Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #89: Gill1918 Presents Rob Wilson "Altis Pocket Guide"

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#89: Gill1918 Presents Rob Wilson "Altis Pocket Guide" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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you grow as a coach. We're bringing the once a year
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track clinic straight to your ears daily.
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Interested in creating your own episode?
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Everyone's welcome to participate.
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Check out the show notes below For more information.
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Now let's get into today's topic.
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Hey coaches, this is Rob Wilson coming at you to through the
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Gill Athletics podcast. I'm a strength and conditioning
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coach, human performance consultant.
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I've been in the game right around 25 years.
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In that time I worked as a physio doing return to play,
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owned a gym, did a lot of strength and conditioning work
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and human performance work and special operations.
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And I have consulted with organizations like the UFC
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Performance Institute and Altus. Now today I'm going to
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specifically be talking with you about a topic that's sort of
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like one of the buzz topics out in this sort of health and
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performance marketplace. And it has been probably for the
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last five or ten years sort of a hot topic, which is the idea of
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breathing techniques. Now, of course, the idea of
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using breathing to improve health and performance is much
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older than the last five or ten years.
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In fact, it's about 2 to 5000 years older than that.
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We have yogic texts that go way, way back that describe using
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controlled breathing practices to affect everything from health
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to states of consciousness changes.
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Today I am not going to talk to you about yoga per SE, but
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instead why and how specific applications of breath control
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in the right context of sport and in your case, track and
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field, could be a really helpful tool in your toolbox, both for
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your athletes to use, but also for you as a coach to use.
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Now think about this. If you're in a situation where
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let's say this, if I there's a contest and you were going to go
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on on a game show and the game show they had all the
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contestants put on heart rate monitors.
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And what they're going to do is put you on an exercise bike.
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No warm up. And you were going to ride the
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exercise bike as hard as you possibly could until your heart
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rate got to its maximum. And then the winner of the grand
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prize, $100,000 in cash would be the person who could get their
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heart rate to come down the fastest.
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Now, I don't think anybody would think that.
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What you could do is think really hard and think in your
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mind heart slow, and then your heart would slow down.
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And that's because there's no motor control mechanism that
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allows conscious thought to change the rhythm of your heart.
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You could, however, slow your heart rate down by taking
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controlled slow breaths. And we all already know this.
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If somebody around you is panicking, even if you don't
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know anything special about breathing, you'll say, hey, just
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take a nice deep breath. Just breathe.
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If you're really fatigued, if you're getting exhausted, nobody
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says hold on, I can't catch my heart.
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You say hold on, I can't catch my breath.
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And and that's because it's impossible for you to catch your
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heart. You don't have any control
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mechanisms. But what you can do is take
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conscious control over the muscles that move your rib cage
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and change the feedback loops of stress in your autonomic nervous
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system and thereby alter physiological outputs that are
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related to everything from fatigue to psychology.
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And that's really powerful because there are very, very few
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environments where you don't have access to changing your
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breath. Now one of the problems very
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often with with the way that breathing is applied in
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performance environments is that we just try to take protocols
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from non performance environments, turn them into
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some sort of Band-Aid and then slap them on athletes and sort
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of cross our fingers and hope for the best.
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And sometimes it works depending on the situation and often it
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doesn't, especially when we talk about real time application.
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So in the heat of the moment now let's step back for a second.
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When we think about all the factors that can that constrain
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performance outcomes. One of the psychological
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constraints, especially in modern times that can be a
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serious inhibitor on performance is anxiety, right?
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A feeling of dread, uncertainty about what's about to happen,
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And anxiety, although it's an emotion, has a physiological
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footprint, right? Things change where we have a
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heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, an autonomic response
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to an emotional trigger or an emotional event.
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And this is because of all the factors that contribute to the
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way that we respond to stress, both overtime and and in real
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time are multi factorial. We have distributed control in
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those things. There's not one central joystick
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that says here's how we're going to respond.
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But back to anxiety more and more.
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Now, let me say this first. Feeling anxious or getting sort
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of tuned up, if you will, about performing well and doing well
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to some degree is part and parcel of the competitive
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athletic experience. If you don't ever want to feel
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nervous, don't compete. But if you want to compete, if
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you have a drive to compete and to do your best and to test
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yourself against your potential capacity and against others,
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then you are going to feel some nervousness.
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Now anxiety is when these thoughts become sort of
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recursive and repetitive and they build on each other and
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they start to inhibit performance.
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Now, one thing that people often do with anxiety or sort of these
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unwanted aspects of performance psychology is to use some sort
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of thought matrix to interfere or intervene and try to redirect
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the framework that the athlete uses to label their experience.
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And, and that can be helpful. I'm not against that, but in my
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experience athletes often respond well to the utilization
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of a physical tool. That's what breathing does.
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Taking conscious control over breathing offers a physical tool
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that in real time changes the feedback loop.
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It acts like a clutch in the system.
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It allows for the changing of years from a more sympathetic
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sort of gas pedal state to slightly more parasympathetic
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where calm focus and clarity are available.
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If you look at extremely high performing individuals, elite
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individuals, you'll see that they often automatically use
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breathing to shift their state either during, just before or
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just after high demand performance situations.
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You see it, you watch Wimbledon, if you watch pro surfing, if you
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watch the UFC, you watch track and field athletes come up right
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before the moment they take a breath and reset the system to
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some degree, right? And it gives clarity, focus, and
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it meters the tacit stress response that comes with the
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performance environment. Now, with all of that said, one
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thing that does seem to be happening, and I don't want to
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sound like the old man in the clouds, The younger generation
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seems to have more nervousness. They're not as tough.
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But you know, I have a 24 year old daughter, so I'm very
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familiar with Gen. Z Kids report more anxiety.
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Now I don't know if that's because we are more open about
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mental health in general or and or if the environment that these
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younger generations are coming up in are so full of stimulation
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and such constant social pressure that they seem to be
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exacerbating existing preconditions found in sport.
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Now, my understanding is that this tends to affect women's
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sport and female athletes more obviously men.
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When we feel emotionally dysregulated, we often resort to
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disconnection or anger, whereas women may feel anxiety more
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often. Now, those are broad
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generalizations, of course, but what remains a fact is that
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emotional dysregulation or experiencing some loss of
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control over how we're feeling and responding to situations in
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sport, whether they're during competing or in training, are
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are normal. What seems to be happening now
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is that athletes have a much harder time recovering from
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those things and pulling themselves back in line.
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Breathing, rather than adding another layer of complexity to
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all of that allows for a very simple high leverage
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intervention that coaches can provide to athletes that is
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highly likely to work with a minimum investment of time.
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And it's very, very unlikely that even if it doesn't work,
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that it will hurt them. So it won't hurt athletes and it
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will probably help them. Now, I just want to have a
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slight sidebar here. You know, so far I've been
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saying athletes, athletes, athletes, coaches, you need this
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too. We need this too.
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We're people. Coaching can be highly
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stressful. Lots of pressure.
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Coaching turnover is very high. Coaches tend to work long hours
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for less than ideal pay, with often job uncertainty year over
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year. That's a stressful environment.
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Proper integration of breathing into your life can help you
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manage yourself better and be a better example for athletes.
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And by the way, there's no not managing stress.
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There's just how we do it and how much it costs human beings.
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We find ways to cope. Unfortunately, the ways that we
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used to cope with stress often come with additional cost rather
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than additional benefit. Breath control is the latter.
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Now, applying breath control really works on multiple levels
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at once, even though it's a conscious, mechanical thing
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you're doing. You're using muscles to move
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ribs differently. You have other monitoring
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systems, both in emotional and at autonomic levels that are
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learning how to respond within the context of the environment
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you're in and provide a history of how your body adjust its
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Physiology in response to overall stress.
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And breathing is an input for parasympathetic tone for calm,
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relaxation and focus. Now, how much and how exactly
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that works is very specific to context, and we won't have time
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to get into it during this podcast, maybe sometime in the
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future. But what remains is because
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breath is a fundamental survival mechanism that is built deep
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into the autonomic nervous system.
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When you take control over it, the body and mind listen all at
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once, and as you develop the skill of using it, it will
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listen faster and it will respond better.
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It will not necessarily make the environment that you're in less
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stressful. It will change the way you
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respond. It'll bring the locus of control
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over how you're thinking, feeling, and responding back to
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you. That's the number one thing
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breath control does. It's not voodoo.
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It's not fancy. It's a physiological mindset
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tool. You change the way your body is
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physically moving. It alters deep physiological
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feedback loops and gives you an opportunity to reframe how
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you're responding to stress. One real problem, I'm going to
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stand on a soapbox here for a second.
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One real problem I have in sports performance and health
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and in general, is we treat stress management as a way to
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avoid feeling a certain way. I don't want to feel the stress.
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I don't want to be anxious. I don't want to be worried about
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the test. I don't want to be worried about
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if I get the scholarship. Worrying about things that you
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care about is normal. What's not normal is if they
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keep sucking energy from you in a way that keeps you from
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executing and breathing can help you harness the stress response
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and utilize it in a way that drives your focus.
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It's a physiological mindset tool.
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It brings the locus of control from out there back to in here,
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and it teaches you how to drive your attention in whatever
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direction you want. It helps you grab a hold of the
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sort of wild horse that's running around in your mind and
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body applying. This can be done in sort of two
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categories. I think about it.
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One is real time. So you're in the moment, you're
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at the track, you're on the field and you're in practice and
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you just can't get it. The coach's queue isn't making
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sense to you. The athletes not listening.
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Things aren't going right. So and so is not eating the way
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they should. They were late for practice.
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I'm not getting along with coach.
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Whatever this stuff is that happens, that creates friction.
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Breathing purposefully without any fancy numbers or names, just
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breathing on purpose can help. Hit the reset button a little
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bit. It'll provide an opportunity in
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that moment to keep the system in check and not allow the pot
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to boil over, if you will. So that's real time.
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That could be in practice or it can be at an event.
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It can help you manage fatigue. Oh man, I just finished that
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event. Now I got to focus on something
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else. I need to gather myself, gather
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my focus and be ready for the next thing I need to do.
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I need to be ready for the conversation with coach.
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I need to be ready for the conversation with my athlete.
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That's real time. Now, the other way that we can
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apply this is overtime. So over the long haul, breathing
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practices can be simple ways to give regular parasympathetic
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input, whether that's recovering from hard training, helping
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athletes get to sleep, or to rest well if sleep is less than
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accessible. Breathing, regardless of
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context, is a parasympathetic input.
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Slow breathing in particular, and somewhere between 5 and 20
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minutes a day of breathing will help make the autonomic nervous
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system in the stress response in total more robust.
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In the research on that is is quite clear at this point.
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Now the application of all these ideas, they can be quite
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variable. I have my own biases and and
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sort of taste towards these things.
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What I don't like is any dogma, not interested in perpetuating
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any certain name, technique or anything that belongs to a
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certain person. Instead, I'm just interested in
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what gets the outcomes that we need for ourselves as coaches
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because we have to perform too and makes quick sense to our
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athletes so they can use it when they need it.
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Now, the specifics of this are very simple, but do require a
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little bit more time investment. If you're interested in learning
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how to apply more of this, stay on the lookout.
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I have an entire pocket guide coming out with Altis called
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Staying in the Pocket and it's all about using breathing
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techniques for the purposes I just outlined in the last, you
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know, 15 minutes or so. So stay on the lookout for that
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pocket guide for breathing from me.
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That pocket guide will explain the Physiology, the purposes of
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different breathing, and then we'll have lots of practical
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sections where you can see how to apply this with your athletes
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in sport. You can find me if you want to
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talk more about this subject. If you got questions on how you
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can use it, you can find me on social media at the Check Engine
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Light, or you can check out my sub stack, which is
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checkenginelight.substack.com. Thanks so much for listening.
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Hope you found this interesting and helpful later.
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Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
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episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
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It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
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amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
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The Gill 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
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build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
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heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
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there. So please get a hold of me,
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e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
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and let's help create your episode of the Guild 1918
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Project. Hope you enjoy today and we'll
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see you tomorrow.