How to Breathe & Train for Core Strength | Pavel Tsatsouline & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | - I'd love to talk about abdominal or rather core work.

00:00:05.000 | - Sure.

00:00:06.380 | - Another thing that I love in the Naked Warrior

00:00:08.340 | are the abdominal exercises.

00:00:10.140 | I must tell you, after years of doing some crunches

00:00:13.900 | here and there and different, you know,

00:00:16.200 | for whatever this class or that class are trying to,

00:00:18.940 | I never really cared about having my abs defined

00:00:22.020 | for its own sake.

00:00:23.380 | One should probably be able to at least contract their abs.

00:00:26.540 | Okay, it's the level of-

00:00:27.740 | - We assess them by punching.

00:00:29.020 | - Right, right, right, exactly.

00:00:30.580 | But there's some wonderful exercises in there

00:00:32.500 | about learning to brace the entire body

00:00:34.540 | and some, dare I say, some rather unorthodox ways

00:00:39.540 | of assessing stability at the level of the core.

00:00:42.020 | I'm thinking about the plank where somebody tries

00:00:44.560 | to either kick you over or push you over.

00:00:46.660 | This might sound violent.

00:00:47.620 | This is not where you start, folks.

00:00:48.700 | - It's kind and gentle.

00:00:49.620 | - But I never thought I could do

00:00:50.980 | like hanging pikes, for instance.

00:00:52.460 | And like now pikes are a standard part of my weekly routine.

00:00:56.020 | I love doing five sets of five of hanging pikes.

00:00:58.660 | - Great, great.

00:01:00.140 | - And I will tell anyone that decides to go down this path

00:01:03.080 | that when I first tried to do a pike, I failed miserably.

00:01:06.620 | I tried an L-sit, failed miserably.

00:01:09.860 | Tried the, you know, hanging from the bar

00:01:12.500 | and just getting into a chair position

00:01:13.860 | and could just barely hold that.

00:01:15.280 | The progressions are what matter, right?

00:01:17.060 | Slow progression and patience.

00:01:18.620 | Now five sets of five pikes, trivial for me.

00:01:21.740 | But when I, I just want to emphasize that when I started,

00:01:25.360 | I was far, far away from that.

00:01:28.060 | And it's the progressions in the book that really helped me

00:01:30.700 | and I've maintained that pike ability.

00:01:32.100 | So thank you for that.

00:01:33.220 | And I say, not to necessarily to highlight what I can do,

00:01:36.920 | but that to highlight what I do believe most anybody can do.

00:01:41.380 | If you put the work in.

00:01:42.420 | - If they put a lot of attention in.

00:01:44.540 | So midsection training is one of the most misunderstood

00:01:48.740 | and messed up areas of physical culture.

00:01:51.820 | There's a thousand different exercises

00:01:53.740 | and people are going to get a variety, this many reps.

00:01:56.880 | That's not the point.

00:01:58.060 | The point really is tension and attention.

00:02:01.480 | So those are the two things.

00:02:03.500 | And ideally your best first step

00:02:07.780 | is really learning abdominal tension

00:02:09.800 | through something like a Zurcher squat

00:02:12.460 | or double kettlebell front squat,

00:02:14.420 | where the load distribution is such

00:02:17.220 | that it forces reflexive stabilization.

00:02:19.260 | And you feel, oh, that's what tight abs feel like.

00:02:23.020 | And getting somebody just weak in a plank, it's hopeless.

00:02:26.300 | It's absolutely not going to help.

00:02:27.660 | It's not.

00:02:28.500 | There are ways of building up to it, yes,

00:02:30.140 | by rolling in the back and so on.

00:02:32.860 | So, but if you don't have that option,

00:02:35.180 | or if you choose not to exercise it,

00:02:37.660 | you have to be extremely attentive to the details

00:02:39.940 | of what's going on within your abdomen.

00:02:41.940 | So you need to learn things like, for example,

00:02:44.020 | you need to learn to contract the pelvic diaphragm,

00:02:46.340 | pull your butt up.

00:02:47.680 | Because you're trying to constrain

00:02:51.820 | the intra-abdominal pressure.

00:02:53.780 | Then you need to learn how to direct attention

00:02:56.940 | to the different parts of your abdomen,

00:02:59.100 | almost like a bodybuilder, but really not quite,

00:03:01.940 | more like a gymnast.

00:03:03.580 | There is this argument about, in the strength world,

00:03:05.980 | about internal focus, external focus, and cueing.

00:03:09.700 | And the agreement is in motor learning,

00:03:11.460 | well, external focus cueing is so much better

00:03:13.420 | than focusing on whatever happens

00:03:15.620 | within the individual muscle.

00:03:17.340 | It may be true in the beginning,

00:03:19.260 | and it may be true outside of the strength game,

00:03:21.860 | but any top strength athlete that you will meet,

00:03:24.740 | they have their own internal cues how they do something.

00:03:27.820 | Later on, they may forget them, it despires them,

00:03:30.140 | but they know how to, this is how I engage the lat

00:03:33.460 | in the bench press.

00:03:36.060 | George Halbert, bench press world record holder,

00:03:38.180 | famously said, "It took him many years

00:03:40.060 | "to finally understand how the triceps

00:03:41.720 | "is used in the bench press, many years."

00:03:44.580 | So there is a lot of internal component,

00:03:46.780 | and for the abs, very, very much.

00:03:49.100 | So you have to learn how to very much

00:03:52.300 | direct your attention there.

00:03:53.700 | To get high tension, you have to keep the reps low.

00:03:57.020 | Like you said, five sets of five, perfect.

00:03:58.980 | High reps are not necessary.

00:04:00.780 | You're not gonna burn off fat by doing more reps,

00:04:02.860 | you're just gonna irritate your back,

00:04:04.660 | that's all you're gonna do, nothing else.

00:04:06.500 | So you treat your ab training very much

00:04:08.740 | like a strength event.

00:04:12.380 | And if you do that, you're gonna get those results.

00:04:15.440 | And finally, the final detail is you need to use

00:04:19.460 | that intra-abdominal pressure as your friend.

00:04:21.900 | Because in lifting, like a deadlift or a squat or something,

00:04:27.540 | the intra-abdominal pressure helps you, it supports you.

00:04:29.820 | When you're doing abdominal work,

00:04:31.500 | you work against that intra-abdominal pressure.

00:04:34.420 | You just create that pressure and contract against it.

00:04:37.260 | This is something called internal isometrics.

00:04:40.020 | So it's kind of interesting, it's just a combination

00:04:42.860 | of classic strength work with very internalized,

00:04:47.100 | kind of almost like a martial arts approach to it.

00:04:49.700 | Then you need to learn also how to obviously use your abs

00:04:53.340 | in the lifts, in lifting.

00:04:55.060 | And once you do, and this is the beauty,

00:04:57.100 | you don't really have to train your abs anymore.

00:04:59.340 | So Franco Colombo, for example, great example,

00:05:02.340 | in addition to winning, you know, being super strong

00:05:04.900 | and winning Mr. Olympia, he won the best abs.

00:05:07.020 | He didn't train abs.

00:05:08.380 | He said, he told me, "I hate ab training."

00:05:10.820 | He just would stay tight whenever he did his heavy lifts.

00:05:13.980 | And this is pretty much what happens.

00:05:15.440 | When you reach a certain level of strength

00:05:18.260 | and a certain level of awareness,

00:05:20.500 | simply staying tight during your strength work

00:05:23.780 | and also employing power breathing, which is very important,

00:05:27.260 | you're going to be able to get as strong as you need

00:05:29.940 | in the abs and get your six pack or whatever,

00:05:32.460 | provided, you know, you don't eat the Twinkies.

00:05:35.220 | So how do you pressurize the...

00:05:38.540 | In fact, may I show an abdominal exercise right now

00:05:41.900 | that is just sitting at this table

00:05:43.420 | that's also going to teach you how,

00:05:47.200 | teach your audience how to properly pressurize for lifting.

00:05:51.460 | So normally it's better done standing.

00:05:54.140 | So, and it's not for people with high blood pressure

00:05:56.900 | or heart concerns, you know, check with your doctor

00:05:58.860 | if that's the situation.

00:06:00.580 | So you take a normal breath in your abdomen

00:06:04.620 | and you pull up your butt pretty much.

00:06:07.940 | Like imagine you have to go to the restroom

00:06:09.840 | and you're trying to, you can't quite, you know,

00:06:11.840 | it's far away, you're trying to stop yourself.

00:06:14.420 | And then you put your tongue between your teeth

00:06:17.340 | and you start (inhales and exhales)

00:06:21.680 | and you start hissing.

00:06:23.340 | And you do this in this ratcheting kind of manner.

00:06:26.640 | So (inhales and exhales)

00:06:30.380 | try to keep all the pressure out of your head,

00:06:32.600 | out of your neck, direct all the pressure,

00:06:35.140 | all this pressure is just to really staying below.

00:06:38.140 | And so this type of hissing, (inhales and exhales)

00:06:42.440 | you will notice that very rapidly

00:06:44.400 | you're going to contract everything around your waist.

00:06:47.160 | So everything around your waist is going to contract

00:06:49.960 | and you're going to strain your abdomen.

00:06:51.600 | You're also going to start learn how to properly,

00:06:54.680 | how to properly stabilize yourself under heavy weights.

00:06:58.320 | The difference between using this technique for lifting

00:07:01.640 | and for just training the abs,

00:07:03.360 | when you're training the abs

00:07:04.240 | there's going to be some spinal flexion, not a whole lot.

00:07:06.640 | You don't want to do a lot of that.

00:07:07.840 | There's going to be some spinal flexion.

00:07:10.340 | When you're doing that under a heavy barbell squat,

00:07:13.820 | you're maintaining your spine is neutral.

00:07:15.680 | It's like your body stays a cylinder

00:07:17.540 | and you're going to hold your breath pretty much.

00:07:22.080 | But the idea is the same.

00:07:23.380 | So it's like, so the Valsalva maneuver,

00:07:27.480 | one Russian coach called it,

00:07:30.080 | it's an exhalation that didn't happen, okay?

00:07:36.160 | Because people don't know how to hold their breath properly.

00:07:37.920 | They just, and then eyes are bulging out

00:07:40.960 | where there's no stability right here.

00:07:42.640 | So first of all, you got to inhale low.

00:07:45.200 | And how do you do that?

00:07:46.680 | If you watch top lifters, how they do that,

00:07:48.960 | they will do it through pursed lips.

00:07:51.720 | You can also do it through the nose,

00:07:53.520 | but you cannot do through big wide open mouth.

00:07:55.600 | So I'll show you why.

00:07:57.280 | So if you, you can, your folks can try it at home.

00:08:00.000 | So if you put your hand on your stomach

00:08:02.240 | and trying to do an abdominal breath,

00:08:05.600 | it doesn't go very well.

00:08:07.160 | Now, for contrast, pinch off one nostril,

00:08:10.000 | take an abdominal breath,

00:08:14.080 | or you can do that through pursed lips.

00:08:15.440 | Try it again.

00:08:16.280 | So you see-

00:08:20.720 | - More resistance.

00:08:21.600 | - More resistance.

00:08:22.440 | And again, you're engaging the diaphragm

00:08:24.480 | instead of just your thorax right there.

00:08:27.880 | So you take that breath into your abdomen

00:08:31.200 | in like through a small opening through your nose

00:08:35.000 | or through your pursed lips, you draw it in right there.

00:08:39.440 | And then, you know, down below, you pull it up.

00:08:42.640 | And then after that, it's that exhalation

00:08:46.280 | that didn't happen.

00:08:47.480 | Do you see?

00:08:48.320 | - I see.

00:08:49.160 | So I'm familiar with sort of bracing my abs.

00:08:53.240 | What I've not done before is the resisting

00:08:56.640 | going to the bathroom thing that you mentioned,

00:08:58.600 | the pulling up of the butt.

00:08:59.800 | And then, so you're creating compression

00:09:02.000 | from the bottom and from the top.

00:09:02.840 | - And also from all around,

00:09:04.440 | that happens reflexively as well.

00:09:06.040 | - I see.

00:09:06.880 | So that's the position to get in to before, say,

00:09:08.960 | like a hard Zurcher squat or something like that.

00:09:11.320 | - Absolutely.

00:09:12.160 | And if you're doing that for an exercise

00:09:14.520 | that's long in duration, you know,

00:09:17.480 | if you don't wanna be holding your breath too long,

00:09:19.720 | then we have an expression

00:09:21.800 | that comes from one of the karate styles,

00:09:23.920 | breathing behind the shield.

00:09:25.920 | So right now I can speak to you,

00:09:29.160 | but I'm still just as tight.

00:09:30.840 | So you see what you're doing.

00:09:31.920 | So the way we test it at our,

00:09:33.720 | the way we teach it at our workshops

00:09:35.360 | is you lie on the ground.

00:09:37.720 | I tell you to tense up.

00:09:38.720 | Then I'm gonna stand on your stomach.

00:09:40.000 | I'm gonna have you sing a song.

00:09:41.800 | And you're gonna have to learn

00:09:43.360 | to properly maintain that pressure

00:09:45.320 | while still continuing to breathe.

00:09:49.560 | So you're able to stabilize your spine,

00:09:51.760 | but you're not going to pass out

00:09:53.400 | from maintaining that by holding your breath

00:09:56.320 | for a period of time.

00:09:57.800 | And then finally, what you gotta learn to do

00:10:00.720 | is you gotta learn to match the breath with the force.

00:10:03.440 | So synchronize, synchronize when you're punching,

00:10:07.800 | when you're throwing, when you're lifting,

00:10:12.360 | you have to learn how to match that contraction,

00:10:14.960 | the timing of the abdominal contraction

00:10:16.960 | and the pressurization, sometimes exhalation,

00:10:19.920 | sometimes just pretending to with the effort.

00:10:23.120 | Once you learn how to match the breath with the force,

00:10:25.720 | it's like magic.

00:10:27.320 | And what people don't realize

00:10:28.840 | is not just purely mechanical.

00:10:30.480 | Mechanically, yes, of course it works.

00:10:32.280 | You know, Stu explained this so well

00:10:33.760 | about the stiffness of the structure,

00:10:35.840 | the analogy of the bicycle frame.

00:10:37.440 | It's the same thing.

00:10:38.560 | You're getting an expensive bicycle frame

00:10:40.280 | when you have strong abs,

00:10:41.680 | as opposed to the cheap one that rattles and wiggles.

00:10:45.400 | But there's also something that it's never spoken about

00:10:50.400 | in the West for some reason.

00:10:52.640 | The Soviets studied that decades ago.

00:10:54.640 | There's something they called the pneumo,

00:10:57.600 | mathematic reflex, pneumo is P-N-E-U-M-O, so air.

00:11:02.600 | So there are barrier receptors,

00:11:05.040 | receptors for sensors for pressure

00:11:08.160 | inside your abdominal cavity and thoracic cavity.

00:11:10.880 | So whenever these receptors are stimulated,

00:11:15.880 | what they do is they automatically increase the sensitivity

00:11:19.600 | about alpha motor neurons.

00:11:21.080 | So what it really means to the audience is this.

00:11:24.560 | If you imagine your brain is the music player

00:11:27.720 | and imagine your muscle is a speaker,

00:11:31.920 | the amount of intra-abdominal pressure

00:11:34.800 | is your volume control.

00:11:36.440 | So by increasing that pressure, you're increasing

00:11:40.000 | the strength, but by releasing

00:11:43.920 | that intra-abdominal pressure, you relax the muscle.

00:11:46.960 | So that's why in stretching, as I mentioned before,

00:11:49.080 | you can't be sitting in a half split and groaning.

00:11:52.240 | No, you need to release.

00:11:55.120 | If you release that passive breath,

00:11:57.880 | again, your muscles are going to relax.

00:12:01.160 | So controlling your breath is very much,

00:12:05.360 | as it's known in martial arts,

00:12:06.800 | it's very much synonymous with controlling your body

00:12:09.480 | and your mind very often.

00:12:10.800 | - Fantastic.

00:12:11.840 | When one throws a punch,

00:12:16.480 | is it true that exhaling is actually providing

00:12:21.280 | additional power or?

00:12:22.480 | - No question about it.

00:12:23.320 | - Okay.

00:12:24.160 | - Yeah, it's been measured.

00:12:25.120 | It's been measured on fighters.

00:12:26.680 | It's also been measured in lifting as well.

00:12:30.920 | There was a study that was done in the West even

00:12:34.200 | when screaming increases strength significantly.

00:12:37.120 | And again, this is not just a psychological component.

00:12:39.840 | I mean, there may be some psychological component to that,

00:12:43.040 | but again, there's this very distinct increase

00:12:46.960 | of strength through that reflex.

00:12:51.920 | And it's very easy for the listeners to test that,

00:12:55.560 | get a dynamometer, hand gripper,

00:12:57.240 | and just test yourself on that.

00:12:58.440 | And just see, test it out with different breathing patterns

00:13:01.960 | and just see what happens.

00:13:03.600 | And whenever this idiotic practice at some gyms,

00:13:07.080 | oh, you can't grunt right here.

00:13:08.520 | And it's just, well, I guess you can be strong here.

00:13:11.320 | And yeah, of course, if you're doing this on purpose,

00:13:13.360 | you're walking in with the bros

00:13:14.680 | and you're just trying to just to make noise

00:13:16.600 | to attract attention, that's wrong.

00:13:18.560 | But strength is a noisy endeavor.

00:13:23.560 | So there may be some hissing.

00:13:25.840 | There may be some grunting.

00:13:27.520 | It's just absolutely unavoidable.

00:13:29.800 | And if you're trying to be quiet

00:13:33.640 | and if you're trying to be a lady or a gentleman,

00:13:35.720 | well, maybe it's for somewhere else, not for the gym.

00:13:39.380 | (upbeat music)

00:13:41.960 | (upbeat music)

00:13:44.540 | (upbeat music)

How to Breathe & Train for Core Strength | Pavel Tsatsouline & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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