100 plant powered push ups on a single breath of air.
We are two weeks into 2020 I am stoked because I have permanently shifted my paradigms of being happy, healthy and strong.
I am the guy who took two years to regain the strength and motor control to pour out a glass of water, five years to re-learn how to swim. The guy who doctors said “would be lucky if he could put on his own shirt”. I am stoked because I made my own well-being and my neuroplasticity my own business, and because I did it without any pills - I did it my way.
2020 caught me pleasantly off guard. This was diametrically opposed to 2019, which knocked me — and pretty much everyone I speak with about last year - totally off kilter. Many of the fears and worries I harboured through 2019 in and lucidly detailed sort of way, dissipated away by the wayside, without much effort towards the end of 2019. Entering 2020 was the culmination of many years of processing and preparation for growth and self-reconciliation. But I have been around for far too long to believe that my own practices and intentions alone, (however good they may be), without the blessing and permissibility of time itself, can do much for lasting progress and understanding.
2020 led me to incorporate the Wim Hof Method (WHM) into my life. For those who have not heard of him, do familiarize yourself with the Wim Hof Method linked above.
Wim offers a very simple yet profound breathing method, to boost performance, heal emotional scars and literally augment physical strength and well-being in the most immediate way I have ever come across in any practice. Cold exposure is a central tenet of the WHM. I have synthesised his practice for what I can do here in Karachi. It is 9 degrees C or 40 odd F and the cold water is enough for now.
My concoction of the WHM includes breathing a couple of times a day, pre and post shower and before bed. Push ups on no air once a day, cold water in the shower for as long as I can everyday and complete stillness and awareness through each moment of the practice throughout. The breathing exercises are a bit like free diving — I used to free dive regularly a decade and a half ago as a spearfishing enthusiast. I never really developed my breathing back then with the pesky tables involved in free diving. WHM breathing is designed to maximize blood oxygenation and clear out as much CO2 as possible. One part of the practice is retention — this where you hold your breath after each repeated bout of O2 saturation — and retention is where I have found the most astounding results.
I am 47 and still smoke a pack a day; it has been this way for 34 years. Rest assured, this noxious habit will not make it far into 2020; I get a kick out of doing stuff that other younger men by a decade or more have a hard time keeping up with. Subconsciously, I realize that my yardstick in measuring my own perviousness to mortality is a little skewed. (I’m working on that.) Onto the breathing and the retention part; in just a few short weeks I hit the 4 min retention mark yesterday. 3 min now comes easy and on call. During yesterday’s exercise I felt complete sensory deprivation akin to nothing I have never felt before; an intense blackness and weightlessness with no sound —just a single definitive string of consciousness leading to the awareness of being 100% alive. It is basic and beautiful and its real. This sounds like such a silly thing to create a brouhaha and write about, but really, when was the last time you felt 100% alive? The purity of this awareness is the clearest and most viscerally raw thing I have experienced ever, (with or without the aid of the of pharmaceutical (or otherwise) accoutrements).
The one other big change (which really is not that big a deal) was that in December 2019 I moved overnight to a 100% plant powered diet. Call me a victim of The Game Changers. I had been reading about plant powered ultra athletes for years. It was not until the very end of last year that I felt ready. I have not looked back since.
The reason it took me ages to functionally recover 100% (and now a little more) was because I lost a chunk of flesh, nerves and muscle — over a kilogram of myself I am told, in the form of 1/2 my right tricep and my entire right upper deltoid to an accident.
Though I had bludgeoned my way through the swim part of the triathlon, an accolade I would whisper to myself and say, “Omer you’re ok now, you did it, it’s over”, the pain related to simple things like push ups and pull ups which really call on the specific areas I am missing remained an unresolved point of mild irritation. Each time I tried to re-build my upper body, the way cycling had done for my legs — the reminder of the pain would kick in and I’d console myself with an “Omer you did it — you are ok, it doesn’t matter anymore”. Consolation that comes through accolades to oneself is a recipe for limitation. I had unknowingly embalmed and mummified my own progress with it for years.
Enter Wim. Day 1 was good. I did the breathing and then held my breath and hit the deck. 42 pushups is what I came up with. I was impressed at myself because 30 is about where the pain would normally set in. I could do more, 50 or so, but then I’d suffer for the next 48 hours, each hour reminding me of what I’d lost. But this 42, confused me. On one hand I was gasping for air, and on the other, I was awe struck because there had been no pain — none whatsoever. I got dressed and repeated the same thing the very next day. A mild breathing exercise, then a cold shower, followed by a more intense breathing exercise (just 3 or 4 min) and then I hit the deck again. 55 and again no pain. Then 62, still no pain. I hit a painless 70 the day after — and on that day, 65 felt like I was going to choke, but I was able to remain calm and allow the feeling to pass without engagement or attachment. I did not need to push too much at all. Where was this power coming from? I repeated this again and plateaued for a few days in the early 80s. I thought that was my capacity which, in and of itself, made me really happy because it was still pain free — and a 250% improvement from where I had been for years. I had no goal — no end point and just wanted to keep going. Then, I slacked off for a few days, lacking the motivation to see what comes next.
Picking up a few days later I hit 75 off the bat, and I still felt really good, I slowed down ever so little through 85, and then I was struck with a ‘barrier’ presenting itself as a decision and an intention to keep going or to give up and breathe. 92! A painless 92. That was then and today was an effortless 100. I stood up, tall. Happy, healthy and stronger than I had thought possible. I inhaled deeply — holding it in for 15 more seconds as tears came rolling down from nowhere in the solitude of my room. As I breathed out letting everything go, I was overcome by the most joyful smile so far of 2020. I don’t know where this is going to go — I just know that this has become permanent feature in my life and my daily routine.
P.S. My wish is for you to be free of whatever ails and limits you. May your path be easy.
