Breathing, TRT & Foam Rolling...

Breathing Needs To Be Taught…

This wasn’t a question, it’s more an observation of mine…

You probably don’t need another muscle up drill, weird plyos or a Smolov cycle; if you want to perform well, you need to breathe well, and a lot of adults don’t…

The bottom third of your lungs is where two thirds of the gas exchange takes place - if you’re not using it, everything becomes so, so much harder… Your cardio / hyrox / CrossFit will be a struggle; you’ll be weak in the middle / less stable when you lift; other muscles (psoas, glute max, etc) won’t be performing well either… It’s like driving with flat tyres and the handbrake on… And we could go on about influencing the nervous system, changing your brain waves, action breathing, etc, but that stuff is nowhere near as cool as Snatching, Muscle ups and wearing sunglasses indoors, so let’s wrap this up and move on! Breathing needs to be taught. It’s foundational and it really should be addressed before we start doing anything sexy or cool...

TRT… Good Or Bad?

I am not an expert on this, this is just my opinion, but seemingly out of nowhere, loads of influencers have all said something along the lines of “I actually thought my life was going ok, but then this wonderful company sent me a free test and I was like WHOA my testosterone is low, now I take testosterone and my life is so, SO much better, and YOU can have a better life too full of holidays, cash and women by simply clicking this link and using my special discount code”

This subject requires nuance, which I don’t have that much time or space for here, but here goes - TRT can be useful, and even lifesaving in certain cases. There. Nuance established. My issue with it is that fair enough your testosterone might be low, but there’s also lifestyle factors that can influence / remedy that, and with a few adjustments there may be no need whatsoever to fuck with your endocrine system and be dependant on exogenous testosterone (and their supply lines) for the rest of your life… And that is the expert consensus at the time of writing - if you’re taking TRT, you can expect to be on it for the rest of your life.

Dependent. On a drug. And its supply. For the rest of your life.

In my opinion, TRT can be either good or bad depending on the circumstances. Regardless of the circumstances, TRT should be used with caution and probably not as a first resort… 

** And just while I’m loosely on the subject, there’s this weird thing happening now where people are taking testosterone (and probably other stuff) in order to be competitive at a local level. As in local, friendly little CrossFit competitions where you might win a pair of shoes... If that’s you, you really, really need to stop that shit.

My XYZ Hurts, Should I (Foam) Roll It?

Depends… If, and I’ll use last week as an example, you had a weak pec major, and you let it progress to upper trapezius dominance, you could foam roll your traps - take the tension out of it, maybe find some relief, but(!) you’d still have a weak pec major and you’d still displace tension to the traps next time you bench press / dip / whatever… You’d still have the same problem, basically, so you need to address the root cause. (Finding the root cause, by the way, is something I’m very good at, so please do reach out if you need to)

If you just had a long day - up at 5, trained, manual job, went to your part time job after that, then finished the day with some sparring - then treat yourself to a foam roll / acupressure mat / massage / whatever you want… You’ve earned it, champ.

Neil Collins is a personal trainer and movement specialist based in Haywards Heath. With over 15 years of experience, he helps people overcome pain, improve the way they move, and build functional strength and impressive skills.