know how to swim properly end up doing.  It’s not their fault.  We all have this pre-historic part of our brain which I like to call our Lizard Brain; it’s the part of our evolutionary structure that developed when we crawled out of the pond and traded gills for lungs.  No longer having the ability to breathe while underwater means that when we submerge, our Lizard Brain immediately wants us to hold our breath until we resurface.  This is a phenomenon known as the mammalian dive reflex.  Overcoming this reflex for the aquatically unfamiliar is HARD; this is a hard-wired physiological survival response.  Yet it can be overcome with proper training.  And the key to overcoming this obstacle?  You guessed it: Breathwork.  Much more on this topic will be found on the AquaTerra Coaching website soon!

Want to work on your swimming without having to worry about breathing in water? The Vasa Erg is an excellent cross-training tool! And AquaTerra Coaching can offer discounts on new Vasa Ergs, Vasa Trainers, and more for your swimming needs!

Copyright 2025 © AquaTerra Coaching, LLC

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Copyright 2025 © Breath Runner

New Year, New You?

Happy New Year!  It's time for “New Year, New You”resolutions.  But what does that really mean for us?  What needs to be ‘new’?

In the context of running, this usual means setting goals.  Often BIG goals!  Whether it’s a goal to run a bit faster, or a bit longer, or to even just start running, goal setting can serve as a way to focus our attention, helping us clarify steps which need to be taken, and creating a degree of accountability.  So why is it that so many people fail to follow through with their New Year’s goals?

We think it’s basically two-fold: first, it’s simple over-exuberance.  It’s really easy to get really excited about the “shiny new thing”, and attempting to put forth ‘maximum’ effort towards that goal.  While the intention is good, it’s the execution which sets them up for failure.  Big Goals are like training for a marathon — one can’t just start out by trying to set a PR (Personal Record) at the distance.  It takes months and months of focused, deliberate effort to build one’s mind and body up for such a grueling event.

Secondly, we think it’s an over-reliance on external metrics, like distance or pace, instead of focusing on internal metrics.  It’s understandable, of course!  Internal metrics — how it feels — can be messy.  Even relatively objective internal metrics like heart rate are subject to dozens of influences (heat, humidity, and/or illness, to name but a few).

So what’s the method to find the BEST way to create the New Me?  If you thought I was going to say Breath Running, you’re wrong.  Or at least not completely correct.  Let me explain…

The fact of the matter is there is NO SUCH THING as a “best way” to exercise.  Everybody is different.  We all have our own unique variables which determines what works well and what’s not effective, and all of those variables are variable.  What works well this year might not work well at all the following year.  This is the trap of the Shiny New Thing.

Ever hear of a Monkey Trap?  In regions which are pestered by aggressive monkeys who get into and steal and/or soil food stock and merchandise, there’s a never-ending game of  Catch the Monkey.  Eons ago, when coins became a staple form of currency, monkeys were enthralled with these shiny discs, and would grab them at every chance, even right out of people’s hands.  Catching these furry little thieves became a high priority.

The problem is, these monkeys are lightning quick, extremely clever, and are known to bite people.  So the people in the villages needed a clever way to trap the little beasts, a way that will allow them to subdue the monkey and then relocate it somewhere else.

Some extraordinarily astute person figured out that if they took a gourd — a relative of the pumpkin, but stretched long — and cut the top of the neck off, hollowed it out and let it dry, it became very hard.  Almost like porcelain.  The inner diameter of the neck was purposefully bored out to be *just* big enough for a coin to be dropped into the body of the gourd.  The gourd was securely tied up around its neck and tethered to a tree frequented by the monkeys.

Whether it was the wind or one of the monkeys, the gourd would get jostled, and the rattle of the coin inside would pique the curiosity of a monkey.  A peek inside revealed the irresistible shiny coin!  The monkey reaches in, grabs the coin, and… they’re trapped.  The coin in the palm of their hand makes their paw too large to come back through the neck of the gourd.  They’ll thrash about, scream, and do everything they can to pull their arm out of the gourd.  Everything, that is, except let go of the coin.

Call it greed.  Call it stupidity.  Call it whatever you want, but once a monkey has its paw on something it deems valuable or desirable, it Will Not Let Go. It will spend hours battling the intractable gourd, until it is spent with exhaustion.  That is when the human trapper comes by and scoops the monkey — gourd and all — into a sack, and then transfers it to a cage.  The humans can cut the gourd away and wrest the coin out of the drained monkey’s paw, and then send it far, far away, where it will no longer bother the villagers.

So what does this have to do with training?  Simply this: we at Breath Runner believe that far too many athletes trap themselves by grabbing onto that Shiny New gadget, program, and/or supplement, and proceed to needlessly thrash themselves to bits.  The mystical draw of the external metric completely overrides the awareness of the internal metrics, messy as they may be.    And they keep doing it to themselves.  They just won’t let go.

Herein is the secret to the Breath Runner Method: it’s NOT *the* thing.  It’s merely *a* thing; something available to use to bring those internal metrics into focus.  We’re certainly NOT saying that the external metrics don’t matter!  Of course they do!  But the fact is that they’re the icing on the cake.  If you want to make a better cake, you need better ingredients, and better technique to mix them all together, and then a knowledge of just how much heat to apply and for how long in order to get the best possible outcome.  It’s the deep interior of the cake which determines the overall success of the endeavor, and that’s an unknown until the cake gets served.

So if training is analogous to the ingredients, technique, and baking time of the proverbial cake, then race day is when we get “served up”.  How well we put together the pieces, how much attention we gave to each ingredient throughout the process, and how consistently we applied appropriate load over an appropriate amount of time, these are the factors which will determine our degree of success on race day.

So if there’s no “best” way, then what way is there which gives us this magical mixture of ingredients, skill, and foresight for us to find our New selves?  Obviously, we believe it has to do with syncing one’s breath to their cadence as a way to bring focus and order to those critically important internal metrics.   It’s so simple.  It’s so easy.  You don’t need a fancy high-tech watch, or an A.I. program, or crazy expensive supplements to make this work.  You just run, and pay attention to how you’re breathing.  It’s the polar opposite of the shiny things; it’s borderline dull.  And yet…

Take away all the shiny things to keep looking at, take away all the beeps and haptics, take away all the modern distractions until we’re left with nothing but our breath and footsteps, and what do we have?  Where is our mind?  Are we consumed with concerns for all the tasks we have waiting for us when we finish?  Are we feeling burdened with all of the things we should’ve/would’ve/could’ve?

**OR**, are we instead drawn into the rhythmic beauty of the moment?  Have we ventured into a realm of exercise-induced awareness, where our internal experience is harmoniously blending with our surroundings?  Are we experiencing mindfulness, our ability to be fully present and aware of where we are and what we’re doing, without being hyper-reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on?

Here’s where we think the Breath Runner Method gets really cool: whenever we bring a focused awareness to what we’re directly experiencing via our senses, we’re being mindful.  And there’s a growing body of research which shows that when we train our brain to be mindful, we’re actually remodeling the physical structure of our brain for more peace and positivity.

So if the goal is to re-create ourselves, then perhaps it’s time to let go of the shiny, noisy things, and start focusing on the deep interior.

The Breath Runner Method.  We think you’ll find it delicious!

The Shape of It All

Few people think about how their lungs work when they start running.  For instance, did you know that our lungs are of different sizes?  Our right lung is wider and shorter than the left, which is narrower and longer.  The right lung consists of three lobes, but the left only has two lobes.  Why?  Because the left lung has a deep “cardiac notch”; it needs to allow room for our heart.  The right lung also has two bronchi, whereas the left has but one bronchus.  As a result, the right lung has approximately 15% more capacity than the left.

Our lungs have the ability to hold and move a certain volume of air.  Our lung’s Total Volume is approximately 6 liters (roughly a gallon and a half) for heathy adults.  Note: that’s TOTAL volume; lungs filled absolutely to the max.  We almost never go there.  What’s more important to us is our Tidal Volume, the amount of air which can be inhaled and exhaled during one respiratory cycle.  Tidal Volume is variable based on whether we are at rest or at max capacity effort.  Vital Capacity is the term for the maximum amount of air one can expel after a maximum inhalation.  Notice the change in terminology - we’ve gone from volume to capacity.  In other words, we’ve gone from talking about how much the tank can hold to how efficient the engine is.

The average healthy adult at rest has a Tidal Volume that is around 10% of Vital Capacity, or approximately 500 ml per inspiration (~7 ml/kg of body mass).  In other words, we’ve gone from  being able to hold 1.5 gallons of air, to actually moving around about 7 tablespoons worth of air.  As we start exercising, our need for air exchange increases, and can go up to over 50% of our Vital Capacity.  But we’re still only talking about 4 or 5 cups of air per breath!  How is it possible to run fast with that small of an amount of air exchange?   It’s because of the other dynamic at play — Respiratory RATE.  At rest, an adult averages around 10 to 16 breaths per minute.  As effort ramps up, so does the pace of our breathing, and it can max out anywhere between 60 to 100 breaths per minute, depending on sex, size, and training status (big differences to be had between the average Age Grouper and the average Olympian, obviously).  So 5 cups of air 100 times a minute gets that Olympian around 120 liters (30 gallons) of air.  PER MINUTE.  No wonder they’re so fast!

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Too Many Chefs

Warning: Spoiler Alerts!

In the third season of the TV show The Bear, the fictionalized portrayal of the behind-the-scenes pressure-cooker (pun intended) of what it takes to operate in the highly competitive world of fine dining restaurants, there is talk of ‘haunting’.  It’s mostly portrayed as humorous, adolescence-level teasing and jump-scaring.  But not all haunting is so innocuous.

The nemesis of the show’s main character, Chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), is the asshole Chef David Fields (Joel McHale), the personification of every insecure person’s worst nightmare of a boss.  Domineering, intimidating, and (allegedly) too good at what they do to be questioned on their tactics.  For monsters like this, their currency is humiliation, and they are wealthy in that regard.  Doling out degradation and shame without regard to the impact they are having on the serfs within their fiefdom, their single-minded quest for perfection reeks havoc on all involved.

Unfortunately, the kitchen is not the only place thugs like these can be found.  Headline-making stories of abusive coaches in all manner of sports are disappointingly commonplace.  The damage these individuals inflict — often while deludedly thinking that in order to prepare their athletes for the rigors of competition, they’re doing The Right Thing by being ‘tough’ on their athletes — can not be underestimated.  These “experts of their realm” talk of things like Excellence, Commitment, and Dedication, but in reality, they are just inflicting emotional and/or psychological harm on their athletes, often with life-long reverberations.

© 2024 Mark Remy / Laurelhurst Media, Portland, OR. All Rights Reserved.

A common refrain quoted by ‘experts’ from all domains, from sports to industry and beyond, is: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  The message is obvious: the more criteria, parameters, and other such specifications one can measure, the more accurately and positively one can manage, and by extension, improve.  This quote is usually attributed to Peter Drucker, a management consultant, educator, and author, whose work is considered bedrock to many of the philosophical foundations of modern management theory.  There’s just one problem: according to the Drucker Institute, he never said that.

Nevertheless, that quote has taken on mythological stature within management — and often sports — circles.  Other versions have expounded on the concept, such as the decreed ‘Pearson's Law’: "That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially." (attributed to British mathematician and biostatistician Karl Pearson).  Another version: "When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates." (attributed to American religious leader and author Thomas S. Monson).  For many coaches, the hidden mantra of ‘More Is Better’ is pervasive and unassailable.

Interestingly, the so-called “Drucker quote” actually comes from Dr. W. Edwards Deming, an economist, industrial engineer, management consultant, statistician, and writer.  Initially educated as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop sampling techniques still used today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  But there’s a problem with this ‘quote’ as well: it’s not what he said, either.  Or, more accurately, it’s only part of what he said.

The actual full quote of Dr. Deming reads: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.”

Whoa, wait — WHAT?!  Plot twist!!

Far from extolling the virtues of numerical supremacy, Dr. Deming was, in reality, offering a contraversion of reliance upon data for data’s sake, especially when human beings are involved in the equation.

Similar to the fervent management philosophies which work so well on paper, yet often lead to unintended, sometimes even horrific, consequences, the sporting world is resplendent with tales of superhuman efforts invoked to overcome the most arduous challenges, a seemingly never-ending chorus of experts, elite athletes and coaches glorifying The Grind, and, of course, a $100 billion a year fitness industry dedicated to selling you the latest, greatest products, techniques, and guidance to get you the best version of you you can possibly achieve, in the shortest amount of time possible.  While we all love to hear the tales of excellence achieved — and who doesn’t want a way to make our own personal journey towards Top Performance easier and/or better? — for many, these adumbrate drill instructors simply impose feelings of inadequacy and/or incompetence.

But what if the Evil Coach isn’t a coach at all?  What if instead it’s a mindless device, strapped to your wrist?  These miracles of miniaturization, incessantly recording and chronicling accelerometer data, tracking satellite positions, and numerous other metrics, are cycling the never-ending reams of 1’s and 0’s through a black box compilation of analytical computations, designed to assign values to the various angle vectors and velocity patterns we create with our movements.  They can track our heart rates by the micro-second, our sleep patterns by phase duration, our daily wanderings by the centimeter.  By virtue of their speed-of-light processing capabilities and pre-programmed algebraic formulas, they give us preternaturally precise valuations of not just what we’ve done, but quite judgmentally, deign to tell us just how well they think we’ve done it.  Have we ever stopped to consider that nobody really knows what all these minuscule micro-computers are actually measuring?  That there is no standard of what gets measured, nor how the data gets calculated?  That these digital oracles are giving static and definitive values to what are actually and naturally rather imprecise and mercurial states of affairs?

One study identified 423 unique fitness tracking devices from 132 different brands.

“The wearable landscape is in constant change. New devices and brands are released every year, promising improved measurements and user experience. At the same time, other brands disappear from the consumer market for various reasons. Advances in device quality offer new opportunities for research. However, only a few well-established brands are frequently used in research projects, and even less are thoroughly validated.”

In the proverbial blink of an eye, tasks like running, which for generations were recorded with a stop watch, marked down in a binder, and analyzed by a human who used the information to inform what they were experiencing (the runner) or seeing their own eyes (coach), seem to have been handed off to an omnipotent digital clairvoyant, ensorcelled within inanimate materials, whose pronouncements are absolute.  No longer, it seems, is it permissible to deviate from the stratagem these e-sorcerers proclaim as The Most Precise.  If anything, the scramble is to give even MORE power of prognosis to the cybernated prodigy: A.I.

There is undeniably a seductive appeal to the computational precision that these devices, apps, and programs offer.  Yet, for humans, this level of perfection can come with a heavy price. Perfectionists often set unrealistic and/or unattainable goals for themselves or others.  There is an unrelenting quest prove their self-worthiness by focusing on ‘exactness’, but in our tumultuous world of physical reality, they find it infuriatingly difficult, if not impossible, to get the pieces to fall into place.  The harder they try, the more their endeavors seems to crumble around them.  Their efforts, it seems to them, are never enough, and that can lead to the view that they’re ‘never good enough’.  These attitudes can lead to feelings of demoralization, low self-esteem, and possibly trigger serious compulsive behaviors, such as eating disorders or exercise addiction in those who are inclined towards those extremes.

Research has shown that certain app visualisations and/or feedback messages can unintentionally contribute to unhealthy behaviors, such as “chasing” metrics instead of simply noting trends.  One doctor stated that in clinical care, they “actively discouraged [people with eating disorders] from using those apps and various wrist monitors that count the steps and activity levels” as they can become triggering, sustaining the individual’s obsessional, restrictive, and rigid behaviors.   Another study found that while activity data from wearable devices may be a resource for self-care, the data may simultaneously constrain emotional well-being and could create uncertainty, fear, and anxiety in some.  And in yet another study, published in BJPsych Open, participants reported eight negative consequences of using a fitness app:

1. Fixation on numbers

2. Rigid diet

3. Obsession

4. App dependency

5. High sense of achievement

6. Extreme negative emotions

7. Motivation from ‘negative’ messages

8. Excess competition

Even if one is not themselves a perfectionist, being constantly compared to “perfect” achievements can be detrimental to one’s mental health.  A quote which, for us, succinctly summarizes the phenomena: “When you chew enough glass, you learn to like the taste of your own blood.”

So how do we break free of the tyranny of these digital demi-gods decrying unmet goals, invoking negative emotions, and inducing ceaseless rumination over What Might Have Been Had We Only Been Better?

As we at Breath Runner have said before, “Our bodies do not operate on Artificial Intelligence.  Our bodies utilize Analogue Intelligence!”  Especially for something like running, care must be taken to account for the non-statistical, enigmatic factors of body signals.  Not just signals from one’s legs or muscles; the full panoply of physical, mental and emotional signaling.  Learning to listen to our bodies, to operate within the actual, physical realities we are experiencing on the day, and to quiet our minds enough to be mindful; these are health-positive, proactive behaviors which will benefit us in lasting and valuable ways that extend far beyond just better running.

©️ Endurance Essentials by Gordo Byrn. All Rights Reserved.

To be clear, we at Breath Runner are not “anti-technology”.  Far from it — we have most of the digital toys, and use many of the cutting-edge analysis tools that are publicly available.  But we also understand the time and place such technology are appropriate, and acknowledge the technical limitation of many components, and the fact that there is as of yet no standardization, either in their design nor in the algorithms they use.  Yes, competition in the marketplace is a good thing, and the ability for unique, vibrant, and creative design is essential for progress.  But even among the most rabid of capitalists, certain realities cut through the noise.  As one A.I. startup founder told the Financial Times, “No industry can thrive without regulation in the long run. It’s mayhem.”

The Good News is that there IS a “technology” we have found which works, and works well, in all conditions, in all stages of training.  That technology is: syncing our breathing to our run cadence.  By using our body’s natural “computational” powerhouse, our brains and Central Nervous System (CNS), in conjunction with our body’s massive processing capacity, which is our ability to absorb and use oxygen and nutrients to power our activities, together in a synchronized fashion, we can harness the power of our innate Analogue Intelligence.  This allows us to meter our efforts, maximize our aerobic capabilities, and tap into our body’s natural ability to keep negative emotions at bay.  Combined with a comprehensive, polarized training plan, runners of all abilities can find new levels of health performance which will have benefits far from the trail.  Instead of the detrimental “No Pain, No Gain” idiocy, try “Avoid Unnecessary Pain for Realistic, Achievable Gains”!  You can still use your smart watch if you want.  You just don’t need to listen to the bots.

Visit Breath Runner for more information.