The Ergo Lab at Castle Hill Fitness

Magnet and vibration stuff has been helping many folks dince 2011. Paula B. was the first test pilot of these techniques. Steve Hogg chimed in with magnet suggestions and Liz Hoffmaster showed me plenty of myofascial techniques that continue to help others.

MORE ABOUT LEG LENGTH DIFFERENCES - The Steve Hogg Bike Fitting Team I have a friend in Austin, Texas named Jerry Gerlich. Jerry works at Castle Hill Fitness as a personal trainer, bike fitter and rehab guy. Jerry is smart and thoughtful. Thoughtful in the sense that he is a thinker. Below are 4 pics of one of Jerry’s clients who originally presented with a functio...

The inspiration for using magnets to improve function, even with pets, is the brainchild of Steve Hogg. Safe, painless and effective.

Lateral Pelvic Alignment and Material Challenge Remediation Kit - The Steve Hogg Bike Fitting Team The majority of people display a lateral pelvic tilt. That is, in the absence of a leg length difference one side of their pelvis will sit higher than the other

Ann Mobley enjoying 4 sets of 60 seconds barefooted on the Power Plate vibration trainer for improved strength, bone density, circulation, balance vs and fine motor control demonstrating that 95 is just a number.

The Best Triathlon Bike Fitters in the United States A good bike fitter is an essential part of any triathlete's team. We did the legwork and found 15 of the best across the USA.

Jerry us heading to Minneapolis again for more bike fitting adventures.

BikeFit Footbeds Coaching Research Informed and Experience Driven

Greetings folks. The Castle Hill Fitness gym and Ergo Lab are closed for business until April 3rd, maybe longer pending further developments. Jerry is available during this time of confusion to assist, free of charge for 30 minutes, with bike fit related questions at 512-472-3605 during the Castle Hill downtime. Just a small way of contributing during this perplexing time. If the phone goes to voicemail, leave a message and your call will be returned in the order received. Good luck and keep find ways to pedal.

Excellent read from Steve Hogg.

PERFORMANCE BREATHING Steve Hogg copyright 2015
Breathing is fundamental to performance, yet most people breathe inefficiently. This piece will attempt to explain what you can do to improve breathing for a level of cycling benefit.
In terms of evolutionary priorities, breathing is 1st , stability of posture is 2nd and movement is 3rd . A person must breathe regularly or they will die.The info that follows is an overview of what is necessary for performance breathing.

We are designed to breathe primarily through our nose. No matter what the ambient temperature, air entering the body via the nose is filtered of dust, pollen and other small particles, humidified to 100% humidity and either heated or cooled to body temperature by the time it reaches the lungs. Nasal breathing also increases blood carbon dioxide levels. Nasal
breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system; the relaxing, calming part of the nervous system.

In contrast, mouth breathing means that the air reaching the lungs is unfiltered, drier than ideal and is at close to ambient temperature, no matter how hot or cold. Mouth breathing also
reduces blood carbon dioxide levels which may sound like a positive but is not. The only thing mouth breathing has going for it is that a greater volume of air can be taken in through the
mouth than through the nose and this fact is the key to understanding why we are designed to breathe through the mouth when necessary.

How much oxygen you can get to working muscles plays a large part in determining athletic proficiency. Within certain limits you can’t alter your VO2 Max as that is largely genetically determined. Gaining weight reduces VO2 Max as it is an efficiency measure per kilogram of body weight. Conversely, losing weight increases VO2 Max but if you are at your lean, racing weight, there is no real option for making progress here. You can increase your Anaerobic
Threshold as this is highly trainable but your VO2 Max is largely a given.There is no scope for increasing oxygen saturation levels of the bloodstream either, because
the body’s systems always maintain this at 100%, even if we don’t breathe until the final seconds or so before we die of asphyxiation.

One achievable way of improving our respiratory efficiency is by allowing oxygen in our bloodstream to jump from blood hemoglobin to working muscle tissue more easily. This is
controlled by blood CO2 levels and perhaps counter intuitively. Higher blood carbon dioxide levels are better than lower levels for this purpose. Nasal breathing raises blood C02 levels and
increases the efficiency of oxygen transfer. Mouth breathing lowers blood C02 levels and reduces the efficiency of oxygen transfer. In a physiological sense we are still Stone Age hunter /gatherers. We are designed to breathe through our nose first and foremost and to breathe through our mouths only in the
short term when getting the maximum volume of air into the lungs is more important than the consequences of breathing unfiltered, too dry, ambient temperature air. This can be summed up by the well-known phrase “Fight or Flight”. If you are running for your life, or fighting for your life, it doesn’t matter what the long-term consequences are of breathing unfiltered, too dry, ambient temperature air; they are matters for another day. The only thing that matters RIGHT
NOW is getting the maximum possible volume of air into the lungs, even too dry, pollen or dust filled, ambient temperature air as long as it gives a short-term boost to your long-term chances of surviving RIGHT NOW.

Mouth breathing is a survival / stress response / auxiliary method of breathing for short term use only while under high stress. We are hard wired to associate mouth breathing with an adrenaline response as mouth breathing stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, the part controlling the fight or flight response. There is no chicken or egg in this. The production of adrenaline increases the tendency to mouth breathe through the increased respiration rate that
adrenaline causes. Equally, the act of mouth breathing tends to increase the tendency to produce adrenaline.

Most of us are lucky enough to not live a Stone Age hunter/gather lifestyle with the attendant risks and hardships, but we are still wired up as though we are. Instead of being stressed because someone or something is trying to kill or injure us, we become stressed from reading an
unpleasant email, or having an argument with a family member or work colleague, or because our
credit card doesn’t work etc. These stresses of daily life in the modern world still engender an adrenaline response but we don’t get the cathartic release of running for our life or climbing a tree as fast as we can to escape. Without this cathartic release, bit by bit our body’s systems reset our blood CO2 levels lower and lower. The unfortunate consequence of this is that the majority of athletes have blood carbon dioxide levels that are lower than they should be for optimum performance.

So, what to do about it? During daily life, make a conscious effort to breathe only through your nose. If you’re a committed mouth breather this will take time as it is hard to break long standing habits. Above all remember that caffeine containing stimulants in the form of coffee or tea, Red Bulls,
V’s etc also stimulate the fight or flight reflex. This means that people who habitually drink more than 2 cups of tea or coffee daily or more than single double shot of coffee daily are
reducing their athletic performance by inhibiting their diaphragm. They are also compromising their stability because an inhibited diaphragm reciprocally inhibits the muscles of the pelvic floor. I would advise on not drinking Red Bulls, V’s or similar drinks at any time if optimal cycling
performance is your goal. A ‘sweet tooth’ diet high in simple sugars or simple carbohydrates has a similar impact on
respiratory efficiency. On the bike it will take some time to adapt to nasal breathing as initially you will feel breathless.
Cycling is an aerobic sport that relies on having a well-developed aerobic system. Translation: other than when racing, train only at a level that you can breathe exclusively through your nose. Over time the intensity level that you can do this will increase. If you train at a level of
intensity where you cannot breathe exclusively through the nose, then you are training your anaerobic system. Anaerobic training should only be 5% of your training time (perhaps 10% when really fit). If during colder weather you find your nasal passages blocked, keep your mouth closed and inflate the area behind your upper lip. This will allow you to fully open your nostrils.

Summary

Nasal breathing...
- Has a calming effect
- Improves oxygen transfer from bloodstream to working muscles
- Filters incoming air
- Humidifies incoming air to 100% humidity
- Heats or cools incoming air to match body temperature
Mouth breathing:
-Stimulates a stress response
-Does not filter incoming air
-Decreases the efficiency of oxygen transfer from bloodstream to working muscles
-Does not heat or cool incoming air to match body temperature.
-Inhibits the diaphragm, which not only reduces breathing efficiency, but via reciprocal inhibition of the muscles of the pelvic floor, also has a negative impact on on-bike stability