Longevity & Biohacking Products Series #8: Airofit - On Breathwork & Respiratory Muscle Training, Respiratory Rate & Longevity, New Airofit Pro 2.0 Features & The Science Behind It with Mike Bennet

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The Longevity & Lifestyle podcast

The Longevity & Lifestyle podcast

Episode 76 

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‘Breathing is such a fundamental thing. It's something we do from as soon as we're born until we die with the occasional breath hold in there. The underlying factor is that we're just trying to get oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, as simple as that. However, when you're doing it poorly, it leads to all kinds of trouble. Also, we lose the ability to breathe properly as we age.’ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

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Show Notes 

  • Intro [0:00]
  • The science behind breathing properly [1:40]
  • The history of Airofit [4:29]
  • Is Airofit a James Bond diving device? [6:41]
  • Airofit and training [8:51]
  • Airofit case studies - from elite cyclists to the 86-year-old swimmer [9:39]
  • Breathwork and longevity [13:13]
  • Nasal vs mouth breathing [14:48]
  • Respiratory rate and longevity [17:20]
  • How to use Airofit devices [19:59]
  • The definition of success and James LeBron [21:29]
  • Why life is for living and overcoming fear of failure [22:02]
  • Routines for peak performance [23:04]
  • Bad recommendations around breath [24:21]
  • Changing breathing at any age is possible [25:31]
  • How long it takes to see a difference in breathing with Airofit [26:12]
  • The new Airofit PRO 2.0 features and how to use it [28:19]
  • Risks of injury [33:31]
  • Mike’s latest most exciting purchase [34:53]
  • Mike’s most gifted book [35:32]
  • ‘Start now, regret nothing’ [36:09]
  • Best investment that you can do [36:57]
  • What advice should young people ignore [38:32]
  • Where you can follow Airofit [39:47]

MORE GREAT QUOTES 

Breathing is such a fundamental thing. It's something we do from as soon as we're born until we die with the occasional breath hold in there. The underlying factor is that we're just trying to get oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, as simple as that. However, when you're doing it poorly, it leads to all kinds of trouble. Also, we lose the ability to breathe properly as we age.’ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

Over 70% of the population breathes incorrectly. Everyone around the world is breathing incorrectly. And it's as simple as learning to access that diaphragm a bit more, just taking a 10-minute conscious break to understand how you are breathing, and then you have massive benefits.’ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

There's so much research showing that inspiratory volume, how strong you are breathing in, is connected with things such as longevity of life, athletic performance and just overall healthiness. So, if you are able to pull your lungs open more, you will increase your volume, activate the different nervous systems and just live a better, healthier life.’ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

Nasal breathing has endless benefits. It helps moisture the air, it helps filter it a bit, increases the nitric oxide, increases air flow to your arteries, your veins, your nervous system and all your circulation. It helps to ensure that you use your diaphragm properly.’ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

We do live in a world that is addicted to stress. Everyone loves their stressful job, everyone loves worrying about money, about everything. This plays a massive toll on your respiratory rate and your longevity. So, if you take a little bit of time to breathe in deeper, open your lungs up, slow your breathing down, then you have massive benefits such as the ability to handle CO2, so you're not as stressed.’ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

Start now, regret nothing. It's so cliche, but the graveyard is the graveyard of good ideas. Too many people have good ideas, or they want to do something, and they never do it, they just get stuck on with life. If you want to do something that is going to benefit your life, do it. We've got one chance and why not do it when we're young enough? You're never going to be as young as you are right now. So just do it.‘ - Mike Bennet, Partnership Manager

Claudia von Boeselager:  Welcome to another episode of the Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Claudia von Boeselager here to uncover groundbreaking strategies, tools, and practices from the world's pioneering experts to help you live at your best and reach your highest potential. If you haven't done so already, make sure to grab my 10 hacks to improve your life and longevity playbook by going to longevity-and- lifestyle.com/10hacks. My guest today is Mike Bennett from Breath Training Company, Airofit originally from New Zealand, a classic Kiwi kid with a strong passion for sport in the outdoors coupled with a strong interest in science, led Mike to become fascinated by the human body and what it is capable of.



Legal Disclaimer: Please note, to avoid any unnecessary headaches, Longevity & Lifestyle LLC owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as the right of publicity. You are welcome to share parts of the transcript (up to 500 words) in other media (such as press articles, blogs, social media accounts, etc.) for non-commercial use which must also include attribution to “The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast” with a link back to the longevity-and-lifestyle.com/podcast URL. It is prohibited to use any portion of the podcast content, names or images for any commercial purposes in digital or non-digital outlets to promote you or another’s products or services.

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Claudia von Boeselager: Welcome to another episode of the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Claudia von Boeselager, here to uncover the groundbreaking strategies, tools, and practices from the world's pioneering experts to help you live at your best and reach your highest potential. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the podcast and share with those you love.


Legal Disclaimer: Please note, to avoid any unnecessary headaches, Longevity & Lifestyle LLC owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as the right of publicity. You are welcome to share parts of the transcript (up to 500 words) in other media (such as press articles, blogs, social media accounts, etc.) for non-commercial use which must also include attribution to “The Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast” with a link back to the longevity-and-lifestyle.com/podcast URL. It is prohibited to use any portion of the podcast content, names or images for any commercial purposes in digital or non-digital outlets to promote you or another’s products or services.

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Claudia von Boeselager: After majoring in graduating in sport and exercise science, he set off playing rugby in Europe while learning through injury. Mike discovers the power of breath and is passionate about bringing Airofit to the world to help people improve their lives through breath. Welcome to the Longevity & Lifestyle Podcast Mike, it's a pleasure to have you on.

Mike Bennet: Thank you and thank you very much for having me. I look forward to discussing this with you.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, I'm really excited as well because it's also a personal topic to me that I, and I think a lot of women, which is pretty much half the world's population tend not to breathe as well.

We don't use our lungs properly, so we're gonna look at all things, breath and obviously the Airofit device as well. But I'd love to start with the science behind breathing properly. Why is it so important? Can you talk a little bit about that just for my audience?

Mike Bennet: Yeah, so breathing is such a fundamental thing.

It's something we do from as soon as we're born until we die with the occasional breath hold in there. So when we're swimming or something. But the underlying factor is we're just trying to get oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, as simple as that. However, when you're doing it poorly , you lead to all kinds of trouble, and whether you're breathing through your nose or mouth, completely different things.

But the underlying factor is we lose the ability to breathe properly as we age. So metabolic responses to breathing. So oxygen is the main fuel source for every single metabolic process within the body, carbon dioxide is the byproduct. So what finishes the product? Furnishes these processes.

Bringing in the good stuff, pushing out the bad stuff, as simple as that.

Claudia von Boeselager: I'd also just be interested to hear, but is it just bad habits that people develop that they start breathing badly, if you will, because I think the typical way is if you see a baby and you look at their belly and it's really expanding and they're breathing really nicely.

Whereas, I think there was a stage where my shoulders were up and I was literally upper respiratory breathing and not breathing properly as well. Why does that actually happen? Is it just habit bad? What would you say?

Mike Bennet: That's a multi-level question. So one thing that, this is just a symbol, hypotheses from my own behalf is when we're kids, we run around screaming, using our full diaphragm as a singer would.

So we're probably screaming, accessing our full capacity of our lungs. But as we're aged, we're taught 'Breathe very shallow, sit quietly in a classroom and not activate that full lung capacity'. And then over time, with leaving a more stressful life, we change our breathing patterns.

We tend to breathe in our shoulders, as you just mentioned, which then alters the carbon oxide and the blood. So I was writing a really interesting study the other day, and best estimation state that over 70% of the population breathes incorrectly. Wow. So this is a major majority. So not just the woman as you mentioned, but everyone around the world is breathing incorrectly. And it's as simple as learning to access that diaphragm way bit more, just taking a 10 minute conscious break to understand how you are breathing, and then you have massive benefits.

Claudia von Boeselager: And then there's obviously cool devices like Airofit as well, which will we'll dive into.

Exactly. Yeah. Why would you say Airofit was originally developed, and can you talk a little bit about what the Airofit device can do and for those people watching? So I have, I've been able to, I've had the pleasure of testing it and honestly, after even just a few sessions, I noticed a huge difference. If I went for a run, it was almost effortless.

Whereas before, I'd have breathing issues and I've actually retrained the ability for my belly, if you will, to actually move while I breathe instead of my lovely upper shoulders movements that weren't very effective before. So yeah. Can you share a little bit for us? Yeah...

Mike Bennet: Gladly. So our device was actually founded by a Danish company called Amble, which is a health tech company and they developed it to help with C O P D and other pulmonary issues.

But our CEO, Christian, he actually found this device and wanted to practice it, our user to help practice singing. So he was a classical singer, filling audiences and filling the whole holes with his voice. Wow. And he wanted to pursue this a wee bit more and more air coming in, bigger lung capacity, you can sing notes bigger, longer.

Wow. And the device itself was very big and it required Christian to be there while training them, so not a very practical device. And alongside this, his sons were very competitive swimmers and went to the Nordic Sewing Championships. And the eldest actually went with the hope of qualifying for one final.

And after training with Airofit for just three not Airofit as we know and love today, but the original device. He came back with seven gold medals. Wow. And on the back end of that, actually obtained a scholarship to a university in America. So full ride scholarship just from breathing through essentially what was in the original Airofit Uhhuh and Christian being the ambitious man he is, started investing all of his money, all of his friends money and developing the device smaller. But one thing he noticed is he still had to be there to explain how to use the device. Hence, we now have an application which will actually guide you through all of these exercises.

So it went from a small idea and just grew in his head and yeah, being ambitious and wanting to change the world, he actually set off on that adventure, and I believe he has done.

Claudia von Boeselager: Completely. What an roi, I think for all parents out there listening and ambitions, sport ambitions for their children.

And I think the beauty of it is that you're not adding any chemicals, you're not doing anything unnatural. You're just training what's naturally there and just improving it and improving the oxygenation and excelling of carbon dioxide as well. So really phenomenal. Are there some misconceptions around the Airofit?

Maybe you can talk about.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, so I like to say that we are educating an unknown or broken area. So breathwork has become such a hot commodity over the last five years, given certain circumstances and everyone is looking for a way to improve their breathing without doing much, whether that is using a device or something else , so that makes us quite hard because people are skeptical about Airofit. They say that we look like a jams bond diving device, or ...

Claudia von Boeselager: ...good for the underwater.

Mike Bennet: I think that just adds to the channel of the device that we look called after me in a James Bond. I know Aston Martin's super happy part of General Bond, so maybe we should be too.

Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly. That's true.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then a lot of people think that we've got an excessive price point. We are on the higher end, but we do have the application, which then has so many hours of breathwork within it. So one hour with some of the breath coaches who developed our breathing techniques in our app.

Can cost up to $500 per hour, so you're paying less than that for the device, which is a lifetime purchase. We have users who have been using our devices for three years with no issues. It's a hundred dollars a year, which is phenomenal. . And then the biggest misconception is to use the device while exercising.

Which you've used the device yourself, how would you find it if you are running with it?

Claudia von Boeselager: I heard a talk with Ben Greenfield and I know he does his walks with it which I would think is pretty challenging. You need a pretty. Strong, muscle uppers going on into there because depending on the exercise that you're doing, but you do need to concentrate and make sure you're doing it right.

I don't know if maybe more advanced level users would be able to go for a walk with it, I don't know. But I definitely think it's something, if you're doing it properly and really focusing on it, I guess it's quality over quantity. I would.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, exactly. And we see that with all of our users, the ones who train under 15 minutes have a better outcome rather than those who overtrain. It's just like any other muscle.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah.

Mike Bennet: If you over train in the gym, you can't do anything for two to three days. If you over train with Airofit, you're gonna have a sore diaphragm. . But then also there's that whole altitude mask issue that. So years ago you remember that big mask people were while running.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. The main issue with this was people were wearing this while running, so they were. Training their respiratory muscles while exercising. , But then this was a trade off their locomotive muscles, their legs, arms, whatever they were training, weren't getting enough oxygen. . So it was a useless exercise for these muscles.

So essentially they were putting their joints, muscles through useless strain. With no returns. So it's diminishing returns. . And that's the great thing about era effect. Just sit on the couch, take five to 10 minutes outta your day and just actually hyperfocus, use a dumbbell for your diaphragm.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. Which I think is really cool. Can you talk about some of the use cases? We obviously talked about, athletes as well, but even within that, maybe you can talk a bit about it, but then, non-Olympians and things like that. Yeah. Who else is this for?

Mike Bennet: Yeah, of course we have our elite cyclists, so we work like Lotto Saudal, who's a Tour de France team, and they see the marginal gain, so they see the half a percent of percent increase Lights of the decrease in heart rate when they are in that red zone.

So instead of a 180 high rate, there might be 177, 178, which just makes them slightly more efficient. They shift their metabolic reflux. But this is the process of your circulatory system thinking I'm pushing too hard now. My lungs need the oxygen and blood, not my legs. You hit the wall, you're really struggling.

Aside from this, I have a very interesting user case from an 86 year old novice swimmer. So we've just released a blog post on this so you can read more about it at Airofit, but she's a phenomenal lady, so she's a mother of seven. Her daughter was murdered 30 years ago, which led her to run exercise to counteract the pain in her heart.

And when she was, just before her 50th birthday, she obtained her a PhD where she actually taught herself to swim as well. And then about two years ago she was at specialist for the pulmonary system and she found her lung volume was at 0.8 liters, which is extremely low. So for an 86 year old, there's not too surprising, but she wants to pursue swimming and she got told, if you want to do this, try Airofit. Then five months later she had an accessible lung capacity of 3.5 liters.

Claudia von Boeselager: Wow.

Mike Bennet: That really bounced up, and that was down to increasing the compliance of her lung tissue itself. So becoming stronger, breathing, but then opening the lungs up even more and now she swims novice level, but competitive at 86 years old. That is a mind blowing...

Claudia von Boeselager: Phenomenal. Is there something to aim for it? I love that story that, that's really incredible.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. And when I was speaking to her and then another doctor who's done a bit of research for us, we were talking about how Airofit is it gateway into a healthier life.

You may not be able to do everything just yet, but sit on the couch, train with Airofit. You slowly build up your tolerance to exercise. So then after one week at Airofit, you might be ready to walk to the shop instead of drive and you can progress over time that way and that could be the difference between playing with your kids or your grandkids, or sitting back and enjoying it, we like to that gateway.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. I like that concept as well. So for people who might even struggle with walking or postsurgery or just general health.

Mike Bennet: Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's a really good training mechanism to just build that confidence. Cause I think it's that breathlessness or people are intimidated by staircases sometimes.

So that could be a good way to to get back.

Mike Bennet: Exactly, and that covers everyone from someone with a pulmonary issue to obesity, to just a detrained individual who's nervous about going to the gym or going out for a walk. They can do it in the comfort of their own home. And develop that confidence to pursue more active lifestyle.

Claudia von Boeselager: Which is excellent as well. And for... have you seen or have you done research around people with C O P D or asthmatics as well?

Mike Bennet: We have got a lot of research around inspiratory muscle training, which is one of the underlying factors of Airofit. We train inspiratory and expiratory muscle training.

But there's so much research showing that inspiratory volume, how strong you are breathing in is connected with things such as a longevity of life, athletic performance and just overall healthiness. So if you are able to pull your lungs open more, you increase your volume, activate the different nervous systems and just live a better, healthier life.

Claudia von Boeselager: So for all my longevity friends listening, this is an excellent way to start with and people take breath I think so for granted, but for the biohackers listing as well, you really control your nervous system and there's so many different things around it as well and this is just such a fundamental way because if we rebuild that strength, and I notice a difference myself. Like I actually can easily, I should say, without having to over focus, take nice slow, deep breaths now thanks to the training that I've done and it's fun. There's a little, little graph that you follow, like breathe in, hold it, breathe out and you do different things. I even had my six year old on it with me. She thought, this is a really fun game. So for all the family, which I think is quite cool.

Mike Bennet: I've heard a lot of people say Airofit has gamified pulmonary health.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's a slogan. Yeah. No, that's brilliant.

Mike Bennet: For sure ...

Claudia von Boeselager: Mike, I'd love to discuss for people that are not super aware, cause this is a really important point and you touched on it before, mouth versus nasal breathing.

So can you explain for people, cuz some people are like, Oh, breath is breath, you're getting it into your body, right? But there's so many different factors happening. So can you talk a little bit about that.

For sure.

Mike Bennet: So nasal breathing has endless benefits. It helps moisture the air, it helps filter it a bit, increases the nitric oxide and increases air flow to your arteries, your veins, your nervous system and all your circulation not also actually helps ensure that using your diaphragm properly.

Which sounds amazing and we truly believe it is here at Airofit as well , but mouth breathing... There's a lot of fear mongering around mouth breathing. Everyone focuses on nasal breathing these days, and that is something that we lead to a kind of a big misconception here at Airofit as well as something we need to educate people on because mouth breathing is okay in certain situations.

Like when you're running a hundred meters, you're gonna breathe out of your mouth. Yeah. When we're talking, you breathe outta your mouth. Yeah. When you eat mouth breathing again. And just with all of this as well, that is where Airofit actually helps support nasal breathing. So with the bigger pipe or your mouth, you're able to overload the respiratory muscles so you can actually allow your diaphragm, internal, external, intercostal muscles and all the other supporting muscle literature to actually work harder.

So then when you breathe through your nose, you're gonna be a lot more efficient and it's gonna be easier. And I always tell people about my own experience with this. So I'm quite a big guy, so I'm like a hundred kgs, like 220 pound. When I run, I was always a mouth breather and now I can comfortably run a 5K with my mouth closed.

And the only difference is training with Airofit. So I get the benefits of nasal breathing, that my respiratory muscle training.

Claudia von Boeselager: And that makes sense as well because the muscular system you're saying as well is just so strong that you can get that depth of breath that you need for say, running.

So much easier as well. Yeah,

Mike Bennet: Exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah.

Mike Bennet: And it's like people go to the gym to squat to become more efficient walking or running , or they go to the gym to train their biceps to make their everyday life. So people train with Airofit to make these things easier and more efficient as well.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So we were talking before about the use cases, but literally it's for everybody and all ages as well and it helps better breath. Which in turn obviously will help concentration and sport performance and just everyday life. So I mean it's your market is the world, right?

Mike Bennet: Exactly. And we always say here that we're trying to bring better breathing to the world, so it's really nice.

Claudia von Boeselager: Amazing. So let's talk about respiratory rate and longevity and how the respiratory rates or rate of breathing how does it affect us long term? And how, what is the link there with longevity?

Mike Bennet: Yeah, so we'll just start off by a brief overview of what respiratory rate is. Just for the listeners to really reiterate what it is, and that is literally just the amount of breaths you take every minute. So you breathe in, breathe out. That's one breath. Why this is super important is because pulmonary function is actually a long term predictor of mortality in the general population. So one of the longest studies over a long period of time was actually from a university in America where they looked at your respiratory rate versus the how long you lived, so longevity of your life.

 This was actually came down to many different factors, such as the activation of the parasympathetic neural system, which is the rest and digest versus the fight or flight, because we do live in a world that is addicted to stress. Everyone loves their stressful job. Everyone loves worrying about money, about everything.

Fast paced life, and this plays a massive toll on your respiratory rate and your longevity. So if you take a little bit of time to breathe in deeper, open your lungs up, slow your breathing down. Then you have massive benefits such as the ability to handle CO2. So you're not as stressed.

You can work better under stressful situations through altering your HRV or heart rate variability, so it's a one thing affects the whole system. So deeper breathing actually changes your...

Claudia von Boeselager: And also for longevity, increasing your health span as well, which I think is really key.

And also what you were saying of getting out of that fight or flight sympathetic response to the parasympathetic. So really helpful.

Yeah.

Mike Bennet: And with what you mentioned with the longevity as well, or having a healthier life for longer. We've actually seen a lot of our users as you age, your lung compliance decreases quite significantly. But if you're studying at a higher starting point, that diminishes actually prolonged. So you be in your fifties, but have kind of the compliance in your lung tissue of your twenties so your lungs can keep up with your body.

Claudia von Boeselager: Oh, amazing.

Mike Bennet: So not only is it increasing the longevity, it's also increasing the quality of life in those later years, which I, for one, would love an extra 10 years of activeness with my kids, my grandkids, great grandkids, who knows how longevity was gonna work in 30 years.

Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. And for people wondering what is the cadence, what is the frequency you recommend for using it?

Depending on what, I guess the use case is, right? But is this like a daily device or is it, a few times a week? What would you typically recommend?

Mike Bennet: We generally recommend to begin with every day. So it's only a five to 10 minute exercise. So that's the really cool thing about our device that actually gives you your daily recommendation. So within the app it'll tell you what you're doing. Five to 10 minutes a day, and then after a six week period you kind of plate wee it . So either you can increase the duration or you can just decrease the frequency. So I, for one, I train. At the moment, I've become a wee bit Slack and I only train about five days.

Claudia von Boeselager: A. Okay.

Mike Bennet: But I've maintained my level. And then when I do my lung test, if I notice a decrease, I just jump back onto seven days. So our recommendation is seven days a week, but it's only five to 10 minutes. Yeah. And then with that, another cool user case. So I keep getting these ideas in my head about users.
Claudia von Boeselager: You go ahead.

Yeah.

Mike Bennet: There was a lady I was talking to in London and she uses it every day watching Coronation Street. So in the ad break, we'll just use the Airofit instead of gonna go make a cup of tea or instead of gonna go reach more cookies. She does something for her health and she was adamant the Coronation Street saved her life but I think it may have been us, but ...

Claudia von Boeselager: That's a great idea as well. Exactly. Some or even people watching Netflix or something like that. Its a great time. Exactly. Just sitting there. Yeah. I'm gonna ask you some rapid fire questions before we move on.
Mike Bennet: Sounds good.

Claudia von Boeselager: Thinking of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind and why?

Mike Bennet: Probably LeBron James.

Claudia von Boeselager: And why?

Mike Bennet: Being a massive sports fan, he's not only achieved so much on the court, but it's what he does for his community and stuff like that. And inspiring a whole generation that they can achieve more than they should.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah.

Mike Bennet: So that holistic health approach as well as sports pros and then inspiration is just phenomenal to me.

Claudia von Boeselager: I agree. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice received that was a real game changer for you?

Mike Bennet: Wayne Gretzky said, 'Are you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take?' And there's lead me all around the world, so it's something I hold quite near and dear to me. 

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. Yeah. It's so important and I think, life is for living and rather make mistakes than not do it right. Yeah. What's the biggest challenge you've faced in the last, say, five years? And how did you overcome this?

Mike Bennet: That's very personal because of Corona being on the other side of the world, not being able to see my family for the last five years, and technology has helped me overcome it. So I've become a lot more efficient at using technology to communicate with my family and it's only brought us closer. So when I actually go home in December, it's gonna make it all the more special.

Claudia von Boeselager: Oh, you must be really excited for that as well. Yeah. Cause I think New Zealand, they really closed the borders and everything during Covid.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, they just shut up shop and I just, I get prolonging it. So I go home every second year, but then Corona happened and I just I'll wait. So hold of December in new.

Claudia von Boeselager: Oh, exciting. Yeah. Mike, what are some of your daily or weekly routines? Obviously using Airofit is one of them. And practices that have helped you perform at such a high level.

Mike Bennet: Routine it. So just having a routine, it actually really helped me. So the idea that work, gym, that actually allowed me to stop procrastinating and just do what I need to do.

So then I actually am more quality of time with my loved ones and stuff like that. So actually setting a routine. Sticking to it and just doing it.

Claudia von Boeselager: And do you have any particular routine parts that really were a game changer in terms of upleveling, how you could perform each day, a particular morning routine or certain things that you do?

Mike Bennet: Morning routine is... I don't look at my phone until I'm on the train. So I check the time and turn off my alarm and then that's it. And then that kind of allowed me to wake up before I started work. So I really just zone down in the morning, focus on what I'm eating, just mentally be present for the day and just visualize how my day's gonna look. And I know what I'm doing and then it's done.

Claudia von Boeselager: Amazing. Yeah. So moving on. What are some of the bad recommendations you hear around breath?

Mike Bennet: This is a super loaded question. I actually discuss this with a lot of people in the office.

And one that came up very often was only nasal breathing. Because of the stigma around that at the moment. But the other one is when you're told to relax, you're told to take a deep breath. What this does is actually draws in carbon dioxide, you're not pushing out as much oxygen, so then you increase that carbon dioxide.

You're gonna shift to the sympathetic nervous system or the fight or flight. So really it should be push out a deep breath. And you're gonna clear that carbon down and actually relax. That's inverted and to me that's quite amusing.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, no, that's really good cuz obviously you hear take a deep breath, but it's actually no, breathe out and then take a deep breath.
So yeah.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. Say clear the bad stuff, pull in the good stuff as you go. You say it sounds .

Claudia von Boeselager: No, but it's logical. It just the first time I've heard it in my life, so yeah. Thank you for ...

Mike Bennet: Don't think about that. When you think about it, you're like actually. Yeah, that makes sense.

Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly. Totally. What are some of the learnings or insights that the Airofit clients that you work with have found the most valuable?

Mike Bennet: That they can change their breathing no matter how old they are . So in five 50 minutes, they actually see massive benefits. And no matter your starting point, you can always increase something. So whether that is the inhalation or installation strength or the accessible lung capacity, the ability to open your lungs.

Everybody can get something out of training their breathwork because everybody breathes. So if I can, better at it. Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: So that's really helpful. Yeah. And let's talk about the respiratory muscle training, right? So you were saying that it's beneficial not only for athletes. How long would you say it takes also to start noticing?

Would you a difference basically for breath.

Mike Bennet: As you mentioned, with your own training, you have seen results very rapidly.

Claudia von Boeselager: Good time. Yeah.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. We had a study from a university in England that used a six week intervention with the Airofit, and they found on an average 30% increase in the thickness of their diaphragm.

So their main 30%, and that's just because it is such an undertrained muscle. You wouldn't see the... so if you train for another eight weeks or six weeks, you wouldn't see that 30% increase. But if you can train your biceps or quads and get 30% bigger in six weeks, that's phenomenal

Claudia von Boeselager: And this is men and women. It's the same.

Mike Bennet: Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager: Okay. Wow.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, and one thing that was very surprising to me is actually just how undertrained the diaphragm is then, because the people with the lowest level of training actually saw the biggest increase. So that actually shows that if you are in a poor position to start with, you will see results very fast.

But also if you're at the top end haven't trained your diaphragm as specifically as you would with Airofit . So you've gotta see amazing results, and then on top of that as well we can't directly say that this is a nice relation, but we hypothesized that due to this increase in thickness, there was actually a increase in inhalation and exhalation strength by 25% and 40% respectively.

Claudia von Boeselager: Wow.

Mike Bennet: Huge benefit after just six weeks of training. Yeah. And at the moment we're diving deeper into the numbers to see if there was a sudden spike and then a plateau, or it was just a gradual incline.

But it's very interesting. So it, it is circling back, people see results very fast. And that's a great thing about having an app that will actually give you immediate.
Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah and track it for you as well, so you can see where your baseline used to be and where you are now, which I think is quite rewarding as well.

Yeah.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager: And so Mike, you guys have just brought out the Airofit 2.0. Who is this for? And can you walk through, like your suggested protocol? Let's talk about the new 2.0 and what you're looking to do with that.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, so from the offset, the 2.0. Looked very similar. So it's the only main difference visually is the color.

So the new devices, white and black as you showed earlier. , and our old device was red, black. So I have a box here. So actually visually very similar, but it's what is actually in the device. That's the main difference. We took all of our user experience and actually used that to drive what we want to change.

So just on the hardware itself, we have changed the charging system. So you'll notice you want has a magnetic charge. Yeah. The original had a plug in, so you actually plugged in. And while this may seem like a step back, because it's less, it's slower charging and stuff. It actually meant that it was a closed off unit, so there was no saliva getting in there. Because some people were very saliva heavy when they use it. But also this means with a damp towel, you can actually wipe down the device, making it a cleaner device, more sanitary, you're not gonna breathe in or the toxin you've, your breathing out and stuff like that.

So that's one of the main changes, and we include an overing in the actual resistance wheels, which closed the device off, so it's a lot more accurate. Then we've changed a few things on the app, which are gonna progress over time, and you'll find out soon. But we're gonna change the lung test to make it a lot more accurate. So we're gonna break that down eventually into a three stage lung test where you do your volume inhalation, exhalation separately, which will then take out the bias of 'I want a bigger lung volume, so I'm gonna breathe slightly slower'. So that's something that we found very prominent in all of our user data. So we have a lot of data. We're actually the world's biggest breathing data bank, which is super cool. That's really cool. Who is the 2.0 for? The 2.0 is for the person who wants a more sturdy device at which is going to allow more accurate consistent reading, essentially.

So not two different, like the 1.0 is still a phenomenal device, the 2.0 is just a redefined a masterpiece.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. That's a nice way to put it.

Mike Bennet: Yes.

And the suggested protocol. This is very different for every user. It's based on the same thing, but different. So when you signed into the app, you would've noticed that you had your metrics or your age high weight and your training goal. What training goal did you go for?

Claudia von Boeselager: The training goal, if I remember correctly, it was it like for athletes, right?

Mike Bennet: Yeah. So in general, wellbeing.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, exactly. It was the... I think I tried two different ones just to see if they were different. So I think at the beginning I was like general wellbeing and then I tried the, for athletic performance Yeah.

As well. So I think at the moment I have it on the athletic performance one as well.

And it's, the usability is excellent in the app, I have to say at it's, I really like that as well. Yeah.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. So the main differences are the demands of the sport. So for example, CrossFit, you have a bit more of the strength orientated study.

Then endurance of cycling, you're gonna be more efficient and using your lungs under a higher stress, and then the wellbeing, you're gonna come back and really activate the parasympathetic nervous system. So like sleep is perfect to do before bed. Yeah, I'm tippy toing it around the protocol.

But the protocol is you sign up all your metrics and then using data, we actually do a lung test for you. So this, or do you wanna talk us through your experience with a lung?

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, no, happy for you to talk it through as well. So I think with the lung test it was I love the way it was set up.

I like the way that you have little videos beforehand, also explaining like what to expect and things like that as well. And I think, it's just to establish that baseline which I love as well. And then when you do the training, then you can go back again and you can see how it goes. What I was doing was also playing around, so you have the inspiratory foundation circle, mindfulness, pyramid diamonds, where like literally was trying a little bit of the different things as well as I went along, which I guess is okay, right?

I don't know, was I supposed to follow one after the other? But I just thought it was fun that my daughter was doing some of them as well, so maybe they were a bit concerned. My lung capacity had decreased exponentially, but just, I think it's fun as well as it's done nicely and it doesn't take long, I think too, but yeah.

Mike Bennet: So the lung test itself at the moment is a ending of your lungs. You empty it completely and breathe in as powerful and for as long as you can.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah.

Mike Bennet: You're gonna get the inhalation strength, so how much pressure you can pull in, and then you fill your lungs as much as possible, and then you expire as hard as possible in your lungs completely. That will give you your expiratory pressure as well as your capacity. And as you said, this is a baseline. So like any other training recommendations that you get from a personal trainer, a doctor, a physio, we use that data to then have your relative strengths. You're never gonna overtrain yourself. So that's one of the really key points is I like to you explain it through the American College of Sports Medicines F Principle, which is frequency, intensely time, and type.

And that actually justifies a lot of what we do on that app. So then you're not gonna overtrain, you're not gonna be sore the next day and you're not gonna be in that risk of injury.

Claudia von Boeselager: So that's a really good point as well, just to mention is there a risk of injury? Is there any danger with the device?

Mike Bennet: If you use the device as intended and follow the guidance on the app, then no, there is not. And there's one of the unique things about our device as well is breathwork can be quite scary. So breath holds and stuff are actually quite traumatizing at times. And with the Airofit you actually have a physical device you can take out of your mouth so you can skip away from it.

So if you are panicked at all, just take it over your device out of your. Have five minutes and just relax. So it's a physical barrier that you can overcome to then calm down and then just try again.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, that's actually a really good point as well. Yeah. Cuz that's some of the things as I hold your breath, but Yeah.

And then you can Yeah. Psychologically take it away.

Mike Bennet: Exactly.

So you if you're just doing ordinary breath work, you don't have that physical put down step away. You just have that 'oh no, I gotta breathe', and then that panic sits in.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yep. I've done a few crazy breathwork workshops myself, so ...

Mike Bennet: Yeah, exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager: Ordinary. Let's do a few more rapid fire questions, Mike.

They're good fun. What has been your most exciting purchase in the last six months? And we all love specifics, so models, brands, et cetera.

Mike Bennet: My most exciting purchase is actually a car, so ...

Claudia von Boeselager: It's exciting.

Mike Bennet: Me and my partner just bought our first car together, but it's actually the first car that we've owned in the five, four years I've lived in Denmark.

Claudia von Boeselager: Uhhuh.

Mike Bennet: So it's just opened up this whole experience of I can explore Denmark where the trains don't go . So it's kinda been life changing and I hate the fact that it's a car because I'm all about environmental friendly stuff. But it's opened up Denmark like never before. So every day is in your adventure.

Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah, exactly. It's not electric, I take it by..

Mike Bennet: Hybrid.

Claudia von Boeselager: That's exciting. What is a book that you have most gifted?
Mike Bennet: Maybe The Alchemist.

Just because it's a short book, but the message is so nice, like what you're looking for is actually inside you all along and follow your own journey. And I see myself as a bit of a traveler by living in England and Denmark and just taking the opportunities they come. So it really resonates with me quite deeply, and then it is a very readable book, so I give it out quite often.

Claudia von Boeselager: It's a great book. Yeah. I recommend it too. If you could metaphorically speaking, get a message out to a billion people so you would sky write it across the world what would it say and why?

Mike Bennet: It would probably be: 'Start now, regret nothing'.

Because like it's so cliche, but the graveyard is the graveyard of good ideas. Too many people have good ideas or they want to do something and they never do it, and they just get stuck on with life. If you want to do something, That is gonna benefit your life. Do it. . Yeah. We've got one chance and why not do it when we're young enough? You're never gonna be as young as you are right now. So just do it.
Claudia von Boeselager: Yeah. Love it. Exactly. But it have loved and lost and never to have loved at all is this...

Mike Bennet: Exactly. That's

Claudia von Boeselager: What's one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made. It could be investment in money of money or time or energy.

Mike Bennet: Possibly best investment is my own health? Yeah. So like obviously from a rugby background, I was physically active, but I didn't focus so much on not only the mental health, but also the physical health. I was essentially just building myself to break myself down every weekend through rugby, and that leads to injuries and stuff. And now I take a holistic approach and focus on what I eat, and it makes every day just so much nicer having the energy to do stuff and the body to follow through. And that comes through with Airofit as well. So perfect place for me.

Claudia von Boeselager: So what would be your key training things?

So you have obviously the Airofit, nutrition, and then just the sports training. Those are your three main areas of focus.

Mike Bennet: Yeah, So like I'm a very active person in the way that, like the gym is kind of meditation for me. So the gym is where I can just turn off my phone and just go through the processes of what I need to do.

And clear my head. So it's like a meditation session for me. Because I have a big believer in meditation, and if I can do that while focusing on my body as well, it's killing two birds with one stone. But it's something I always loved and I'll always continue to love and it's gonna allow me to do things in my hopefully eighties, nineties, and who knows, hundreds play longevity is looking these days it might been to my hundred fifties.
 
Claudia von Boeselager: Exactly.

That's my plan at least as well. Yeah. See then . Exactly. Mike, what advice would you give to a smart driven, either 18 year old or a college student, about to enter the real world and what advice should they ignore?

Mike Bennet: The one thing they should ignore is, college is the best time of your life. Will you hear that Time and time again. And I think it's very sad. It is. Does that mean it's downhill from now? No. You should live every part of your life as in your adventure and that is going to be what is best for you now.

So college is amazing. Everyone has a good time, but it's not the best time of your life. It's the time before you get a job, and then you're discovering yourself through a new job, then you have family and stuff like that. So every stage of your life is a unique experience. . And then the advice I would give someone just graduating like an 18 year old graduating high school is follow your passions.

So really do what brings you joy. Whether that is playing sport or kind of. Science or whatever, just really bring joy into your life and enjoy the journey.

Claudia von Boeselager: I love that. Yeah. Joseph Campbell's, Follow Your Bliss. I think that's a really good way it as well, right? Yeah. For hero's journey.

Yeah. We're so bogged down with what other people think we should be doing. But yeah, and it's, it takes a lot of courage to just follow, listen, not listen to everybody else.

Mike Bennet: For sure.

Claudia von Boeselager: So Mike where can people learn more about Airofit? What are your social media handles, websites?

What would you like to share with people? And I can link all of these in the show notes.

Mike Bennet: Yeah. So @airofit_sport is our predominant Instagram. So you can find out the going on in the company. Airofit.com is our website where you can find blog posts from our users. You can find a bit more science.

And then coming up in the next few months, we're launching a more educational platform on YouTube where you can understand the benefits of respiratory muscle training or just breath work in general. So are very excited for that to come into fruition very soon. And then of course you can find some of the like great books like Oxygen Advantage is one of them that you probably know very well that understands breathwork very well. Then of course next step is Airofit with the respiratory muscle training to just visit our website and then we can really intrigue you and we'll always have to answer questions.

We have probably the best customer support team in the world who will really answer any question you have seen you more reading than you'd ever care for .

Claudia von Boeselager: Mike, do you have a final ask of recommendation or any parting thoughts or message for my audience?

Mike Bennet: Final ask is - Are you ready to take your breathing to the next level?


Are you ready to, as we say, stay a breath ahead and actually do something that's quite a small part of your life, but will make a massive difference.

Claudia von Boeselager: And if so, then check out Airofit . Exactly. Yeah. Mike, thank you so much for coming on today and discussing all things breath and what you guys are doing at Airofit.

I, I really appreciate that.

Mike Bennet: Perfect. Thank you very much for having me.

Claudia von Boeselager: My pleasure.

Thanks.



I’m Claudia von Boeselager

Longevity Coach, detail-loving educator, big-thinking entrepreneur, podcaster, mama, passionate adventurer, and health optimization activist here to help people transform their lives, and reach their highest potential! All rolled into one.

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