Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome friends to the Heart Rate Variability podcast. I am Matt Bennett here with a very special guest, uh, someone I call my friend in H R V. Uh, been a pleasure to get to know over the years, start to work together. Uh, Dr. Scotty Butcher, the Strength Jedi. The stoic tiger, the man, the legend. Uh, Scotty, it is great to have you, um, on the show. Obviously, I consider you a friend, have gotten to know and become a fan of your work and your loose interpretation of copyright over the years. Uh, but, uh, I, uh, do a quick introduction of who, who are you, uh, sort of what's your work, and then I can't wait to dive into, uh, H R V with you.
Speaker 1 00:00:49 Yeah, thanks, Matt. That's a, um, that's a pretty big, uh, introduction to kind of fill with expectation. Right. You know, it's, uh, but I appreciate it. I, I do. Um, yeah, no, it's, uh, I'm, I'm super happy that we've been, uh, able to be working together. I also consider you a friend and I think, uh, you know, the, the chance that we got to meet in person, um, just, uh, uh, a little while ago Yes. At, uh, at the conference, uh, the A A P B conference was, uh, was absolutely fantastic. So, yeah, I am, um, I, I'm a, I've got, I guess I wear a number of hats. I, uh, I'm a physical therapist by background. Um, I've got a PhD in respiratory physiology and exercise physiology, which I sort of morphed into, uh, looking at strength and conditioning with, uh, with multiple different populations, but also the, uh, the respiratory, uh, populations and, and that, um, I am a professor in, uh, our physical therapy department up here in, uh, the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, which is where I was born and raised in, uh, fortunate enough to, uh, to work there as well.
Speaker 1 00:01:56 Uh, I, I spent a good portion of my university career, my professor career, doing strength training research. And, uh, it's, it's definitely a love of mine. I, I, I compete very infrequently, but I do compete and I do love it in power lifting. And, um, it's, it's one of my, one of my favorite, uh, things to do, um, simply because I can't get on the rugby pitch anymore and not fall apart. Uh, which is why power lifting actually suits me really well. 'cause you have to keep everything together without one. Um, and most recently, uh, well, let me just back up one little bit. I, uh, I've also had a very long history of generalized anxiety disorder sprinkled with some social anxiety in there. Uh, uh, I, I would have had, I actually talked to someone, I would have been, uh, considered disabled by this, um, at varying points in my life and my career.
Speaker 1 00:02:51 Um, but, you know, I, uh, this started back in physiotherapy school 25 years ago, and that time we weren't talking about mental health, health, and certainly men were not talking about mental health. Yeah. Um, and, and that, so it's, uh, you know, went undiagnosed for a long time. But, uh, what I, uh, the reason I'm bringing that in is my personal and my professional worlds really came together when I started, first of all, addressing my concerns and actually listening to my body and my mind and, and, uh, seeing a counselor that directed me towards mindfulness. And, uh, the, the direction towards mindfulness also took a professional turn because at the same time, I was starting to really listen to the stories of my research participants that were coming out of strength training programs. And we were getting amazing results in terms of their physical performance and things like that, all the things you'd expect.
Speaker 1 00:03:42 But what I wasn't capturing is the stories behind them. And I started hearing stories like, well, you know, before the training program, I couldn't do this, but now I can bend down, pick the, pick up the pots under the bottom shelf and use two hands to hold them and lift them up onto the cupboard and stand. So without having to pull myself up. And, and I'm like, well, we need to capture that. And so I started going professionally down the path of resilience and looking into what defines resilience. And that quickly led me into mindfulness. And so my personal and professional careers really amalgamated, uh, around mindfulness. And then, of course, me being trained as a physiologist, I needed to understand what was the actual physiology going on behind the mindfulness that had such an amazing impact on me personally with, uh, with my anxiety and, uh, the stressors that I've been having.
Speaker 1 00:04:37 That it led me down the path of going, well, what contributes? Like, what about it is of mindfulness contributes to the changes that you see, not only in my professional and personal worlds. And it that led me into looking at biofeedback and looking at H R V as a marker. Uh, not that they, they're one in the same thing, but there's a definite strong relationship between mindfulness, uh, and mind mindfulness based practices and H R V and H R V based practices. And, and, uh, also led me into looking at, uh, other types of biofeedback including, uh, c o two biofeedback, so breathing behavior, biofeedback. And so I most recently have done training in both of those, uh, both of those realms. And, uh, I, I guess that's my personal and professional pr uh, passion right now is, is about understanding how we can blend the psychology with the physiology, because you have to, yeah. One in one without the other is like, it's, it's, it's a half measure at best. Um, blending it all together and, uh, geeking out on the data, geeking out on how that impacts psychology and physiology and emotions and wellness and resilience. And, uh, yeah. That's, that's kind of how we met. And obviously your listeners are quite familiar with a good portion of that. So, uh, uh, yeah. So that's why I'm here.
Speaker 0 00:05:58 Awesome. So I would love to explore a little bit, uh, with, with that mind body. 'cause I think things like strength training, you know, for, for would be like, something is not being, strength training was being a basketball player for me, and now it's trying to be a good old dude. Like, uh, keep that, uh, bone density is my, my goal. Probably not gonna win any contest. Uh, but, you know, you know, just enough there to stay, stay healthy and get some of the cognitive benefits from it. So as, as you work with like, you know, athletes, and I love the idea, you, I, I wanna give you a long runway for this one about the, the, the strength Jedi. 'cause I know you bring those two together in a deep way. Something like, I think about strength training, I'm just, I'm thinking totally in the body, like are, you know, and that's just my, my bias of not being in that world. So how do you bring maybe that machismo of Balkan and, you know, all that and bringing that mindfulness, uh, in there as well?
Speaker 1 00:07:06 Yeah. It's, you know, it's super interesting, and I get this question all the time because, you know, uh, depending on who I talk to some people that are sort of peripheral in this world, and especially that are really heavy into the strength training world. They look at, you know, me combining strength and mindfulness together, and you just see the question marks go through their brains. Like, I don't really get it <laugh>, you know? Yeah. There's something that's not connecting there. Um, the, you know, I guess there's several, several things around this. The mindfulness practices as, as I know, you know, are, are practices around awareness. Yeah. Right. And, you know, if we, if we pair that type of awareness that, you know, with some physical practices, we come to things that, that, that are a lot more like tai chi and yoga and, and those sort of physical movement practices.
Speaker 1 00:08:02 And so that's, that's been popularized. And, and so when people think mindfulness, I've had many people say, oh, so you must love yoga. It's like, no, I actually hate yoga myself personally. It's on my jam. Right. You know, it's not like basketball's not my jam, partially because I'm at least a foot shorter than you <laugh>. And, you know, part of the reason anyway. But, um, you know, yoga was never my jam. But the, the idea and what you can learn with mindfulness through any type of movement is fairly consistent. Now, there's a, there's a lot of the population of people that I talk to that are in the strength training world, but the, the interesting thing about strength training is it has a multitude of benefits beyond the physical and the, and the physiological. It's like you said, you know, when you said you would do training and you would engage in it because of the cognitive benefits mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:08:54 There are so many cognitive benefits associated with strength training Yeah. Along with all of the other physical benefits, including bone density, like you talked about. So there's, I mean, it's definitely one of these things that we don't often think about as, as a primary outcome of doing strength training. But I really think, and from a physical therapy perspective, all of the rehab that I've ever done through my life, not only personally, but professionally, has been based around people understanding the feel of what they're doing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And knowing what that movement feels like, what it feels to contract your muscles and what it feels like to have your feet balanced in one way or another way while you're doing a squat or a deadlift or, and that sort of thing. That's all mindfulness. Yeah. There's nothing not mindful about that. Right. Um, so, so to me, it's always been a part of my practice, even though it wasn't called that.
Speaker 1 00:09:49 So, to, to some extent, it's, it's the, my way of practicing mindfully as well as getting the physical benefits. But there's another piece that I think that, that it's important to talk about, and it's the recovery piece. Yeah. It's the recovery from not only the set that you're doing, but between sessions. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we know of course, that, uh, our body adapts to stressors. Right. You look at the stress adaptation model, the hand cell from the early 19 hundreds or 18 hundreds or whenever, whenever he was talking about that stuff. Uh, general adaptation model that you, you impose a stress, you give recovery, you get adaptation. Yeah. Now, the strength training is a pretty significant stress. It's a eustress, right? It's a good stress. We, we like this, but it's still a stressor. So we need a ma, we need a certain amount of recovery time.
Speaker 1 00:10:40 Now, can we, and do we have optimal recovery? Well, some of this depends on, uh, well, a lot of it depends on the stress and the overall amount of allostatic load that people are under, which is really just, you know, a fancy way of saying your total amount of how well your body copes with, um, changing, uh, homeostasis and changing for, you know, cycling around your baselines and things like that. Uh, if you, if you, if you're under a significant amount of stress or you're, you're, you're being put through, um, a lot of physical or emotional or psychological or some com combination demand that can actually impair the gains that you get physically. Which, I mean, inherently that makes sense from a, uh, psychological perspective that, that you actually feel differently psychol, uh, psychologically and emotionally. But there, there's some interesting research that says that actually when you are undergoing a stressful period that you won't get as strong, where you won't put it on as much muscle mass and, and you won't perform as well physically when you're under these periods of, of, of stress.
Speaker 1 00:11:52 So the idea of taking the recovery from the stressor, both, again, between sets. So you go and do three sets of 10 or whatever you're doing in the gym, and can you mitigate your, what your nervous system is doing from a stress perspective in that recovery time? And then can you stay in a relative, uh, safe zone, parasympathetic, rest and digest between sessions so that your body has enough time to repair and, and adapt. Yeah. So it, I think it's really inherent in, in all of the things we're we're doing. Which then leads me, and I'll, I'll say one more thing and I'll let you, and then I'll let you comment, Matt. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:12:32 It just blew my mind there, but keep going, keep going. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:12:35 Alright. Alright. Fair enough. Um, and this, this actually relates to where the handle the Strength Jedi came from. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> strength is often, again, talked about as the machismo, you know, really like the yang aspect if you're thinking yin yang. But there, there always has to be a balance there because it's not about strength is not about, you know, just going total, you can edit this out if I can't say this Matt, but total ape shit on, um, you know, on a weight and, you know, we rock the whole time. Yeah. You, there's balance that has to happen. And this is also where the Jedi aspect comes in. 'cause as you know, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. And for me, the balance in the force that comes through, uh, the work of the Jedi and the light side of the force, and, and, uh, it, it really relates to the mindfulness piece of things where, where, again, we're looking for balance between our nervous systems, uh, parasympathetic, sympathetic not always equally balanced.
Speaker 1 00:13:35 Yeah. And I don't mean it that way, but, but we don't want excessive amounts on either side without having some contribution on, uh, on the other one. So it's that, but then the, uh, the strength aspect, again, can't be purely that all out sympathetic. Um, the, one of my favorite quotes, which I say is my mantra, and I'll leave, I'll leave this, uh, this part at a, after this, um, the, my mantra for, for a lot of the things that I'm doing, um, is, uh, a quote by St. Francis DeSalle that says, nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength. Uh, and I think it's that controllable strength that really provides the power that people can have. And, and, and that does relate to a regulated nervous system. So, so this is where it all kind of ties in and that's where the handle comes from. And, um, yeah, it's obviously I could, you know, I could just keep going and going and going, but I'll, I'll, I'll get
Speaker 0 00:14:31 You, I, I, I gotta jump in here because I, I think, you know, one of the things having sort of grown up in weight rooms as an athlete, uh, and as a coach's son and as a really skinny, awkward, needing to put on bulk and never really being able to do it, uh, I got fat once because I was, uh, eating ice cream with, uh, back in the day. You know, you just carved up to the extreme if you wanted to put on bulk. And it just all went straight to my stomach and nowhere else in my body. Uh, but, but you know, my, my experience in gyms, and it seems like the more serious the gym, the more this was true is sympathetic, sympathetic, sympathetic pose look in the mirror. Like, like, and I, I'm stereotyping a little bit, but it's really been my, and I was guilty of it as well, like, you know, grunting a lot, you know, really almost now that I look back on the breathing we did to, to max out, you know, obviously you're engaging sympathetic. So are you, are you actually working with folks to do mindfulness? Dare I say, maybe even some residents frequency breathing, like between, between sets? Is is that where you're going with folks with this?
Speaker 1 00:15:52 Yeah, man. Yeah. I love it. Um, I, yeah, it's, you know, you gotta, I think you gotta be realistic and careful. So I'm gonna just, uh, uh, qualify What I'm about to say with, with this is that, you know, you come, you come out of a heavy set. Anybody that's done a heavy set of squats or deadlifts, and let's say it's like six or eight or whatever, you're not going into resonance frequency, like dropping into it as you, as you stop. If you are, man, I don't know, I, I'd worry about not only your mental capacity, but also you're, and I'm joking obviously, but, but worry, I'd actually worry about you passing out to be, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I do think there, you know, once you do start to come down, um, physiologically from, from some of these heavy sets where you do have a, a raised oxygen demand.
Speaker 1 00:16:39 Yeah. Um, you, you're gonna breathe heavier, you're gonna breathe faster, you're not gonna be in resonance frequency, you're potentially over-breathing for the metabolic demand, which is gonna lower your c o two levels. And we, we know that all of these things are counterproductive when it comes to engaging the parasympathetic nervous system Yeah. And, and the vagal drive. But I do think that within, uh, the research is sort of saying within a minute to two minutes after a heavy set where you're going really hard, where, where it is really high sympathetic, you can, and I would argue probably should start thinking about bringing yourself down into a resonance frequency style to mitigate that overall stress in between sets. So that then when you're ready to go again Yeah, sure. Do your, your rev up breathing then. Right. Rev yourself back up to, to, to have a high engaged sympathetic system go hard with that sympathetically driven heavy set of whatever, and then repeat the process.
Speaker 1 00:17:38 And for me, what that that does that, that talks about nervous system plasticity and the, and the ability of our sympathetic system to go up quickly and then come down quickly with a parasympathetic drive and have this nice, you know, wave that we should be able to have. And so I think the, you know, this, this really fits well with resonance frequency, uh, heart rate variability, biofeedback. Yeah. Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to make a more resilient and more adaptable nervous system. And yes, a lot of people need to do the parasympathetic side of that, but there's a lot of really good research in P T S D as well as chronic pain where they actually are impaired on the top end sympathetically as well. Yeah. So the sympathetic nervous system is impaired. So they're, they're sitting at this high level of sympathetic, but they can't really move. Right. You can't go up to sprint across the street or to run away from, from the bear or to lift the heavy deadlift. They kind of move a little, but they never come back down either. So it's kind of like trying to teach people to move up and down when you need to.
Speaker 0 00:18:45 Yeah. And that's interesting. 'cause you'll see a lot of that with, you know, my work with individuals with complex trauma is, you'll see, you'll almost, you'll you'll see this interesting of lower cortisol levels, which you would think the sym, but it, it's kind of that different set point that we can actually measure in very different ways. And, and it is just like a whole, almost a, a unique sort of nervous system that is struggles, is maladaptive in some re you know, where, where we'd want it to in a school setting or other places, but obviously was really adaptive for survival in those situations. So it's, it's interesting that, that I see that in a very different, like residential treatment settings, very similar things, maybe getting to there in a different way, but, but fascinating that how our nervous systems adapt o over time in, in that way.
Speaker 0 00:19:36 Totally. I love that. I, I mean, I just, I just sit here and smile as you talk because, um, I, I just think back at my 14, 15 year old self getting into strength training as part of, again, basketball for the most part and going to look buff, which never really happened. Um, but, you know, I, I, I, you know, I saw other people it worked for, but like, I think that, that, that other side, that parasympathetic side of that, it was strength training being so in many ways, regimented in that way where you have that traditional three sets of eight or 10 or whatever you're doing it. Because then I could have used that when I needed to. You hit a free throw with the game on the line like that, you know, for me, the weight room was all about the physical, bringing that emotional part, you know, whether you're just strength training for strength training and can, that could translate into so many other aspects of someone's life as well. Whether that's a big presentation at work or, or a range of other, uh, stressful events. I just love that, uh, what you're teaching there.
Speaker 1 00:20:45 Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate that. And I think, you know, the, uh, uh, you know, thinking about some of the other theory that this is all based on as well, you know, you look at the Yorkie's Dotson curve Yeah. The, the, uh, arousal and, uh, um, engagement curve or performance curve. I mean, there, there's, you know, we know if you're going to sympathetic, like yeah, obviously the curve is gonna be balanced depending on the activity that you're doing and a heavy deadlift versus a free throw, they're, they're very different levels of engagement needed. And so that curve might look a little bit differently for each of those activities. But there's still a side of that where there's too much engagement. Yeah. There's a side of it where you're too ramped up. You're too, too going ape shit in your head and you're just like, ah, yeah. You know, you're, it's that anxiety. And that's where the regulatory piece comes that says, okay, you know, don't just go full sympathetic. Like have the ability to, to, to teach your nervous system, especially the, the ventral vagal if you, if you, uh, believe in, uh, um, and follow the polyvagal theories that, um, you know, if you have your ventral vagal engaged while you're doing all of these sympathetically dominant activities, that, that keeps you at that top of that curve Yeah. Keeps you in that zone where you can perform the best.
Speaker 0 00:22:05 So one of my, one of my big fascinations is, which I haven't, I haven't seen in my, as not being an expert in this arena, but being in the orbit of the wellness health arena, you, you see this fascinated research on strength training and cognitive ability. Uh, i, I think, uh, the, the neurogenesis and other, like, new brain cells, like, did, do you, have you seen any of the why behind that? Is it just you're getting physical activity, there seems to be something almost inherent to a human being, that strength training, maybe evolutionarily we were doing more things like that and we're tapping into something. Uh, I don't know if you have a science or personal theories about, uh, how maybe doing curls and bench press and squat, like where, where does that connect to that, that prefrontal cortex? Because I don't necessarily see the, the strength Jedi approach leading to that, which would make a lot of sense to me. I just see people strength training have larger prefrontal cortex and healthier brains. So do you have any thoughts on, uh, why we're seeing some of this amazing stuff sort of coming out of nowhere, in my opinion, of like, wow, I never would've guessed this if you would've asked me about it.
Speaker 1 00:23:35 Yeah. It, it's really interesting. I'll, I'll preface this by saying, I, I mean, I'm certainly by no means a neuroscientist. And, um, you know, I've done a ton of, uh, of reading along these areas, um, in terms of what's happening neurologically as well as psychology, uh, psychologically. But, um, it, it's definitely not my primary area, um, in terms of where, what thinks going on. I, I mean, I, I think it does come back to evolutionarily that we, we are designed to, we're, we're designed to be these sprint related creatures that do a lot of low, low, low intensity, but, but movement. Yeah. Right. Not sitting on the couch. I don't mean your low intensity activities, sitting on a couch binging Netflix and eating a bag of chips. It's like moving, walking all the time. But then there's the phase of what we have to do to keep us healthy, um, and keep us alive.
Speaker 1 00:24:33 'cause we have to fight the cheetah or the bear Yeah. Or run away from it, or some combination that, uh, that, that, that predicts our survival. Right. Yeah. You know, and then you can talk about the, the freeze and the fawn and everything else that kind of comes along with that, that is designed for our protection. But when we think from an adaptation perspective, we are, we have adapted as humans to be able to do that. So really high intensity activity followed by lots of low intensity recovery. Our, our daily lives don't do that. Right. Yeah. You know, we, we, we sit, we sit at our desks, we, again, we eat our potato chips, we <laugh>, you know, drink our caffeinated beverages and, you know, and, and, and that's what we do. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, I think, I think we're under serving our adaptation by not doing higher intensity work.
Speaker 1 00:25:27 So it's not like it's enhanced is like, you can become a super human by doing this. I think you're just becoming the most evolved version of a human Yeah. By doing a lot of this stuff. Now, that's, again, that's just all theory and, um, but, but there's, there's some support to the idea that this high intensity work Yeah. Causes more neuroplasticity. Now, the mechanisms there, I could speculate, but I, I probably won't. Um, it's, it's more just that, uh, like let's look at, um, mul multiple sclerosis, for example, or Parkinson's. The, some of the treatments that we have for those individuals, I mean, exercise is at the core of everything that we do there. Yeah. But some of the interesting research says that this higher intensity, like higher intensity intervals, for example, um, results in more cortical, uh, plasticity. And so if you're, if you're really trying to, uh, get more of your, uh, prefrontal cortex activated, uh, you know, work on cognition, work on the functional connectivity that's going to enhance your, your parasympathetic nervous system, I think you require this high intensity work to be able to challenge it.
Speaker 0 00:26:35 Awesome. So let me, let me bring it back to me. 'cause that that's what this is all about. Um, <laugh>. Yes. It's so, so you look at, at you look at somebody like myself who is honestly not going to, I, I genetically I was probably never gonna be a bodybuilder. Never. You know, I, I, I had some decent maxes on bench, but my la my arms are so long. I think, I think you should get like, more credit for every inch you have to go up and down. I, and I never got a chest of any decent size either. So, so, you know, I, I was proud of some of those things. But now, you know, late forties, uh, yeah, I like to snowboard. I like to hike. I wanna be active. I wanna be functional really for the next, I'd love to be functional for the next 50 years.
Speaker 0 00:27:21 Like, I wanna play pickleball on my hundredth and, you know, birthday. Like that. That's kind of my, my goal, uh, in my life is to be functional, uh, as I, as I grow old and really enjoy the things I love in life. So I, I go into the gym three times a week, four times a week, kind of every other day when I can. Uh, you know, what, what, what would you encourage somebody like me who's like, yeah, this is, this is Matt. Like, I wanna be healthy. I yeah, I'd love to flex. And somebody say, well, Matt, you went to the gym and looks like you got a bicep there somewhere. Um, but what would you encourage from a functionality standpoint, um, for, for, for a lot of our audience probably who come from like, maybe more of the mental health approach to this or the wellness approach. What, what would you, what would you help someone like me who, longevity long health, wellness functionality, what, how should I go to the gym, uh, to improve my heart rate variability to get that big prefrontal cortex?
Speaker 1 00:28:29 Awesome. So, so I think, I mean, we can get into the nitty gritties of, you know, how high is high intensity and how low is low, and how to figure all that out. Um, honestly, the biggest thing, and, and this is, um, you know, again, people don't want to hear this because they've heard it before, that you, in, in order to do all of those things that you want to do, yes. You probably need some sort of strength training. You need some aerobic type activity. Again, it doesn't have to be like, you know, going for these heavy runs or things like that. It could be walking or whatever. Um, but I mean, those things aren't super sexy. Like, people don't talk about that. And what's even worse is when you start bringing in things like, how's your sleep? Yeah. <laugh> and what about your nutrition?
Speaker 1 00:29:17 Yeah. You know, I hear you saying you're eating a bunch of ice cream. Well, that's probably not super adaptive. Yeah. You know, in a positive way. Right. You know, not that you're doing that now, of course, but you, you know, but it's, I I think you look at the overall lifestyle has one of the biggest impacts, and the research is pretty clear. Yeah. That if you want to drive H R V up, um, you want to have a healthy approach to life. It's a combination of all of those things put together. So I'd be remiss if I didn't say that, even though it's not the sexy version of what we're talking
Speaker 0 00:29:48 About. I appreciate
Speaker 1 00:29:49 That it's not datadriven, but it's, it's important. It, it is important. And I don't wanna minimize that. Now, the fun stuff is start talking about the ins and outs of this. And so I honestly think it's that what, similar to what I said before, that you're doing something on the aerobic side, something on the strength side. Yeah. And so aerobic activity, you know, five days a week-ish, somewhere in there, again, it doesn't have to be, you're going for a heavy run. It could be a walk five days a week, and that's fine. Um, you also, when we talk strength training three to four days a week, so you're on par there. Uh, I would prefer most people to think in terms of multi-joint and multi-component exercises like squats and deadlifts and bench press and bent over rows and cherries, um, like farmers caries, those sorts of things.
Speaker 1 00:30:38 Uh, pushing a sled, like those style of things are your big bang for your buck exercises. They drive up your growth hormone, your testosterone, which is important in both men and women, uh, from an adaptation perspective. And it's those sort of things that'll dip your heart rate variability down acutely, which is what you want. Yeah. You want heart rate variability to drop acutely, and then you can work on the recovery between sets. And so I, I think it's the big bang for your buck exercises. Don't be afraid to go heavy, but I, if you, if you've never done these, don't just go to a gym and think you're gonna go do some squats. Hire a coach, you know, to teach you how to doled a physical therapist or someone. Yeah. You know, and, and, uh, just load it all up and, and go, I, I, I mean, I've that then you're, this is probably
Speaker 0 00:31:25 Where that disclaimer comes in somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:31:28 Exactly. If, if you haven't seen a physical therapist to teach you how to do it, you're gonna be seeing a physical therapist after, because you did too much too quickly and you got injured. Right. So, um, having, having a good coach to, to help you through that is super important. But I do think, you know, you can follow some basics and, and, you know, nowhere in there is there, you know, that I say that you have to do things like a bicep curl because not, not, I mean, when you start doing these multi-component exercises, like a bent over row, for example, or any sort of rowing or pull-ups or, or, uh, lat pull downs, those sort of things, they, they involve your biceps as well. And so there's, uh, there's not really that much difference in terms of the growth or the strength that you can get by doing these multi-component exercises versus like a single bicep curl. Um, but you get so much more benefit from other muscles in the movement patterns when you do the multi-component exercises.
Speaker 0 00:32:19 And is there any benefit? 'cause again, being not an expert in any way, but having this inner, and, you know, my, my realm of consciousness, I, I read some stuff a while ago for, for folks maybe like myself who aren't necessarily training from a strength perspective, I functionality is my goal long longevity, like the, the, the push, like let's say I'm doing bench, like ha paying equal attention to coming back down. I know there's a name for that as going up. Is, is there any like, thing that folks can pay, pay attention to, to maybe slow movements versus what we think about and going up and down as quick as we can?
Speaker 1 00:33:03 Yeah, it's, it's a good question. There's a lot of nuance there. Um, you, what you're talking about on the way down is the eccentric component, the
Speaker 0 00:33:09 Left. There you go. Yeah. That's, it's
Speaker 1 00:33:11 So, it it's the lowering component. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, uh, it depends on what you're trying to do. So I, I actually really like focusing on the eccentric with the clients that I work with and myself. Um, and it's not, you know, some people will say, well, the time under tension is, is higher. And so you, you could potentially get more muscle growth with those things. Now that might be true to a certain extent. What I think actually is really important on the slow eccentrics is it develops movement control. And what, what it requires is a lot of concentration and focus and attention to what you're doing. So it's, to me, it's a more mindful way of training than just, you know, blasting these out. So, um, but having said that, I'm gonna flip on and say the other side of it. If you do, uh, really fast contractions on the, what we call the concentric phase or the pushing phase, then that develops more power now, power in the muscles, sort of the combination of force and velocity. So it's the combination of the resistance and the speed of movement. And that has a higher relationship with functionality. And, you know, if you're trying to prevent not, uh, being able to get off the toilet when you're older, functionality is massively important. So if I'm teaching someone how to do squads, it's a slow,
Speaker 0 00:34:35 Lower,
Speaker 1 00:34:36 Mindfully aware, lowering down under control, but then can you spring up fast, up fast? And so it's that combination that tends to be a, a nice little sweet spot, but in reality, going slow on both can be fairly effective from a functional perspective. Um, and way more under control and less risk of things happening that aren't good, like tearing tendons and muscles and things like that. You know, if you do go slower versus just, uh, you know, the really fast. Yeah. So I never recommend the fast up and down.
Speaker 0 00:35:10 So, so let's bring heart rate variability now that we got Matt's workout all fixed. So I appreciate that individual coaching. Uh, you got it. Let, let's heart rate variability, heart rate. You, you mentioned heart rate variability biofeedback already, but bring that into the Strength Jedi approach, the stoic tiger approach. How, where, where is H R V bring that into these equations of how does that inform your work? How, how does that help you give feedback to folks on, on their training, their goals?
Speaker 1 00:35:43 Yeah, awesome question. Um, yeah, it's, it's, I think, you know, you look at, you look at the different ways to, to train, and again, from a physical perspective, I say something aerobic, something strengthy, and, and you're good. And you get both the mental and, uh, physical side of, of the benefits there. Um, what, what I call, what I talk about when I talk about H R V training, it's, you know, for, for those that aren't aware of, you know, I have to explain what H R V is, they don't really have a, a, an idea of what, why, what this is and why it's important. Some people look at, well, you're just telling me to do breathing. Right? You know, and they start saying things like that and it's like, no, no, no, no. I mean, there's breath work that you can do. You can Google how to do that, but that's not the nuanced approach that will actually do the same thing that you're doing when you go to train in the gym and do squats and deadlifts.
Speaker 1 00:36:36 Love it. The H R V residents frequency, low and slow, ensuring not over-breathing, all of that nuance. You bring all of that together and it's like setting the optimal training load for your brain. Yeah. So I call this nervous, this nervous system gym. So you, you go to the strength gym to train your strength, you go to the nervous system gym to train your H R V and your emotional regulation, your physiological regulation, which obviously is all combined together. So, um, to, to me it's like, you know, I I, if we were to say the big three things out out of training mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, again, leaving nutrition and, and sleep and those things aside, uh, it's, it's something aerobic, something strength, and something for the, the emotional regulation or the vagus nerve. And that's, that's where heart rate variability biofeedback comes in and is different than other types of relaxation practices.
Speaker 1 00:37:35 Yeah. Um, again, a lot of people that are new to meditation and mindfulness and the concepts around here, uh, and don't understand what we're doing when we do these things to them, it, it looks exactly the same. Yeah. I mean, you have two people sitting side by side, and they both could be looking like they're sitting exactly the same way. One of them is doing heart rate variability, biofeedback or nce, frequency paced breathing. And the other one could be just, you know, trying to get rid of their thoughts. It's a completely different scenario. Yeah. And you know, the trying to relax and get it rid of your thoughts doesn't work. Right. Right. So people say, well, I can't meditate 'cause I can't get rid of my thoughts. Well, that's not the point. Right. The point is not to do that. That's actually wrong. Right. Because you're trying, and the act of trying is a sympathetically dominant activity.
Speaker 1 00:38:27 Yeah. Right. You're trying to do something and then you get frustrated because you can't do it. 'cause you have all these thoughts that keep coming in and you don't realize that's just what your brain does <laugh>. Right. The process of doing all of this stuff is about focusing your attention inwards, noticing whatever else is happening, coming back to that attention and not judging yourself for it. And that attention, in the case of heart rate variability, biofeedback is on the breath and low and slow in that paced style of breathing at resonance frequency. It's kind of like, you know, I say, I say to individuals that, that understand the gym. It's like saying, going in and doing a set of deadlifts, but you're at, you know, 10% of your maximum strength if you're not doing it the right way. Yeah. Well, what's the benefit there? Most people that have gone to the gym and said, well, I'm only 10% of my strength, I'm not really doing anything.
Speaker 1 00:39:19 Am I right? I'm still going through the motions. I'm still moving. It's still a deadlift, but you're not training at the load that's optimum for what you're trying to do. Right. And so this is why, this is what I, how I explain to 'em. Yeah. Go do some, you can talk about doing breath work and all these things, but it's like doing a 10% deadlift. Yeah. Or maybe it's a 30% deadlift, you actually don't know. And that's the point is you're not optimizing what you're doing to, to get the research and evidence-based approach that comes with resonance frequency breathing and the, and the biofeedback. So it's setting the optimum load for the nervous system, Jim.
Speaker 0 00:39:57 Awesome. I love that. I love that. Uh, so I love your work. Uh, it's like, I I love that. I mean, how you explain things just I, I think is so beautifully done and is also a Star Wars nerd. Uh, yeah. I, I, I, I could see it all waved in and as a somebody who's a fan of the Doo tradition, all that just mixes in there and in a beautiful way. So I got, I got two questions for you. One is you shared a little bit about your personal journey, and I gotta admit, uh, that having known you virtually for, for, we, we took, we spent like a week in Nina's class together, which was just a game changer for me every time I get to listen to our friends speak. Uh, just, I, I learned so much and then meeting you at the, at the conference in person for the first time, like, uh, social anxiety would not have been in the like top hundred things I would've thought, you know, uh, you would've struggled with in your life. So obviously, uh, so personable, so friendly, uh, as somebody who sometimes just wants to crawl into my introverted, uh, cocoon, uh, just, I, I, I, I would say I would be more at that end of the spectrum than you were. So I just kinda wonder, like both from the physical health perspective and the mental health perspective sort, H R V H R V biofeedback, how's that, uh, helped you sort of, uh, on the journey that, that you shared a little with us in your intro?
Speaker 1 00:41:28 Yeah. Um, great, great question. Um, I, I often get su people very, very surprised to hear that. A I'm an introvert. Yeah. And I'm, I'm a very strong, strong introvert. Um, I, I really recharge. I mean, and introversion, extroversion as we know isn't about, like, can you be charismatic? Well, introverts can be charismatic as you know. Right? Yeah. I mean, you, I wouldn't have said you were an introvert either, right? Yeah. <laugh>. But it's, you know, you can, you can be charismatic, you can be outgoing, but you recharge in a very personal way. Right? Yeah. So there's, there is that, and people, people are surprised to hear that I'm an introvert. Um, but they, they're also surprised, again, to hear that I have a lot of, uh, social anxiety to the point where, where it's been disabling, uh, the, the aspects of what I've done it, it's, I'm, I'm not gonna narrow it down to a single thing that's helped because it has been a progression over time.
Speaker 1 00:42:24 Um, I, you know, I had some really good counselors that that helped me understand things from a cognitive perspective, but it wasn't until I was exposed to mindfulness and as part of mindfulness comes along, the concept around changing your breath and paying attention to your breath. So, I mean, mindfulness is not the same as changing your breath. It's paying attention. But a lot of the practices that people will engage in while they do that is, is around breath manipulation. And it, it really was the combination of mindfulness and really then understanding that really what I was naturally doing when I did change my breath was coming very close to my resonance frequency pace. Mm-hmm. I, and I did that naturally. And I find a lot of people will naturally find the most comfortable pace if you tell them to, to, to be mindful of their breathing and be mindful of what they're doing, and pay attention and try and find a breathing rate that's really comfortable that, that makes you feel good.
Speaker 1 00:43:31 I mean, you might be working hard or you might be really concentrating and focusing, and that's, that's part of the process, but it makes you feel good when you're done or while you're doing it. A lot of people will come sort of close to the resonance frequency. Um, so, so for me, it was the recognition that, oh, not only was I being mindful of my breath and starting to tune into the present moment, starting to forget about all of the future concerns, which is the anxiety Yeah. Worrying about, oh my God, I'm gonna vote to go into a conference where there's 500 people ar you know, around chairs and around posters and all of this stuff. And, you know, I, I would walk into those and I'd turn around and I'd walk out, or I wouldn't even go because I'd be too much, none or less too much for me.
Speaker 1 00:44:16 Um, now it's a matter of me understanding, okay, first of all, I understand that physical sensation that I'm feeling. Yeah. The physiological sensation is anxiety. That recognition is super important because what it then does, it says, oh, okay, well that's not actually, it's not actually me truly being scared. It's that I'm anxious and what that does to my body and, and me physiologically can be mitigated by doing the work that I know can get me outta that fight or flight state. Yeah. So I drop into resonance frequency breathing as I'm walking to the conference, or, you know, before I go in, or if I'm starting to feel a bit dysregulated, a bit anxious, I walk out, I go sit down and I drop into my resonance frequency and then I can come back. It's, it's about, it's about creating safety for yourself and the permission that that's okay.
Speaker 1 00:45:10 Yeah. It's okay to do those things because you need to do them. Right. So for me, you know, anytime I go into a social circumstance where I know there's gonna be a chance that I'm gonna become dysregulated or I'm feeling it ahead of time, or I'm nervous that I'm not gonna be able to cope, I, I, I, I fall back on my resident frequency breathing. Um, I, I, you know, I, I've done this enough that I don't need to have the pacer in front of me and I don't need to have like, the actual seeing the H rv, but anytime I do measure that stuff, it's like, you know, my heart rate's like, and then I drop in. It's no, like, it's, you know, so I know what it's doing and I, I know that I have that skillset that I can mitigate the fear that my body or my brain is interpreting the physiological signals as fear, um, and anxiety that I, that I can cope with it and I can drop into a sense of safety. And, and that's, that's honestly, that's what I do. I do that on a daily basis Every time I, I feel any of the anxiety, social or otherwise, it's like drop into resonance frequency and I start feeling better.
Speaker 0 00:46:16 I love it. I love it. Okay, so my final question here is off the rails. It, it's not, uh, you can say, Matt, just shut up, but we should've, you should never ask this question in a podcast. But, but I've, and I think you were in some of these workshops with me, so, uh, for our audience, we're not holding either Matt or Scotty accountable to what future science is going to tell us. But I gotta ask the question 'cause I've been obsessing about it ever since. And it's how we do resident frequency, contractions of muscles. Now you probably see where I'm going with this. 'cause as the person who's lifting for wellness, I could almost see if I'm on one of those machines and I'm doing like my residency frequency, like the push, the pull, I don't know, I'm not saying it'll be, but, but I, I just like, I'm sitting in there and my mind is being blown and I hope to bring more and more of this science to the podcast.
Speaker 0 00:47:19 'cause I think it's like such a, a really cool area and what the heck's going on there, I wanna learn more about for my own curiosity. But I just wondered, because I think you were at some of those workshops, you saw some of that as well. Did, did your mind go anywhere with this? Like, did you, what, what was your sort of thinking as I'm sitting there like, just like, oh, wow, I could see I I want to try this in my own, like my end of one experiments, but I would love to just, any idea what's going on there? What, what what you're, what you're sort of, uh, wondering about, uh, this thing that seems to be evolving in our field?
Speaker 1 00:48:01 So many questions. So many questions. <laugh> and yeah. I, I was in, I was in all those, I made a point to, to go to those because obviously, you know, looking at, uh, some sort of an exercise that involves muscle contraction. Yeah. Along with all of this stuff is super fascinating to me with the, with the background. I've got, um, I mean, short answer to all of this is, you're right, the science isn't clear as to what's happening. What, what's, what's optimum. Like, there's so many questions that we don't have answers to when it comes to this, but what's really, really interesting, so I, I look at this from a training as well as, um, you know, being a physical therapist as my background, I also think about some of the practices that we do that involve gentle movement. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, yoga is an example, but, but talking about, you know, I've got a, I've got a something wrong with my shoulder, and so a physio gives me an exercise for my shoulder.
Speaker 1 00:48:55 Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Um, but what if you, what if you timed your, your movement along with resonance frequency, and you did that with your breath as well. Yeah. And so w would that enhance your parasympathetic drive? Would you get your, uh, low frequency power to the highest level just like you really trying to do when you're doing your, your biofeedback? Like, is does that happen? I, I don't think we know for sure and we don't know, like, what, what does that mean? Does that mean just movement or is it strong contraction, right. Or is it gentle contraction? Is it, um, you know, does the same thing apply when we're talking about, you know, that 10% of maximal strength deadlift versus a 90% of maximal strength deadlift? I mean, I, I would find it very hard to imagine that when you get to the 90% maximum strength squat or deadlift or whatever exercise, that you could maintain a resonance frequency style with that.
Speaker 1 00:50:00 Right. Uh, not only muscle contraction, but also breath. I mean, you'd have to have some massive tidal volumes right. To, to get the ventilation you need to Yeah. To sustain that level of exercise and stay at resonance frequency. I, I think that's counterproductive. I think it's two different mechanisms because again, you know, we're talking about ramping up the sympathetic when it's really high activation, right. And not ramping the parasympathetic, although you do want that va ventral vagus and, you know, so again, there's lots of questions there that we don't have answers to. Um, my, my gut feeling is that if you, if you were to look at your lower intensity work that you're doing, so if you were to look at your, you know, mindful movement practices, yeah. You're stretching your, uh, you know, rehab style exercises or maybe some of your prehab style exercises, that, that don't involve a lot of load, that you can keep the physiological demand lower so that you don't need a, a high sympathetic sympathetically dominated response That, that something like that A could work. And b, question mark, will that enhance your outcomes? Yeah. So those, those are the questions. I don't know. I don't know the answer. It's
Speaker 0 00:51:16 Super intriguing. Yeah. And I seem like maybe a mo like, you know, and I, I've shared this with the audience. I, I found, uh, wing Chong offers a great set. Like you can do it like a Tai Chi movement, but you're facing, you're, you're always facing front. So I can have the pacer there, and I'm not really contracting, it's not that simple with the in, but it's a movement with that. So like, I, I've just been like totally fascinated about, you know, and, and I, it seems like in of, of itself, just the contraction without the breath, they're seeing positive things. Of course, I wanna multiply that by 10 by adding breathing or whatever it could be. Yeah. Uh, you know, pelvic floor contractions like we do in, uh, uh, Q gong breathing, like all those things. But I just think it's fascinating. Like those questions you bring up are, I, I think where I see that one branch of our, our field with biofeedback is going in this really exciting direction, which I think will probably be complimentary, but could be its own, like self-compassion is kind of its own thing for mindfulness now.
Speaker 0 00:52:25 Like, I wonder if it goes there or if it just kind of keeps, uh, a real complimentary, uh, piece to this. But I love people are using the app now for muscle contraction as, as well as breathing, which I, I, I just, I wanna understand more and more about that. So I, I'm glad I got a fellow traveler on this journey.
Speaker 1 00:52:47 Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, it's me, me being in a place where, where, you know, I have, uh, I have a research institution that I can do these things. I mean, uh, it's just, there's so many questions that, you know, part part of it is just finding a place to start with it. Yeah. Um, and, you know, going, going through the process, I, I, you know, as much as I, I, I like the research process. I love playing around. Yes. And, and just like, like, how does this work? And what do you think is going on? And, you know, I, I'm not one of the hardcore researchers that's probably gonna solve this problem. That's not really what I want to do. I wanna be able to apply it and say Yeah. You know, take some people in front of me and say, Hey, why don't we try this and just let's see how it works for you.
Speaker 1 00:53:30 Yeah. And just, just play around like the, that play aspect. Yeah. When you make it fun and engaging and safe and, you know, you can, you can do all sorts of movements and types of contraction and watch the data and, and be like, oh, that worked, but that didn't, huh. I wonder why that is. And then maybe for someone else, it's like, well, yeah, but that, it was reversed for me. Right. Right. So you always get those things and you wonder what factors are mitigating what's happening. Yeah. And is it something cognitively, is it something emotionally, is it, you know, something that you have or have not tied your, your breath pace into? Yeah. Is it the, the amount of contraction, like how hard you're squeezing or so many questions.
Speaker 0 00:54:14 Yeah. And it's, I love, what I love about heart rate variability is that in of one as much as anything else. And, and obviously being a coach, being a, a, a provider of, of services as well with the different aspects you bring into your programming. Like, you know what, we often see group activity, but trying to find what that work, what works for this nervous system where it's at, you know, with all it's been through in life, all the epigenetics and all the stuff we can nerd out with for another two to three hours, like all that stuff coming together is just, I, I love living right now because, you know, we, we've got just access to data that, you know, previous generations, you either had to have a huge research lab with millions of dollars of grant funding, and now, you know, for a few bucks a month, you can get this feedback in a way that's just, I, I don't know, just to me, such, such an, such an exciting time to be a nerd. Uh, and, uh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 00:55:12 Absolutely. Without a doubt.
Speaker 0 00:55:13 Well, Scottie, I, I hope this is the first of mini podcast with you, my friend, because, uh, I've just loved your energy, loved, loved how you think, and it's just really been great, uh, getting to know you over the last, uh, year or so. So, uh, obviously we'll, we'll put your bio, put contact information in the show notes, but if somebody's just, uh, uh, going along saying, I, you know, I wanna be a Strength Jedi or stoic tiger. Uh, just, just give a little bit of a blurb where people might be able to find you and well, again, we'll put all that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1 00:55:45 Yeah, for sure. So, easy, easiest way is through Instagram, um, and it connects with, um, email, booking, um, website, all of that kind of stuff. And I do have the two handles. Um, my main one is the Strength Jedi at the Strength Jedi, and you'll see a combination of things from strength training to personal stuff and some of the resilience stuff. But where I'm focusing all of my stress resilience and the H R V and biofeedback work is through the Stoic tiger. So at the Stoic Tiger. So, contact me on either one. I'm happy to talk about this, as you could tell with anybody. Um, and if anybody's feeling like, Hey, I wanna learn more about some of the stuff that you're doing, doing, or whatever, please reach out. I'm happy to, to take some of those, uh, um, requests and, uh, maybe it means we work together. That'd be
Speaker 0 00:56:29 Cool. Awesome. And, and I highly encourage people to check out on Instagram unless you feel horrible about your lack of presence, this guy on Instagram. And then you just make me feel bad about myself because, uh, what you do is what I know I should do. I, I, I know you give a lot of credit for your wife, uh, bringing that side out of you. And, uh, yeah, that's, uh, it's, that's right. You're a good role model for me, uh, to get my butt on there, uh, a little bit more. So, uh, Scotty, I really appreciate,
Speaker 1 00:56:58 I'd love to see your face on there, man. I know. I'd love to see it
Speaker 0 00:57:00 More. I know. And now Threads is out there, it's like, gotta learn threads and I, I know, I, I know, I know. I, I got, I gotta get there. But Scotty, my friend, thank you for being an inspiration for all your amazing work. Uh, it's an honor to call you a friend and a, a fellow traveler on this journey. So, um, but like I said, we'll put Scotty's information in the show notes, uh, which you can always find at heart rate variability podcast.com, or check us
[email protected]. Uh, you can find the podcast information there. Scotty, thanks so much my friend. Uh, I can't wait to find another topic to cover with you in a future podcast.
Speaker 1 00:57:36 I'm sure there's lots that we can talk about. Oh, I know there is for sure. So I'm happy to be on. Thanks for the invite and yeah, um, love talking with you. It's been awesome. Thank you.
