Part Two: Wim Hof's Surprisingly Deadly Story

Robert is joined again by James Stout to continue to discuss the bloody tale of Wim Hof.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What uh dangerous con man? My this fucking dude. Will
James Guest happy? How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Wonderful? Good? Yeah, thriving ready for learning more about park animas.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Very happy to hear that, James, I, you know, speaking
of enemas?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
What why? Why?

Speaker 4 (00:26):
Did?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
What is it about animas?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Why?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Why are some people fucking obsessed with this? Is like
the key to all health?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Does seem to have a captivating power of the human spirit,
doesn't it? The enema? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, there's a kind of person Inema guys and anima
girls who are just like obsessed with fucking animas? Is
the answer to all health problems?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, it's I don't know, it's it's it's a lasting
thread throughout human history. Someone should do a PhD on it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I think it may have something to do with the
fact that it's like an intense experience that I met you. Yeah,
create it's like powerful physical sensations, and some people just
flip out over it. I don't know, Yeah, and it
seems thankful to their life.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah. Yeah, in a way that it's not if you
inject park water into your colon.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, you gotta, like, I don't know, like there are
like obviously. Sometimes enemas are a useful tool for healthcare
people to give. Sometimes people need edemas. But it should
never be like a regular part of your day to day, right, No,
it shouldn't be.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Just like giving yourself enemas for fun. Yes, yeah, yeah,
under medical supervision only. I think it's my starts on enemas. Yeah,
they look at us, Enema cops, both of us. Yeah,
NIMA cops. That's that's my job. I'm going to make
sure people's assholes are nice and dry. I've broken with
the anarchis obis, and I'll be becoming one of those

(01:56):
really annoying stalinists on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You're an asshole authority. Well, you know who's not an
asshole authoritarian is wim Hoff. But he thinks, you know,
if you live in a state with public health care,
you should just cut your guts to ribbons with a
sprinkler head. And you know your fellow citizens can pay
for that because you're a drifter who abandoned your family

(02:19):
for a decade.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
That's what socialism does to him, to a motherfucker, Yeah, yep,
every time. Can't not do it happened everywhere, So.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
James, when we left Whim. He had just shattered his
guts by taking a public enema from a water fountain
to avoid acknowledging that he'd abandon his family. That said,
he does eventually come back to the picture. His book
The Way of the Iceman gives us very little detail
on the long gap between oleah suicide and his rise
to prominence right after Later, Wim remarried and had another son.

(02:55):
We just get this line.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
The children grew up and Hoff looked for more challenges. Yeah,
they grew up more or less without you, buddy. Yeah,
helik for challenges. It did not include parenting, are you Yeah?
Not a challenge you was that interested in. So at
this point his story jumps ahead to the mid aughts.
There are not any particularly good or objective sources about
the reality of his life in this period, so we're

(03:18):
gonna have to rely on some bad ones. I found
an article with irishnews dot com that features heavily an
interview with Laura Hoff. Now today, Laura is involved in
her father's business in her fire, so not an unbiased
source without a financial interest in how Wim is seen,
and her interview does not acknowledge some of the unpleasant

(03:41):
stories that Scott talks about. But I think her claims
about what it was like being raised by Wim are
still worthy of analysis, because, at the very least, if
this is not accurate to reality, it does show how
his kids, who are affiliated with his business, think it
is advantageous for their to be seen. Right yeah, yeah,

(04:02):
sure if this is not an accurate recitation of reality,
and we do not objectively know what happened with women
as kids, right yeah yeah. Quote On a cold winters
day in Amsterdam many years ago, while other parents were
wrapped up warm to collect their kids from school, Laura
Hawf recalls her dad turning up in a T shirt,
shorts and sandals and then doing a bit of yoga

(04:23):
in the school yard. I think I was raised by
a very special man, which I only understood later, says
Laura thirty six, agreeing the childhood that she shared with
her three siblings was absolutely different than that of her friends.
We always used to play outside if it was cold,
it didn't really matter. The weather man never dictated what
we needed to wear. Now that could be also go

(04:44):
with whims, basically abandoning them to a squat the fact
that like no one was there to make sure they
were dressed brock so we did call clothes.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, so we didn't have any clothes. Laura gives us
little detail on what Whim's life was like after Oleah's
suicide and his event return to his family, which she,
of course has no obligation to do, but it does
mean that this next period of his life is a
bit of a black box when it comes to hard facts.
This is as much as she says about being raised
by Wim. We were very free. I don't think there

(05:14):
were any rules. Sometimes you would think, okay, kids need
some rules. But it was also the best time in
my life. My father used to play more than we did,
so he always wanted to go outside with us and
that was great.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
So I don't know. That's another version of the story
believe what you want, rather juxtaposed. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
So.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Wim claims that after his wife's suicide and returned to
his return to his family, he traveled around the world
doing what a normal person would call extreme stunts, summarized
in his idobiography This way, his breathing techniques, yoga and
cold training gave him enormous strength, and he liked to
share it with others. The media got him in their sights.
Encouraged by the attention and the effect it had on

(05:53):
other people, wim broke record after record. He took the
longest path in ice. He climbed snow covered mountain peaks
wearing shorts. He ran a marathon th on in Lapland
at negative thirty degrees celsius. He swam hundreds of meters
under ice. His records were reported on television in Japan, Germany, Poland,
Spain and many other countries. The BBC made a documentary
about him, and millions of people watched his feats on

(06:14):
the internet. And again, the way he's talking about his
early activities is almost as if they like the fame
that he received. The media coverage was an accident, right,
The media got him in their sights, as opposed to
he was kind of a fame hound, and he deliberately
went out of his way to get covered by the media.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, he actively pursued being in the media at any opportunity.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, it was like, oh, he just wound up getting
famous somehow.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Real.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Shoot, there's some dudo over that climbing mountain in box
of shorts. Maybe we should hear a story.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, Now, all of these records. The twenty six Guinness
World Records that he claims to have set are in
reality somewhat less than accurate, and we'll cover that shortly,
but for right now, I want to return to another
one of Whim's claims. He says frequently that after years
of groundbreaking athletic success, he grew frustrated quote possibly because
he was still coming to terms with Olea's suicide quote

(07:09):
from his book. He felt the need to share his
knowledge and the possibilities of his body with more people.
Could other people do what he can do? In two
thousand and seven, the renowned Feinstein Institute in New York
studied Hoff. The results showed that he was able to
control his autonomic nervous system. For Whim, the results were logical,
after all, he had trained to do it for many years,
but the researchers thought he was a medical wonder. From

(07:30):
then on, Hoff put himself at the disposal of science.
His main aim was to show others that they could
also train to do what he does. It was the
start of a very special time in Whim's life. He
attracted more and more attention, and those who started using
his method were wildly enthusiastic. Now, James, I'm gonna admit
to a potential failure as a researcher here. I have
definitely found evidence of the Feinstein Center and doctor Tracy

(07:53):
who runs it, commenting in articles that feature whim Hoff.
They seem to be connected. I have not come across
any publication from the Feinstein Center about whim from two
thousand and seven, But two thousand and seven is the
year that he claims to have run the world's fastest
half marathon while barefoot on ice or snow in two
hours and sixteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah. How much competition is that for that? I don't
think there's a lot. Yeah, there a previous record.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
First, it is important you remember the qualifier here is
this is the fastest half marathon barefoot on ice or snow, right,
not the fastest half marathon, not even the fastest half
marathon barefoot. Now, this is his only legitimate Guinness World record.
He did do this, This was verified by Guinness. He
does hold this record. I do want to note here

(08:41):
that Whim's time, if you are not using the qualifier
that that's the fastest half marathon barefoot on or snow,
is not particularly historic, right, as a half marathon time,
the current fastest half marathon is fifty nine minutes and
forty seven seconds, which is insane for thirteen point one miles.
He wouldn't be record breaking as a marathon time. Yeah, no,

(09:04):
it would be good. It'd be very impressed. Two hours
is great marathon, yesh. But to two and a quarter hours,
it's like, yeah, it's lessened in fast. People are running
for fast marathonism. So the first hard evidence of scientific
analysis of Whim's claims that I have is from twenty eleven.
Wim had by this point turned his experiments in cold
weather endurance into a lifestyle. He was well known for

(09:26):
going on long, barefoot runs in the snow and submerging
himself in ice for long periods of time without shivering.
A twenty eleven article published by Radboud University's Medical Center
is the first example I found of him being tested
by a reputable scientific source. It is notable that this
early article describes him as the iceman wim Hoff. Radboud's

(09:48):
researchers were specifically testing Whim's claims that he could influence
his autonomic, nervous system and immune response through concentration and
meditation and in that they are talking about what people
now call wim Hoff breathing, that is a version of
g tomo breathing. And I'm going to quote from this
study here. To investigate this, Hoff was administered indotox and

(10:09):
while practicing his concentration and meditation technique. During this experiment,
various measurements were performed, including brain activity, autonomic nervous system activity,
and inflammatory mediators in the blood. One of the researchers said,
after indotox and administration, the increase of the stress hormone
cortisol in Hoff was much more pronounced compared to other
healthy volunteers. We know that this hormone is released in

(10:31):
response to increased autonomic nervous system activity and that it
suppresses the immune response. In accordance to the levels of
inflammatory mediators in Hoff's blood were much lower. On average,
Hoff's immune response was decreased by fifty percent compared to
other healthy volunteers. In addition, hardly any flu like symptoms
were observed. These results are definitely remarkable, so that makes

(10:53):
it sound like Hoff was able to basically control his
immune system to reduce his immune response to being mildly poisoned.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
In a way that.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Reduced his symptoms, which is very impressive sounding, right. If
that's a thing he was able to do, that is impressive,
that's interesting. But the paper went on to caution those
results were only obtained from a single person and thus
could not serve as evidence for claims that Hoff's techniques
could influence the immune system in meaningful ways.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Sure he could just have a weigh response.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, we will refer. There's follow ups to this study,
so we will talk about that in a little bit.
The year before that twenty eleven study, twenty ten, Hoff
and his eldest son in Am had set up a
company called innert Fire to capitalize on the growing fascination
with Whim and his claims of superhuman abilities granted through
breathing techniques. They started organizing workshops, first in the Netherlands,

(11:43):
but then all over the world. Several other of his
children joined the organization, which grew rapidly as Wim became
a bonafide celebrity. Now, if you don't recall, the period
from twenty ten to twenty thirteen was the birth of
commodified viral content. Online journalists and writers for culture webs
sites like my old employer crack dot com had a
voracious appetite for so weird it must be true stories,

(12:06):
and wim Hoff was perfectly situated to go viral in
this area. The number one reason for his success was
his embrace of mainstream scientific studies of his techniques. Hoff
could do this because g TMO breathing, which is the
basis of all of his claims, does work in measurable ways.
In twenty twelve, researchers from Radboud performed that follow up
study comparing volunteers trained by Hoff and a control group.

(12:30):
Testes were poisoned lightly, and the immune activation of the
different groups was studied. An analysis of various studies on
wim Hoff breathing by the medical journal Temperature notes the
trained group had significantly increased epinephrine levels, increased levels of
anti inflammatory cytokin decreased levels of pro inflammatory mediators, and
less pronounced fever. Also, flu like symptoms were lower in

(12:52):
the trained group compared with the untrained group, and you
will find this cited constantly on Whim's website and in
news articles about which usually the study results are summed
up as the people who Whim trained were able to
control their immune systems and avoid sickness. That is not
what happened, and that journal article continues. The setup of
the research, however, did not allow discrimination between the acute

(13:16):
and the acquired responses, because during the experiment itself, the
volunteers from the intervention group were allowed to hyperventilate and
the control group was not. Therefore, the investigators included that
hyperventilation can temporarily activate the sympathetic nervous system and suppress
the innate immune response a long term yeah, long term

(13:36):
training effects were not addressed. Therefore, it still needs to
be sorted out if the training itself, hyperventilation, cold end
or meditation caused the observed effects. This study also notes
that the trainees were not just given cyclic hyperventilation training,
they were immersed in ice cold water, while the control
group was not. This matters more than you might think.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Finally, coal may exert health effects. First of all, cold
may increase energy expenditure by shivering, but also by non
shivering thermogenesis, as mentioned above. In the recent past, quite
a few studies from several laboratories showed that humans are
able to increase their non shivering thermogenesis capacity due to
cold acclamation. This mirrors numerous studies in rodents. However, the

(14:21):
study effects in humans are of a smaller magnitude compared
with these animals. So number one, it's very debatable. There's
no evidence that there's significant health benefit to this. These
people had mildly less symptoms than the control group, right
of this mild poisoning in a controlled situation. And number two,
there are too many variables that were not isolated for that.

(14:41):
You can't say, oh, it was because of the breathing
or the meditation, or it may have just been. Yeah,
there's health benefits to being immersed in cold water, like
potentially at least short term.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Ones that buddy was freaking out because yeah it was drowning.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yes, you can't say the kinds of things that are claimed.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that it was like for people
who were on the internet back then, Like yeah, that
was the whole genre of like health viral influencer, right,
was taking a solid scientific claim and then building gradually
less and less solid claims on top of that, and
then grifting off that in too many people you can
make them happy and healthy and see their lives and such.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, So anyway that gives you an idea and you
can find other studies about Whim. They all have breakdowns
like that when you actually get into what is being studied. Anyway,
we will talk a little bit more about this later.
So that's twenty twelve that that follow up study is
conducted by Rad Bowd and it is the very next

(15:42):
year that are ethically questionable. Friend Scott Carney comes onto
the scene. Twenty thirteen is the year that he met
Wim Hoff well, and he's he's working on this book
called The Enlightenment Trap, and he thinks Wim might be
an interesting subject for it. He kind of wants to
expose him as a grifter, so he talks Playboy Magus
into letting him go like hang out and take one

(16:02):
of Hoff's classes. So yeah, and he specifically writes in
his more recent article that he wanted to quote debunk
him as a charlatan trying to sell fake superpowers to
the masses, which is I think a reasonable way to
describe Wim Hall.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yes, yeah, he started out just fine.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
So Carney describes Wim in twenty thirteen as quote at
merse most a circus act. He wore a green hat
and had a red nose and ruddy skin. That made
him appear a little gnomish. He was bursting with energy,
talked loudly, and smelled like an onion. To the extent
that he was known at all, it was for performing
death defying stunts in ice water and for a stint
shilling battery heated jackets for Columbia sportswear, not for possessing

(16:44):
valuable insights on the mind body connection. Yeah yeah real,
uh yeah, I didn't feel like they had a fallout.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's something happened here.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
M hmm.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
It is interesting because, like he describes in this period
is like, yeah, he was like a big media figure
in this part of Europe, but he was kind of like,
you know, a little bit of a carny, you know,
someone who you would show these gimmick jackets.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, he's like a Joe Exotica of like doing this stuff.
You know, like he's famous but not necessarily respected. I
guess yeah, I would. I would say that.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
So Scott gets to work studying Whim and listening to
his classes, and he finds himself, as he says, flabbergasted
by the fact that Whim's techniques really do work. There's
powerful benefits to this stuff. That's how Scott describes it.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Within a few days, I learned to hold my breath
for several minutes at a stretch and heat my body
in the snow. An autoimmune illness that had plagued me
for thirty years went away. A few years later, I
climbed shirtless up Mount Kilimanjaro with Hoff. When the temperature
dipped into minus thirty degrees. There was no doubt about it.
I was a convert. Soon I became as chief evangelist,
not only writing the book What Doesn't Kill Us, which

(17:57):
spent a few months on the New York Times bestseller list,
appearing from more than three hundred media engagements, from TV
shows and news articles to radio programs and podcasts, where
I preached the good news.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
That's so weird. Like, I don't know, man, I've written
Abassi people like mine. I've writen ABAUSI people like hey,
but I've never like, done three hundred podcast interviews about
how great anyone is like it. He kind of seems
to have moved from journalism to part of this Hoff
grift at this point. Yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's at this point that we should probably talk about
Mount Kilimanjaro. James, because Kilimanjaro is central to Whim's claims
of supernatural ability. It features heavily in all of his stories,
and I'm going to quote first from his how his
conquest of that infamous mountain is described by Rolling Stone
article Eric Headiguard in a twenty seventeen article, he attempted

(18:51):
to scale Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts and shoes,
but was thwarted by a foot injury. He tackled Mount
Kilimanjaro next wearing only shorts and shoe and reach the
top in less than two days and unheard of feet. So, James,
that's not thankfully he has given us some stuff to
dig in do here. So the first question we should

(19:13):
ask ourselves is it an unheard of feet to reach
Kilimanjaro and the top of Kilimanjaro in less than two days?

Speaker 4 (19:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Is that exceptionally rare?

Speaker 4 (19:23):
No?

Speaker 1 (19:24):
The current world record, and this is fucking nuts, by
the way, the current world record for an individual climb
and descent of Kilimanjaro is six hours and forty two minutes.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
That is fass. That is fucking nuts. That is mountain running.
That is fucking yeah. That is wild. I don't I
actually don't know how that's physically possible, but it apparently
has been. Yeah, the altitude change. I haven't. I've been
up the other two highest mountains in Africa, a High
Atlas and Mount Kenya. But yeah, that you've ever done

(19:57):
higher than fourteen k for a peak, and like that
is a thing, you know, like fucking and this is
like so, by the way, Carl Eggloff of Switzerland is
the guy who did that. Obviously it is Swiss. Dude,
not surprised. Yeah, I had it down for being like
someone from tanzanierro Kenyero somewhere.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
I mean, and it is like when we are talking
about Kilimanjaro. The peak of Kilimanjaro is nineteen thousand feet
above sea level. It is sixteen thousand feet above its
base plateau. That's the topographical prominence, which is a commonly
used measure for the difficulty of climbing a mountain.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Basically, it's like.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Because you have a lot of peaks that might be
like sixteen thousand feet, maybe they were only like a
two thousand foot hike or whatever above kind of the
ridge or whatever. So yeah, Kilimanjaro has the fourth highest
topographical prominence of any peak on Earth, which makes it,
you know, by any widely accepted mountaineering metric, one of
the harder mountains out there to climb. So hey, whim

(20:52):
is bullshitting about his time up to the top of
Kilimanjaro being particularly exceptional. But hiking to the top of
Kilimanjaro in shorts and shoes does seem impressive, and it's
certainly not a bad time. But he generally fails to
note that he didn't actually summit Kilimanjara. He didn't actually
reach the he didn't reach the top summit of Kilimanjaro.

(21:14):
And I'm going to quote here from a write up
by Pepisien von Erp, a mathematician from Radboud University, which
is the same school that carried out the experiments that
initially seemed to verify Hoff's incredible claims. Quote wim Hoff
and the group of pioneers started on January fourteenth at
an altitude of eighteen hundred meters. From there, they marched
onto a camp at thirty seven hundred meters. They stayed

(21:35):
there during the night and went early in the morning
to break through the top at five thoy six hundred
and eighty five meters. Gilman's point, this tempo would normally
not have been possible because of the acclimization time used
to prevent altitude seekness. But wait a second, Gilman's point,
that's not the actual summit of Kilimanjarro, is it, wim Hoff,
And it is in fact one of three official summit

(21:57):
points on the mountain, but not the actual peak, which
is a houru peak, which is where the dude who
made the trek in less than seven hours reached and
then made it back down. So again you can get
some insight into the nature of Whim's personal sort of
like pr tactics here. Right, any normal person would consider

(22:17):
reaching Gilman's peak with a group of largely untrained hikers
and getting back down in two days or less to
be impressive, and doing it in shorts extra impressive. But
that's not going to go viral, right, because you're not
breaking any records. You know, you're doing a pretty good
time and a pretty impressive thing, but you're not doing
anything that's like going a win you an award, And
so you've got to kind of jink the truth in

(22:40):
order to get something that's gonna be real easy to
like go viral. In an article or whatever.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
And like choosing Kilimanjara is a choice, right, Like it's
a big ass mountain and it's a great achievement to
climb it. But it's not a technical climb, No, it's
you know, like it's something you could, like people do
kill a manjar in their retirement if that's the kind
of thing they enjoy, and you could spend a lot
of money, I have someone carry all your stuff, Like, yeah,
for something that sounds super impressive, like it's not Everest.

(23:07):
And yeah, he compares him in the same paragraph in
that piece you read a second ago. Yeah, it's very
I know he's taken like one point of truth and
extrapolated exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
And the way that he phrases things, he's always got
a defense if people call him out, because if someone's like, well,
but you didn't actually do it this way, he can
always be like, well, no, what I meant is that
no one else hiked up at this time without a
shirt or wearing shorts, or with an untrained group of hikers. Right,
So it's the shortest time for someone doing all those
things because like no.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
One keeps track of that shit.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, It's like if I were to climb up kill
him in Jarro in like five days and be like, yeah,
but I did it the fastest anyone's ever done it.
In my head full of cocaine, I was like, well,
nobody's really keeping.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Track of that. Yeah, fastest guy named Robert Evans he
his doing coca at the time.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, exactly, I beat that other Robert Evans. He didn't
even make it up to kill him in Jarrow when
he was on No, I don't do cocaine, folks, just
just good old fashioned gas station adderall you know. That's
the that's the healthy thing to do.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Is that the stuff that's by when you check out,
it's quickly get giant drugger bills and I mix him
with Creton. We call that a seven eleven speedball, buddy.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, you'll suppressed on posting your buddies natural responses when
you do that. Let me tell you you sure will
way better than Whim. Can we gotta line you up
with some Dutch scientists, buddy, This could be a whole thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
So it's when you read Whim's book that it becomes
clear he wants his followers to believe no one else
can manage the hike in the time that he did quote,
Haff decided he would climb Mount kill Him and jar
with a group of people. Kill Him and Jarro was
a five eight hundred ninety five meter three point sixty
six mile high mountain in Tanzania. It's a very popular
expedition for mountaineers and hikers. Well trained climbers can get

(24:51):
to the top in six days. To make the challenge
even greater, Haff wanted to climb Killiman Jarrow in forty
eight hours with a group of twenty six people. Haff
wanted to show that we're all people of doing much
more than most people think is even possible with excess
this expedition too, everyone said it was impossible to get
up to the top in forty eight hours with such
a large group. As if that wasn't enough, some of
the people in the group were suffering from diseases like

(25:12):
multiple sclerosis, rheumatism, Crohn's disease and cancer. They also had
no climbing experience. The date was set for January twenty fourteen,
and the run up to the expedition was chaotic. Doctor
Girt Bougies of the Amsterdam Medical Center wanted to accompany
the expedition in a personal capacity to help the group.
The local guides thought the whole thing was a bad idea.
At the last moment, the guides decided not to go. However,

(25:33):
Hoff was resolute this group was capable of reaching the
top by focusing on their breathing, and because they had
prepared with cold training, so they went. When the group
arrived at Horombo Hut, a small huddle of climbing huts
at an altitude of three thousand, seven hundred and five meters,
the temperature had fallen to three degrees celsius thirty seven
degrees fahrenheit. As if climbing to the top of kilimanjar
in forty eight hours with twenty six people, many of

(25:54):
whom were ill, was not enough, Whim suggested they walk
bare chested and in shorts, breathing in cold training were
the seat secrets. And again, if that is the way
that it actually went, that's impressive enough. But again Whims,
it's dumb, though, But Whim's got a lie and it's
not like superhuman again he's lying about like it's almost
well tra Only well trained climbers can get to the

(26:14):
top and less than six days, no man people are
up and down that thing. Someone has done it in
less than seven hours. Yeah, just not to say like
everyone can do that. Obviously that's an extreme thing, but
like six days is it's not like it doesn't it's
not like impossible to do in less than six days.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
And you're like you're doing cue declamation right, like when
you're doing that six seven to ten days whatever you're doing,
like you're you're taking time to acclimate to different altitudes. Yeah, it,
I know, like I have a I don't know why
this one upsets me so much. I think having done
some walking up mountains, like if your guide says, noah,

(26:51):
fuck it, I'm not going that's dumb, you're like, don't go,
because that same guide is going to be on a
search and rescue team finding your dumb ass and like
risking their life to try and help you, and that
that's not okay.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, he's being really reckless here. And I've been reckless
doing a mountain climb before that was ill advised, but
not with twenty six people I was responsible for. You know,
Like again it's about like who you in danger and
like yeah, and I shouldn't have done the climb that
I did, but it was a it's it.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, it's like this.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, it's it's this claiming that, like what you're doing
is somehow like impossible. No one thought we could do it.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's like no, man, like, people have done much more
impressive things on Kilimanjaro than what you did routing it,
not in like oh I'm just a gryfto or I
just wanted to see if I could do it even
or I wanted to do something odd, but being like, oh,
I did it for everyone so everyone could see what
they're capable of, Like, no you didn't.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, I'm glad no one died this time, but that
may be evidence of the fact that, like, Kilimanjaro is
a mountain that you can get away with that on
as opposed to Everest.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, yes, yeah, someone would die or like K two whatever.
Oh yeah, so send send him up K two. That's
a challenge for me to shirt listen. Yeah, yeah, if
you think you're.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Hard from two thousand, actually you know, first off, James,
you know who is hard?

Speaker 2 (28:14):
People who buy the products from these Yeah, because we've
got dick pills. That's right, we do have dick pills.
God willing you know, Uh, gotcha we'll get more dick pills. Yeah,
so hopefully.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, grab some dick pills, grab some Trucker amphetamines and
uh you know, grab on the gas station, create and
mix them all together. See what happens.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, you know, run up about That's how they did
it in six hours man.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah, you know how. You know how weightlifters talk about
muscle confusion. Confuse all of your organs.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
You know what.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Just take every pill in the gas station and see
what it does to you.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
That's the key. You have some road records for sure,
you sure will highest hot rate by you.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
So from twenty fourteen on, Whim's fame picked up by
leaps and bounds, Inner Fire became a popular lifestyle wellness
brand for celebrities interested in pushing the extremes of human capacity.
Harrison Ford ragged about taking his classes on a live
talk show appearance, and he was far from the A
lot of celebrities are into Wim Hoff breathing. I've done
his stuff. Wim was a regular guest on the Tim

(29:20):
Ferris Show. That's one of the big things that made
him huge, Tim Ferriss is the four hour work week
and the four hour body. He does all of these
like hacking, like body hacking and productivity hacking.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Is he the bulletproof coffee guy. No, no, No, that's
a different guy. That's it. But I think that guy's
been on Tim Ferris's show. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
And one of the claims that Wim made on Tim
show was that he could speak ten languages fluently, which
is an impress I've known some people who are that
kind of polyglot. I've had some fixers who were that
kind of polyglot, you know, vict.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Victor Boot, famous multiple language guys.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Maya, my Arabic teacher, learned Mandarin over the course of
a year. Is like a ida hobby, like the way
some people get into like basketball or something. Yeah, because
he's a language genius. You know, some people are like that.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
So that's an enviable skill.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
It is a very It's the most enviable skill in
my opinion. And I can't say that Wim can't do this.
I don't know if Wim can speak ten languages fluently.
I do know that Wim stretches the truth about a lot,
and he's probably stretching the truth about this. But because
Tim Ferriss is also one fan describes him as a

(30:31):
language hacker. He asks whim, how did you learn ten languages?
And Whim answers, just be open and love to learn,
and that's it. I had no real teachers, you know,
people in the street, and sometimes I had to look
for a teacher, like a Japanese teacher here in Amsterdam
and a Hindu teacher. So yeah, I was just interested.
If you are interested in life and you get to
know and you never stop learning because you love it.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I don't think he speaks English fluently. Yeah, that's that's
not a statement. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
I think he meant Hindi and not Gendu.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
I was wondering what was going on there.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, so anyway, but that's understandable, right if he's like,
if he's not his language, English isn't perfect, maybe he
might mess that up. So appearances with Joe Rogan and
other extreme sports affiliated media personalities followed, and WiM's portfolio
of braggadocio expanded too. Kilimanjaro was always one of his
chief claims to fame, but he soon added the claim

(31:28):
that he had broken twenty six world records. This is
again untrue. He currently holds one Guinness World record for
that half marathon, but it is easily Whim's most boring
lie because there's not even a fun story here.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
He's just full of shit. But papers including like that's
he's done an enemer in a while, buddy, Yeah, yeah,
he needs to get to get a shit out that'll
clean the truth up here.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
But like a lot I found, like Rolling Stone and
Guardian articles, all sorts of articles that will just repeat
the twenty six world records thing. Sometimes they hedge their bets,
being like he claims to have won this, but rarely
do they actually dig into the fact that like, no,
we didn't.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
He just didn't. He just didn't do this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
Now, many major outlets have often been willing to lend
credence to Whim's claims. By far, the greatest ally he's
had as a grifter are the podcasts of guys like
Joe Rogan. Probably my favorite example of this is quite
mild by comparison, but I found it funny. And one
talk with Rogan, he was making his usual bold claims
of having gained control of his immune system, and Joe asked,

(32:28):
you're able to deal with malaria, and Wim responded, yes,
he was, and further, he would be willing to get
infected with malaria for.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Science to prove his resilience. And all I gotta say is, please,
let's do this. Yeah, whim get the number one killer
of human beings across the the AONs of time that
we've existed and infect yourself as a bit Jesus, as

(32:55):
someone who's had fact you do not want to do
that as a bit or not that will It's again,
it's like fucking with uh, like with Mount Everest, Like
you just don't want to do that, right, Yeah, you
can fuck around with like you know, when they're doing
these studies, they'll inject them with a little bit of poison, right,
that be a mild flu. You don't fuck around with malaria,

(33:16):
like with malaria pills, like with the medicine that you
take to avoid getting it has pretty serious sight effects. Yes,
it does that stuff. I have seen some sunburns. Yeah,
but yeah, yeah, where did Rogan plug that one from?

Speaker 4 (33:30):
You?

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Guys like, oh yeah, I can control my immune system.
And he's just like, yeah, you want to do malaria.
You want to take some malaria with me? So God,
the good that would do to the world if we
could get both of those men into a malaria challenge.
Both get them to take it.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
No, man, if you really want to d MT's pussy ship,
if you really want to like learn some stuff about yourself, bro,
you got to take malaria homes like that's how you
fucking learn you're tough.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Really fucking hated that.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
And the listeners don't get the horrifying visual of you
that coming from your face.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
It's just yeah, oh it's beautiful ruining. Okay, So yeah,
you've ruined malaria, Robert. Yeah, you, Hilaria is gonna get
canceled now. Yeah, chick and Gunya is right there wanting
to take it spot the whole time.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Mm hmmmm.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
I was going to go with the sleeping sickness. Yeah,
so like that.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
Much of Whim's success with shoddy journalists and podcast hosts
lies in the low level of scientific literacy in this
country and his skill at pulling out technobabble that would
make a star trek writer blush. One of Whim's favorite
claims is that his hyperventilation techniques allow someone to reach
levels of oxygen saturation above one hundred percent in their blood.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Now, jam, so neither of us are doctors here, but
can you pick out where the scientific irregularity might be there. Yeah,
I think it's a it's run around in the no
of a PERCENTAGEES is a thing. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
I think in this next session we should have James
read the part of whim.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
You're right, You're right, James.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
We're going to read a transcript from that October twenty
sixteen interview on the Joe Rogan podcast where he makes
this claim and Joe questions him, I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Be Joe Rogan. Okay, Oh I love that for you.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Okay, and you'll you'll be whim all right, So Sophie's
gonna Sophie's gonna send them.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
I gonna do my Dutch accent. Yeah, do your dut no,
be real offensive with it. Yeah yeah, I'll do my
offensive Joe Rogan accent. Yeah, I'll just say, what does
it do? It's called from a chimney. People who don't
understand the Dutch tradition of shwata pete uh not understand
that joke.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Here we go, here's me as Joe Rogan, but there
is nothing more than one hundred percent. They had a
level that they thought was one hundred percent, and then
they said nobody had reached a higher level than this,
So it must be what one hundred percent saturation looks like.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah exactly. It's not that you got more than one
hundred percent saturation, it's that you achieved higher levels of
saturation than they thought possible. Yeah exactly. They did it
with a laser on the chest and then they were
able to measure the mitochondria oxygen tension. They're able to
receive more oxygen. That's a great finding. It shows we
can have more oxygen inside. Suddenly we're able to get

(36:20):
into the cell and influence the energy production. If it
is anaerobic, it is like two molecules able to produce.
When it becomes aerobic, then it's thirty eight molecules they
can produce. What happens What happens with a cell that
is deprived for forty eight hours of thirty five percent
less oxygen, It becomes cancerous? As simple as that. Have
you ever worked more cancer patients? I want to, But

(36:43):
it's very complicated. Thank god for that.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
Now.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
I gotta tell you, none of that means anything. That's bullshit. Yeah,
it is not fucking That is not science. They have
talked to medical experts, They have talked to doctors for
and Scott Carney had to try to get this like translated.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
It's nonsense.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
Those are two people using words that they think means
something that don't mean what they think they mean. But
they they've properly learned how to pronounce them and are
just using them in ways that don't actually.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Make well and it's pretty just writing.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Yes, it's inconceivable and nonsensical.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Well, Joe and and Joe is even a little worse
there because he recognizes as soon as Whim makes his
first set of claims that they've achieved, he says, like,
we had oxygen saturation of one hundred three percent. Joe
knows that's impossible, so he's like, you meant this right,
and then Whim like just goes off on a limb
using technobabble that like again does not is not accurate.
This is not what is happening, is not what happens

(37:43):
with people who do his breathing techniques. But yeah, it
does show kind of the degree of I would say,
like collusion that Rogan has to try to protect his guests.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah, he's trying to. It's a narrative being like, no,
we have to make this credible, Like Steer in this direction. Yeah,
and office is resolutely sticking to his absolute bullshit, fucking nonsense. Yeah,
absolutely not being made credible.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Whim's dedication to this bullshit has caused consternation to some
of the honest researchers who studied his techniques for years
because they were impressed with some of the benefits that
those techniques.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Might have had.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Scott Carney quotes Brian mackenzie, a breathwork expert who worked
with Whim for years before being turned off by his
pseudo scientific claims. McKenzie says that, in his opinion, no
person at enter Fire has a meaningful grasp of the
physiology behind their techniques. Woodo van markin Liechtenbelt, a professor
of health at must Strict University, was studied off terms
his scientific vocabulary galimattius, a rare word for nonsense.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
He mixes in a nonsensical way scientific terms as irrefutable evidence.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
That's literally what I just said it okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wooder just uses a fancier word. Yeah, Sophie's been sided.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
Literally what I just said. I'm a professor of absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
You're well, that's right, that's right now. Wooder wrote that
article in the Journal of Temperature that I quoted from earlier,
and he has explained scientifically how some of Whim's most
apparently impressive accomplishments are less than what they seem. A
good example is his famous ability to remain submerged in
ice water for significant periods of time without shivering. Wooder
notes that upon exiting the ice he does shiver like

(39:21):
anyone else, and that while he has adapted to the
cold to a degree most of us would find impressive,
many other people have shown shown similar capacity without following
his methods quote. The conclusion must be that nothing miraculous occurred.
Although a non shivering thermogenesis of forty percent is considered
as high, it is not that extreme. I think wim
Hoff withstands the cold in the ice cubes through a

(39:43):
combination of several factors, an increased heat production, non shivering thermogenesis,
brown fat activation, contraction, respiratory muscles efficiently increasing body tissue
insulation fasoconstriction, thereby reducing heat loss and conserving the body
core heat content. And finally, perhaps not unimportantly, he used
his well trained mental ability to endure the cold, change
of mindset as he calls it. As soon as he

(40:04):
steps out of the ice, he starts shivering just as
everyone else, due to the redistribution of the cool blood
from his limbs to the body core, also known as
the after drop effect. Now, one of the things we
will note is that there is evidence in some of
these studies that the people who train with Whims show
benefits beyond those normally associated with g tamo breathing. Those benefits, though,

(40:25):
are in line with the fact that he is very
good at motivating people. He is a good teacher in
his ability to make people excited and feel both comfortable
and safe and good about themselves so that they will
explore pushing the limits of their bodies beyond what they
might normally do. And that is to the extent that
there's anything extra going on with Whim's training, it's that

(40:46):
he's really good at making people feel comfortable experimenting and
taking risks they might not otherwise take. And on the
level of that where it doesn't go badly, it has
a pretty profound impact on people. Right when you are
convinced to try something you didn't think you can do
that is difficult and uncomfortable and a little scary and

(41:08):
then you succeed, you feel great, Yes, right, super empowering.
It's very empowering when you deal it with a group
of people. You can become very close to those people, right,
and if there's someone who leads you through it, like
that person can become a guru.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
It can engender and almost religious mania. This is why
a lot of we talk about like all these different
kind of cults and stuff that have they'll get people
in a group and have them like yelling and and
insulting and attacking each other, or they'll all focus on
like abusing one person, which is a lot less healthy
than kind of the way whim does it. But the
goal is the same, right to have an intense, extreme
experience that pushes people beyond some limit they had set

(41:44):
for themselves, and that can cause them to have a
degree of like almost religious faith in the person who
led them through it. Right, it's guru syndrome, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, yeah, you see anal kinds of things, and it's
why it can be so empowering. Like it's why we
run like outward bound programs for people with disabilities or
people with injuries, Like I've worked on some of those,
and it's one of the coolest things to do. If
you've you don't before you turn into a total piece
of shit.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, and that's the problem with whim right, because you know,
a lot of aspects of what he's doing are certainly
healthier than I don't know, the kinds of like training
that some of these like weird drug abuse cults and
stuff would do, where they'd have everyone shouting at each
other in a circle.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Sure, a lot less.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Toxic than that, But there is an alleged body count
to the way Hoff's training works. Before we get to that,
we are building to that. There are a couple of
other lies I want to bust of. His first one
involves the claim sometimes made that he summitted or at
least got close to summoning Mount Everest in shorts. Yeah,
I forgot about that. Yeah, you'll hear that. Sometimes he
aborted his attempt at ever of Everest slightly past base

(42:49):
camp because he got frostbite. Because again, you tried to
do the shit he's done other places. You can't fuck
around with Everest. It's Mount Everest. It kills you, It
kills people all the time. It doesn't give a fuck.
The other is his claim that he holds the world
record for longest swim underneath an ice flow without breathing equipment.
Here is a segment of his response to a twenty
twenty two Guardian interview that gives you an idea of

(43:11):
how that one tends to sound. There was a moment
swimming under the ice when I found myself. I lost
my way because my corny is froze underwater. I had
no goggles on, just shorts holding my breath. I was
under a meter thick layer of ice in Finland, lost
and blind, but I never felt like I was drowning,
no panic or pain. I felt at peace and in control.
That experience brought me so much, and the end of

(43:31):
safety diver brought me back by pulling me by the
ankles to the exit hole, which I'd passed long ago.
I did a huge gasp per air when I came up.
In that moment, I conquered the fear of death. Now
I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid not to live.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Fucking me.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Of course, First off, he didn't need to do that. Second,
like every other fantastic claim, Whim makes, his recollections here
do not jive with the record, and it's here that
I'm going to return to Scott Carney's Miaculpa rite up.
All was not as it seemed that day. In the
twenty eleven book Becoming the Ice Man, Haff wrote that
he almost died on his first attempt under the ice.

(44:08):
On that try, he ignored his own safety protocols and
tried to sprint twice the planned distance without telling anyone
on the crew. Afterwards, Hoff claims his eyes froze under
the water and he lost his way, and that he
was lucky a rescue diver found him after he blacked
out and brought him to the surface. His brother, Marcel,
who was standing on the ice above him that day,
remembers it differently. He took it too far and blacked out,

(44:30):
Marcel says. He recalls Hoff performing his staple breathing exercise
of his method, deliberately hyperventilating just before his underwater swim.
According to Marcel, it's just as likely that Haff experienced
shallow water blackout as his failure was to frozen eyeballs.
There's no reason it couldn't have been both.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yeah, I mean, I like, I don't know if this
is a spoiler, but like hyperventilating will cause you to
have shallow water blackout and so well sprinting underwater. Yeah,
which is why you shouldn't do it. Yeah, absolutely, do
not do this shit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Be again, the water a lot like Mount Everest, deserves
your respect.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, where supposed to be there. Yeah, we are particularly
not supposed to be underneath ice sheets. It's very alien
to us. You must be extremely careful. Yeah. I've watched
Abatatu wave the water and I understand that. I understand
a lot more now, but yeah, you are not welcome. Well,
the water is a lovely place and people should go

(45:30):
underneath it, but like, don't be pushing your limits and hyperventilating.
I take a course from some.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Care take training. Go with a group, have rescue equipment available,
lots of safe ways to be in the water, ways
to mitigate risk, you know, in the water.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yes, if he hadn't had not just a buddy, a
whole team of people with significant equipment like a diver
in gear underneath ready right Yeah yeah, and he's still
very nearly died. Yeah, this is why people.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
I don't know if he took a rope, but like
people traditionally free diving for recors like rope dive down. Yeah,
and then they have safety divers at every height to
accompany them in case they prop out. But because he
goes twice the fucking distance, I don't know when he
did that or not, Like, yeah, you will die. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
So this and numerous videos of him enduring ice water baths,
spending time fully submerged in ice water, all that kind
of shit. This is all critical to the wim Hoff
legend and also the deadliest part of it. And introduce
this segment. I'm going to quote from an article by
Outside Online August tenth, twenty twenty two. A southern California
lawyer named Rafael Metzger was at home was at his

(46:39):
home in Long Beach with his seventeen year old daughter,
Madeline Rose Metzger. After a busy afternoon a phone calls
and work, Rafaele left his home office to start dinner.
He searched the house for Madeline, eventually walking to the
backyard to see if she was taking a dip in
the family's swimming pool. He saw her laying face down
in the water, motionless. Rafael attempted CPR, but to no avail.

(47:00):
Paramedics later arrived at the house and also tried to
resuscitate her, but she was gone. Two days after the accident,
a medical examiner from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office
told Rafael that Madeleine had died of accidental drowning. Her
toxicology tests were clean, they said, and there was no
sign of physical abnormality like a heart arrhythmia. Madeleine put
on her bathing suit, went to the pool to cool

(47:20):
off and to reduce anxiety following an argument with Tammy Metzger,
and she did whim hoff breathing. The suit states she
became hypoxic and thereupon drowned in the shallow water, despite
being an excellent swimmer. The lawsuit from the Metzger family
accuses Tammy and Hoff of negligence in Madeleine's death. It
also Levy's charges of fraudulent concealment, unfair business practices, and

(47:41):
false advertisement against Hoff and Inner Fire. Defendants were either
aware of or culpably indifferent too unnecessary risks of injury.
Rafael Metzger is seeking sixty seven million dollars in damages
and also asking courts to require Hoff to post warnings
on his website and promotional materials that the method is
dangerous and should never be done in water due to
the risk of drowning and death. We were shocked to

(48:03):
hear that such a young girl round and in ham
Hoff told outside shocked by the allegations, which don't make
any sense to us.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
I mean, yeah, it's gonna it's gonna kill you. It's yeah,
it's somewhat remarkable that I know he has a body count.
I guess it's very hard to tell how many people
have died hyperventilating in water, right, like, yeah, yeah, it
died swimming and free diving often.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Yeah, And it's hard to know the exact potential body count.
I think there are something like fourteen or fifteen people
alleged in lawsuits against Hoff's organization. Currently you'll hear numbers
between like twelve and fifteen. We're gonna read one more story,
but first, you know what never gets anyone killed, James.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
I don't think we can safely say that, well it
dick pills again, because they've got a they've got a
body count.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
I mean, look, and you call it living if you
don't have dick pills, that's.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
A good question, you know, you got to sometimes it's
better to have lived the days that you did have.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, yeah, which is why again, go to the nearest
truck stop, buy every pill they have and just mix
them with like some ever clear and some some some
high sea.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
See what happens to see. Yeah, you'll you'll learn a
lesson about yourself or someone else will. Yes, and someone
will learn a lesson one hope, Yeah learned. Yeah, you'll
contribute to humanity's knowledge.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Here's ads. We're back.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
So I'm going to read one other story of an
alleged whim Hoff training victim. And this is from US
Scott Carney's article on Labor Day. In twenty nineteen, Andrew Encinas,
a twenty seven year old social media entrepreneur, shuttled back
and forth between his new office to set up his
desk with a fleet of new computer monitors and the
party at his brother's house in Anaheim Hills, California. Like

(49:59):
his business Gary Vaynerchuk in Cinas thrived on the challenge
of starting a new business and constantly looked for ways
to optimize his performance. His favorite technique for dealing with
stress was a breathwork in ice immersion protocol called the
whim Hoff method. Around six point thirty in the evening,
and Sinus made his last trip back from the office.
His brother Adam invited him in for ice cream in
a football game on TV. Sure, he said, but first

(50:20):
I want to do my whim Hoff in the pool.
He asked to borrow a pair of swim trunks. This
wasn't unusual. Over the years in Scenus had learned that
the wim Hoff method had an almost miraculous calming effect
on his nervous system. He watched videos of Hoff swimming
under Arctic sea ice and teaching influential social media stars
to hyperventilate to the point of passing out in SNAs.
Preferred to practice alone and often did four or five

(50:41):
rounds of breathing in a single day. Video of Andrew
doing the breath work in the water a few months
earlier focused on the peaceful expression on his face. He
texted his friends that the method works really well in
the cold. A few minutes after Andrew went in the pool,
Adam started to wonder when he would finish up and
rejoin the family. Then, according to the coroner's port report
filled in Los Angeles County, at the party, noticed Andrew

(51:01):
appeared to be sleeping in the shallow end of the pool.
Adam ran outside to find his brother in a meditative
position underwater, with his hands clasped in front of his
chest and unresponsive. Adam dragged Andrew out of the water
and performed CPR to get his heart beating again, but
when we got to the hospital there was no brain activity.
He was already a goner, says Adam and Cinas. So

(51:22):
don't do this stuff, Yeah, do not do folks, be
very careful. Don't do it in anywhere near water. If
you're going to experience with like these TUMO breathing techniques,
do them nowhere near water and put a lot of
time in between doing them and getting in the water.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, yeah, don't even do them, like if you said,
if you scuba dive, right, like, you shouldn't be doing
any of this within the COVID days of scuba diving.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
No care, take care. So Wim does warn on his
site and in videos these two techniques, the breathing in
the cold water immersion, which make up the majority of
his teachings, should never be combined. But he also shows
off video of himself submerged in water or swimming constantly,
and both water and g Tomo breathing are key components
of his stick. This is a big part of why

(52:06):
reputable scientists and quasi reputable reporters like Scott have backed away.
I don't have a lot of respect for Carney after
the role he played granting credibility to Hoff, but I
will note that his article on the man is about
as complete a buddle of him as you are going
to find, and it does a good job of showing
how Hoff's claims that Interfier warns students away from mixing

(52:26):
techniques together do not hold well water. And I'm going
to quote from that article again. Hoff's website and YouTube
videos do in fact include prominent warnings against performing the
breathing method and water. One typical example, a YouTube video
that gives Hoff's basic breeding instructions and has sixty six
million views, includes this warning in its description exclamation point

(52:47):
exclamation point. Don't do the breathing exercises in a swimming
pool before going underwater, beneath the shower, or piloting any vehicle.
Always practice sitting or lying down in a safe environment.
And Hamhoff, Wimhoff's son and the CEO of Interfire, is
adamant over email well wim Hoff doesn't teach hyperventilation techniques.
Within the wim Hoff method, we never teach people to
do our specific breathing exercises before submerging in water. We

(53:08):
are very careful and protective in teaching people the wim
Hoff methods so they practice in a safe environment now,
even in places where warnings exist, Hoff simultaneously teaches a
veritable recipe for blacking out in water. In numerous instances,
he conflates water work and breathwork and abandons safety protocols
that he explicitly states are necessary. According to a wim

(53:28):
Hoff Method instructor, the training center that Intererfire operates in
Poland lacks even basic safety gear like AEDs in case
someone's heart stops. During his intensive workshops, the disconnect between
what the Hoff organization says and its official capacity and
the actual teachings Hoffs gives can be jarring. Take, for instance,
the eighth week of his ninety nine dollars class ten
week video course. After almost two months of training and

(53:51):
breathwork and cold exposure, which work up from very mild
practices to ever more intense variations, wim Hoff stands in
front of an icy waterfall, alongside an eager, shirtless student
and gives some simple instructions. Go into the water, he
says in the video, keep go on with the breathing,
keep on being focused. Then you sit, then you immersed focused,
and you stay in the water. Hoff gives similar sets

(54:11):
of instructions various ways three times over the course of
the lesson, ultimately hyperventilating in his own characteristic way and
then dunking his own head under the water and staying
for about a minute. A strange disclaimer in the comet
section next to the video appears to contradict what Hoff
is doing on screen. It reads the guy in the
video was guided by whim to learn to deal with
the cold. He's not doing the breathing retention and then
putting his head under the water. At the very least,

(54:33):
the juxtaposition between the written warning and Hoff's own words
is confusing. At worst, it's a dramatic acknowledgment of the
sort of negligence that could get someone killed. And that's
the whim Hoff story. James magnificent. Yeah, wonderful stuff. Yeah,
can'd be doing this? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yeah, good times that it's just so like I get,
it's such a sad like condemnation of this whole industry,
Like here's a guy I will teach you how to
breathe and people have paid for that, and sadly people
have died. Yeah, it does. It's very calming. I like
to free dive. It is the closest. Yeah, I just

(55:14):
do a bit of wim Hoffing and then off like that.
It's the closest human beings going to get to flying,
I think, But no, I do not wim hoff It
is bad if it's like a joke. It's a standing joke.
If you go free diving with someone new for the
first time, like go out there and you still go
it just wants a dude look at you, like like
what if I got myself in for?

Speaker 4 (55:34):
You know?

Speaker 1 (55:36):
So, James, I wanted to end by reading a couple
of little things I found in this listicle about wim Hoffs,
because there's some fun ones in here.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Wait.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Number one is the claim that wim learned to control
his heart rate in university. Quote and it wasn't even
part of his curriculum. Here's a quote from this very
reputable article, James. When the Reddit user futbucker twenty four four.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Asked whim.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Asked Whim when he learned to control his heart rate.
Whim replied, in university by measurement. Can you picture it?
When most students were.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Desperately trying to make their way through an economics textbook
or recover from a grueling hangover, Wim was spending his
days learning to control his heart rate. Very impressive.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Fut futbucker or butt fut bucker, Yeah bucker, thank you,
thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Question.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Number thirteen is Wim doesn't need psychedelics because he can
trigger his own dmd gland. In Whim's ama, he was asked, Hi, Wim,
do you or have you ever used any kind of
drug to find deeper consciousness in order to control your
autonomic nervous system. His response, No, not at all. I
can trigger my own DMT or hormone driven from the

(56:49):
pineal gland. I know how to get there and can
do that all the time. You have better control over
the hormonal system. You don't need drugs to be drugged
out by yourself in a natural way. Fuck me, Whim,
I will take d MT with you, and I guarantee
it will fuck you up in a way that you
cannot fuck yourself up.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
I will promise you that, my friend, Well, where do
you think the DMT comes from? But you go to
obviously from the gland. That's right, That's how I get it,
from the gland of a Dutchman. Yeah, get kill a
Dutchman instead. Much more ethical than a giraffe. There's plenty
a Dutchman. Yep, they're not a rare species. So yeah,
no shortage. Had the harvested d MT from the d

(57:32):
stands for Dutch, Yeah, yeah, M stands for man. I
don't know what the stands for. Yeah, I do. I
hate the article. Author of that stupid article, John Brooks.
I do want to read you his bio, even though
it's a little bit of an aside. John Brooks is
a stoicism teacher and crucially practitioner. His stoic meditations have

(57:53):
accumulated thousands of listens, and he has created his own
stoic training program from modern day Stoics. Well, it's one
of the things about stow this is they really thrive
on how many people download their podcast. Very stoic. Nothing
more stoic than noting your thousands of listeners. You're getting
to add revenue.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
God, and I've never seen stoic use more in a
sentence three times.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Yeah, we got to get the seo up. It's another
big element of stoicism.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
It's one of those things like stoicism. You want to
read like ancient Greek stoics perfectly fine. People who talk
about being stoics one hundred percent of the time very
frustrating human gests.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just like people who talk about reading
infinite jest. Yes, cos. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
For people who will like call themselves utilitarians, like, oh.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's a bad end to you.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
That is you are You are not talking about the
actual attempt to determine the greatest good for the greatest
number of people. You are trying to justify cheating on
your girlfriend. Is that is what's going on in this story?

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Yeah, and hopefully someone plays football with your head too
as it did. Yeah, anyway, James, anything to plug well
after that, Buddy, I not holding your breath underwater?

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Yeah, don't hold your breath under water. Don't hyperventilate, you know, well,
you can hold your breath underwater sometimes if you do
it the right way.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Fast, sensible. Yeah, there's a Fena Feinae office, one Addie Office,
one f Fi offer one free diving glasses. You can
take them. Yeah, what else do I have to plug? Yes?
I have a book already and you can find it
by going to the library and saying this, dude, James
stat has written a book. It's called The Popular Front
of nineteen thirty six Popular Olympics. And they will order

(59:36):
it for you and you will have to pay and yeah,
and it could happen here. You can hear. In a
few weeks I will do a podcast which involves me
talking about holding my breath underwater in a non fatal way. Yeah,
and going to the Marshall Islands to do it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
And you can find me when I eventually have my
fist fight with whim half.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Yeah, in Mark Zuckerbug's garden. In Mark Zuckerberg's garden.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
I bet on you, Robert, thank you. Yeah, we all are.
I betting on malaria to be the real Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
That might be if he gets infected. You know that
might be me too.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
I've seen how you deal with someone who's in the
in the grips of gastro intestinal distress. Robert, I think
you could. Yeah, Robert and I have had some times.
You should have bought that second charm James, Yeah, I
should have done, man. I didn't have enough meet your
rights on me that day as a result. Yeah, that

(01:00:38):
was funny. Are not familiar. Robert and I went on
a reporting trip to Thailand to cover the civil war.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
After after like two weeks, I was like, you know what,
I'm going to get us a nice night at a
very nice hotel. I'm already it in Bangkok. You know,
we'll have like a little bit of luxury on our
way out. James gets sick on the way in and
just hurls in the park warking lot of one of
the nicest hotels, and Banker and you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Both, you both were separately messaging me about.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
It, and it was so funny. It was like chances like,
I don't think I'm gonna diet. Robert's like, he fucking
did it. He made it. It was the nicest hotel.
I'm so proud of him.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
It was beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
An analogy in waiting for them to give us our roof,
it was so funny. I got it. I'll give it
up to them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
You know, the Lamridian staff must have seen some ship
because they didn't not.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
And then I think the best part of this was
that Robbert had thought we got a sweet with two
rooms in fact, in fact, it was one big room
with a frosted glass bathroom. So you got to watch
my shadow. That's Harmon had a good time. Yeah. Shout
out to the old lady who gave me a shopping
bag because I filled up all the vomit bags on

(01:02:00):
the flight. Yeah right, Yeah. Things we do for journalism,
The things we do for journalism anyway, like and subscribe. Yeah,
you can go to cooler Zone Media to get this
without ads. You can buy my book After the Revolution.
It's wherever books are, or you can get it free
at a library, or you can find it free at

(01:02:22):
atrbook dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Whatever. Live your life, Motherfuckers.

Speaker 4 (01:02:28):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
For more from cool Zone

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com or check us
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