Unmasking the Power of Breath: Tactical Training Underwater

In this episode of Project Sapient, we dive deep into the unique and challenging world of Deep End Fitness, a specialized training program designed for law enforcement and military personnel. Hosts Jake and Ayman are joined by Laura Gordon, an expert in applying nervous system regulation and psychotherapy to first responders and military personnel. Laura is not only a coach at Deep End Fitness in San Diego but also a competitive athlete with a rich background in CrossFit, powerlifting, and even Team USA Bobsled.

Laura discusses the science behind their rigorous underwater training sessions, which are structured to elicit fight-or-flight responses in a controlled environment. The goal is to help participants build resilience, improve their CO2 tolerance, and enhance cognitive functioning under stress. She explains how the training sessions are designed, from breathwork exercises to underwater challenges like dumbbell walks and knot-tying.

The conversation also covers the mental and physiological benefits of the program, such as improved mind-body connection, better stress management, and the importance of learning to relax. 

Whether you're a first responder looking to enhance your performance under stress or someone interested in innovative fitness programs, this episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of tactical underwater training.

SHOW NOTES:

https://www.deependfitness.com/

IG: deependsandiego

IG: lauragordon__

Head to https://aaapolicesupply.com/ and use discount code HYBRID10 to get a discount on all your law enforcement equipment needs. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Project Sapien is a podcast meant to engage our brothers and sisters in a law.
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(00:22):
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(00:52):
We'll be right back. We'll be right back. All right, Project Sapien in the house.
I extended the song just a little bit longer. I like the tune.
I like it when you extend things, I mean, that really gets me excited,
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We hear you and we are here with season four The theme of which, speed, surprise,

(01:15):
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(02:00):
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(02:22):
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i'm in fuck it's been a hot minute dude i know what's going on i mean is something
happened in the world that you know i mean i feel I feel like I might've missed something.

(03:06):
Somehow we missed a month of all in. We go off air and shit goes fucking weird. Yeah.
Yeah. We're like nonstop, man. Well, it has been crazy. I was actually looking
at my work schedule the other day.
You're talking doubles after doubles, just working nonstop.
It's just, I don't know, a month of like mid June to July towards the end.
We're like nonstop. I know you're busy with your stuff.

(03:29):
I've been busy with mine, but you know what? That's what happens when you actually
work full time and you got missions.
You know well and with weird shit
happen i think we need to just change like the months
of may june july because this was last year too may june july
august to just w2af that's the new season what the actual fuck yeah it is not
a normal hey it's early summer let's go have a good time it's like hey let's

(03:52):
have everyone go batshit crazy yes and then make really questionable life choices
yes and then call in the civil janitors yes and all the other cleanup crews to fix all those
problems. And then guess what? Let's do it all over again tomorrow.
It's been, it's been wild. And of course out here now, you know,
I thought I was hoping we were going to get through it, but I don't think it's
going to happen. Basically half the state of Oregon's on fire.

(04:15):
And here we go again. So all of our fire brothers and sisters out there,
especially our wildland crews, guys and girls that are out there kicking ass, love you all.
And super glad that you are keeping all of my elk alive because there's at least
two that have our name on it for this fall.
And if it wasn't for you guys keeping all that together, yeah,
the whole side of the state over there would be in ashes right now.
And thanks to all of our wildland peeps that are out there crushing it right now.

(04:37):
Wildland people, just so you know, Jake will see you if you try to kill one
of the elk that he's got. Also true.
They get free scouting though, So I'm super good friends with a lot of those
guys. And I'm like, hey, so how the numbers look? What do you got?
Where's, you want to send me an on X pin? Yeah, that'd be rad,
dude. And yeah, let's go meet up in October and September.
Yeah, it's been just chaos. And so for everybody that's listening to kind of,

(04:59):
you know, one or where we were, been busy. It's just been busy.
So, you know, we're, we're coming back with a fury again. We're working on that speed part,
but surprise and violence of action are very
much at the the forefront and kind of coming out
of left field today with that we've got we got somebody
with us that and i'll tell you what if you want to talk about
resilience training to be prepared for that level

(05:21):
of work when the job calls for
it i can say firsthand i don't know anything that
would prep you better for this so joining us today just to
jump right into it we have laura gordon from all the way down in sunny san diego
and laura's kind of a badass she's an ma with a jd and current PhD candidate
work on the application of nervous system regulation and psychotherapy for first

(05:43):
responders and military personnel in and around the San Diego area,
but really to extrapolate out to the entire community. And they do that.
By purposely drowning people seven days a week, 365 days a year.
And you have personal experience with that, don't you, Jake? I do.
I learned very quickly I'm negatively buoyant, which is awesome for the diving

(06:08):
exercises and everything at the bottom of the pool.
So yeah, the rest of it, not so much fun. But Laura, welcome to the shit show.
Welcome to the party. And yeah, I know I gave like a really brief description
there for you. But the reality is you're you're pretty much a badass and what
you're doing with the work you're doing with deep fitness and literally trying
to kill people every single day is fucking phenomenal.

(06:29):
Thank you. I appreciate it. It's not every day that you say,
hey, thank you for trying to kill people. Oh, you're welcome.
That's that's that's awesome.
So, yeah, Laura. So I kind of offline. We were talking about how I just kind
of discovered Laura and I was saying on my Instagram algorithms,
just it's very geeky. And then at the same time, I have goats screaming.

(06:51):
So it's like the two completely different, you know, type of things that I watch
and just happened to just stumble on Laura and I see them, her and people that
she's teaching carrying kettlebells underwater.
And I'm like, whoa, slow the fuck down. That's where no one can hear you scream
or cry. I was like, slow the fuck down.
Hang on. What is this? And okay, partly I'm jealous because again,

(07:17):
living in New England, everything's cold.
So if you want hypothermia real quick, just jump in the Atlantic Ocean and you'll
get it in a matter of seconds.
But what really got me tuned into that is the work that you're doing for the
nervous system as a result, right?
It's all fun and games, right? Watching people dive into the water and really working to not drown.

(07:38):
But there is a reason behind it. And Laura, if you can get into kind of some
of the reasoning and what the actual science behind it is for the listeners.
Yeah, absolutely. So the founders of Deep End Fitness are guys named Don and
Prime and they're former Marine Raiders.
And they started this sort of underwater fitness as a way for them while they

(08:02):
were in the military to train for high stress environments that they were going to be exposed to.
And so with the water training that we do, naturally, when you're working on
a breath hold subsurface, you're going to elicit a fight or flight response.
Because it's a controlled environment, we think of it more like micro dosing hell.

(08:23):
It's just we've got safety there. We've got people who are there with you.
You're working on it. So you get that exposure.
Your fire flight is heightened. It's activated.
And then you have the opportunity to really work on who you are when you are
engaged in that fight or flight sympathetic state.
Having reps, like workout out reps and opportunities to work in that environment

(08:47):
makes it so that way when it is go time,
you have a dialed in response that you're naturally going to click into,
which for a lot of people working in these lines of work is something that they
don't get in the job training.
And it really helps facilitate longevity in the career field because you get
to show up more prepared every single time you have to go.
Wow. So take us through. I mean, I'm joking about drowning because,

(09:09):
I mean, you know, I'm still alive. Listen, just because you almost drowned doesn't
mean everybody else. All right.
I might've preferred it at one point, but for, for in all seriousness,
though, it is an incredibly safe environment.
And I think we had eight people in our group and there were,
it was, I think it was a two to one ratio of, I'm going to say coaches and I'm

(09:29):
using air quotes for everybody listening in their car.
They're not coaches. Essentially what they are is, is rescue observers.
And cause legitimately, I mean, this type of training and if you take it seriously,
you know, shallow water blackouts a thing people you you experience hypoxia
i mean it's very very real and for some people.
Mind over matter can be a problem because they won't stop.

(09:51):
And so it's an incredibly safe environment that is highly, highly structured.
But can you kind of walk the listeners through what a, I'm just going to say
a general class looks like, because they're not short sessions.
It's a very involved process.
And I know I would probably use way too many words and you're going to be way
better at explaining than I could.
I would love to. So we open every single class with something called our circle of trust.

(10:14):
Dawn and Prime founded this in the belief that when When you are able to connect
with others and be vulnerable, and especially me as the lead instructor,
you are going to feel safer in the water.
You're going to reach for help. You're going to make sure that you have your
buddy when you go down for a breath hold.
Facilitating and fostering that sense of community is the first step,
and it's at the outset of every single class.

(10:35):
After we do our circle of trust, we move into pool deck breath work.
And this is where we start pulling from a lot of different modalities. So yoga breath work,
we do power breathing, and we really start to feel into the muscles that are
involved in that breathing process because breathing is one of the only autonomic
systems that we have any control over with our brain.

(10:55):
We can change our breathing pattern. We can't change our heart rate just by thinking about it.
And so learning how to breathe and get repetitions essentially with deep diaphragmatic
breathing, engaging the diaphragm, getting the abdominals online,
bringing in the pelvic floor, helps to retrain people in that deep breath process.
Once we do a little bit of work there, then we're hopping into the pool.

(11:17):
We're usually doing a little bit of a water warmup in order to get your lats
engaged, just get comfortable in the water, remembering how to swim.
And then we ebb and flow through a number of different workouts,
usually about three to four per class, where we have different intended stimulus with those workouts.
So over the past year, I've been programming a lot with Deep End San Diego to
really make sure that we foster and develop workouts that execute that stimulus.

(11:41):
One of them is a CO2 tolerance style workout, where you're really working on
your capacity to tolerate your body's production of carbon dioxide.
Others are a little bit more about bringing cognitive functioning back online
when we are in that hypoxic state.
So sometimes we can play games or we'll do the knot tying beneath the water.
We'll engage in these different activities where when you are on a breath hold,

(12:05):
you have to think, you have to act.
And that really helps create and facilitate this connection of even though my
amygdala is in full go mode, I still want to keep that prefrontal cortex online
and the ability to think critically in those moments.
So we've structured those workouts. out we've got a lot of them really
dialed in and then we plug them in so we ebb and flow between those
different stimuli to create a full class for

(12:26):
you guys i like how you gloss over you know
we just warm up a little bit of pool work like yeah 20 minute static tread all
of us who are negatively buoyant that was the worst part of my day like hey
you got to keep your head above water and i can't eggbeater because of all the
fake parts and it's like this is less than fun where Where are my water wings?

(12:47):
Where is my, like, I need self-recovery now.
No, the reality is, I mean, our program was about, I want to say we went about two and a half hours.
And, you know, outdoor pool, which is awesome. It was cold, which I actually really like.
I'm kind of that weird person that I like to be in cold water because it shuts
all the things that hurt off.
And it's just like you are, you know, hey, let's go play in an ice tub for a couple hours.

(13:08):
But it really is a progressive training methodology from within the class itself
and then from class to class to class,
because, you know, I went and I was in there with guys who've been going for
a couple of years and it was very clear, you know, and most of the people there
have water backgrounds in the services. A couple of guys were rescue divers.
So it's like, you know, of course they were having a great time and I'm like,

(13:30):
eh, fuck you. I'm a land mammal.
Let's let's, let's get on dry land and shoot something. But it was,
it was very clear that there's a pathway and a progression forward.
And just because you're.
Just because you get good at a portion of it doesn't mean you can't get better.
And I actually likened it quite a bit to jujitsu and martial arts and that side,
because it's like the more you learn about what you're doing wrong, the more you get right.

(13:53):
But then the more you get right, the more you learn about what you need to do better.
And, you know, your CO2 tolerance is a big one, your cognitive function and
how to how to how to work through problems efficiently.
You might get something done faster, but you weren't very efficient. Right.
So now how can I be more efficient, use less of my stored oxygen because I'm
on a breath hold so that my body isn't working so hard.

(14:15):
So it might take me a little longer to complete the task, but I have more time
that I can work now because I wasn't such a dipshit and trying to be a big,
dumb mammal and just power through it.
That's my methodology, by the way. And that was the thing that was like, hey, got it done.
So did, you know, Joe next to me or whoever.
But I get out. It's like, oh, shit, I'm smoked. And they're like,
yeah, they just boom right back down for another rep.

(14:36):
And so it was really interesting to watch that because, you know,
I know there's some other entities that will do things training wise like this,
but I've never seen anybody that has taken a protocol that specifically with
that and, you know, that much intention in mind for a long term training program.
So I was I really enjoyed it. So I'm really glad.
So, Laura, just it's funny. I'm going to take a few steps back.

(14:59):
You talked about the amygdala. Right.
And that's something that I always talk about during my classes when I'm teaching.
About the amygdala hijack and how it truly affects us
in our profession and one of the
things that that i think is is
really good is is you guys work on that amygdala

(15:19):
hijack by forcing or you know having these students get do a task like untying
a knot underwater right where now they're concentrating on a specific task where
it's going to take that like you said that prefrontal cortex that cognitive,
critical thinking side of you in order for you to do that task.

(15:42):
And it reminds me of my time in the service, even in policing, right?
Where if I'm on my way to a critical call and I'm on the radio and I'm a patrol sergeant now.
So as I'm getting my guys set up, whether it be a barricade or whatever it might
be, I'm already thinking three, four, five moves ahead.
As I'm going there and I wear a heart rate monitor and you see my heart rate
up at like 170, 175, as I'm doing those things.

(16:05):
But personally, I'm calm because I'm thinking through the problem as I'm going.
Same thing with SWAT, when we do a SWAT hit, right? Or even in the military,
when one of my buddies died during an IED attack, Sergeant Allers,
obviously I'll always say his name.
When that occurred and we went over to his gun truck And my task was to line

(16:30):
up the radio frequencies for our air support, ground support, everything. And...
It's funny when you train so much that it becomes automatic.
I knew automatically what the frequencies are. All in my head,
I was just doing it all, right?
Just not even thinking about it because, like you said, of the repetitions.
The more reps you do, the better you get at it, the less – actually,

(16:52):
the more automatic it becomes, right?
One thing we always say in the military and even law enforcement,
if you train with your firearms all the time, right?
If you're holstering on holstering, holstering on – anytime we get a brand-new
holster, right? I'm doing close to 500 reps in one week just breaking that holster,
just kind of getting used to the manipulation of the weapon over and over and over again.

(17:13):
Or any piece of equipment that gets issued by police or whatever,
shields, whatever, I'm doing repetitions purposely.
Not too many people do that in the law enforcement line of work, unfortunately.
So what you guys are doing, though, is bringing it in a, I should say,
fun way, right, where it's kind of like now it's a challenge,

(17:34):
right? Well, to me, it's fun, right? If I pass out, I pass out, whatever.
One of you guys just pull me up, and I don't care.
I'm the type that I've been. You'll float fine. Yeah, I'll be fine.
I'm very beach ball-like, so I'm not too worried about it.
And when I work, when I'm on mission, that dumb mammal that will not stop no

(17:56):
matter what, and I'll pass out, wake up, and do it again no matter what, right?
Just that drive in me is the type to not quit.
I've been told. I remember we were at this course, breaching course,
trying to, you know, they put so many pins in this breaching door.
And I'm just, you know, trying the technique over and over and over.
And eight and a half minutes later, I'm still going.
And the instructor's like, I mean, there's no quitting in you,

(18:18):
is there? I'm like, no, this door's fucking getting open.
And I'm going to do it. And finally I did. But the point is,
like, you have people within the community that just will not quit.
And do you find that with this pool work, you find those same people that just
will not stop no matter what?
Because that amygdala, whether they trained it already, they get in the pool,
you know, novice versus like more advanced people, I guess, if you call.

(18:42):
So do you see people like that in the pool?
Absolutely. We have a number of members who love to ride the lightning and dialed
into their internal dialogue that they really can get to that physiological point of, OK,
there's there's a little bit of a gray area here.
We get that you are capable of pushing there, but is it worth it from a physiological

(19:05):
standpoint to have a shallow water blackout?
So with our more experienced individuals too, we start talking a lot about some
of the educational pieces that come from the freediving community in terms of
being able to look for what the precursors are before getting into that gray area.
So one of the big ones and probably the greatest indicator is LMC,

(19:26):
loss of motor control, when we start to see movements slow down.
And so we have certain distances or times where people will be subsurface and
we say, if you're planning on being in this area, Leah, blag one of us down.
We're going to have a safety swimmer with you.
And in the event that that safety swimmer sees any of those LMCQs,
they're immediately acting.

(19:47):
And the person knows that they don't get to fight that. They're like,
all right, it's a class environment.
It's okay. I can surface now. I'm still like super tough. We all think you're real, real tough.
So we do have those buffers that are in place for the people who have figured
out how to get to that mental place of it's the physiology that I'm battling

(20:07):
now, my mental place. Like I was, I was good to go.
Okay. So for people who might not be water dogs, can you explain in layman terms
as best as possible what a shallow
water blackout is like what's happening and then how that presents?
Cause I know we've, I've seen it a couple of times. It's, it's,
it can happen on dry land too.
And the same type of like manifestations of symptoms, it's just a different mechanism of delivery.

(20:29):
So would it be possible for you to just kind of like give a brief on that and
kind of what that looks like.
Yes. So a shallow water blackout is a loss of consciousness in the water.
And if you don't have somebody with you, so if you aren't working with a buddy,
somebody to get you to the surface, it could potentially lead to drowning because
after you lose consciousness, then the body starts to take on water.

(20:50):
And so what's happening in the body is we have
a ton of co2 building up we're suppressing that
compulsion to breathe while we are holding our breath that co2
buildup gets to a point where potentially it leads to like
a tunnel vision effect we start to lose consciousness the body is really really
hungry for oxygen at this point very hypoxic because we haven't breathed and

(21:12):
so there's a lot of that hypercapnic hyper hypoxic body physiology going on
at that moment and we We want to get people to the surface as quickly as possible.
Once in individual surfaces, though, it's when with like all of our safety support
in the event that it ever happened, it's that you come back to it.
You're probably not going to get back in the water that day.

(21:34):
But with eyes on you, it's a it's not something that's going to directly lead towards drowning.
We have the safety measures in place to make sure that people are still safe,
even if the loss of consciousness happens. this happens.
Yeah. And it's hard for some people to articulate that in their mind of just
understanding, like you can get to a place mentally with training or, or necessity, right?
Because that can happen to where your body is saying whatever surface up and

(22:00):
you just are not doing it. You, you refuse that message.
And it's funny because I haven't put myself that far past it.
Cause to be honest, I'm in a pool, I'm training, right?
It's like, but you know, When you start to play with that CO2 toxicity,
you can kind of play, like you said, in that gray area where it's like things

(22:22):
are starting to close in a little bit.
Okay, that's what that feels like. You can get a taste of it without going all the way.
And then it's, yeah, cool. We'll go up and catch a breath and maybe we'll do that again.
But it's interesting when you kind of start to dabble in it because you realize...
For me, at least, it was like, this is probably what, you know,
if you were super self-aware of getting drunk because you're like,

(22:43):
I'm aware of this happening, but how much time went by?
Wait, I'm done with this thing. I don't remember finishing that.
You know, that kind of thing. It's like your cognitive function.
It's hard to say it declines because you can still complete the task because
you're kind of just on autopilot, but you don't necessarily remember doing it.
And the closest approximation I can make for people is that if you've ever been
really self-aware of yourself getting just absolutely shit faced or stoned or

(23:07):
whatever, when you have that little window of clarity of like,
I feel pretty fucked up right now. It's like that's kind of where it starts to happen.
And if you catch that, you can identify this is what's happening.
But sometimes it's like I've talked to other guys, you know,
that I train with that you get past that and you don't realize it because you're
so task oriented in front of you that you don't recognize that that's what's happening.

(23:27):
And all of a sudden x amount of time's gone by and it's like what the
fuck just happened where was the last 45 seconds it's like well you were underwater
dummy that that was a really that was
a really interesting experience and and something that you know i've i've got
a couple ways of replicating it on dry land to to an extent but it is it is
not it's a good parallel for stress right because and this is kind of what your

(23:50):
all your research is doing right now is is turning that
lesson in the pool, which we're all mouth breathers.
We don't have gills. Water is not our friend.
Fish are not our friend. Fish are friends, not food. But, you know,
we're going to die if we're underwater too long. There's no getting around that.
Right. And so no matter what, you can stimulate that fear response,

(24:13):
that stress response, everything with a person if you do it right.
But you're you're taking that exact translation back
to dry land with all of our first responders
and talk talking through it with the
the lens of you know stress and and how
your body's adapted but what are you with without putting
you like you know this is a fact because i know you're

(24:34):
still researching this but what are you finding in that translation when
you take those people from you know splishy splash
to the real world so it's
it's purely anecdotal at this point but i can speak to my own personal experience
and a lot of the military and first responder members of our Deep End San Diego
community is that they start to really foster and build a much better relationship

(24:59):
with the mind-body connection.
I think that one of the things that happens when we're newer in our career path
or we've encountered a stimulus that we never had before is that that amygdala
override happens and then we don't have any connection to our body.
When we start to practice and use modalities like deep end fitness,

(25:20):
we foster and facilitate an understanding of what's happening in our body and mind simultaneously.
So for a lot of individuals, especially when we have like tactical prep people
come in, they have a panic response where they enter into their sympathetic
or their fight or flight, and they're in more of like a prey stress response.

(25:41):
We have vasoconstriction. We have high heart rate with shallow breathing.
They're panicked. They thought they could do a breath hold. They hit this moment
of like, wow, I couldn't do that. Drop the dumbbell, surface quickly.
And we start to see, okay, baseline is when I hit a wall of panic,
I now have no control over what my body does.
Bowl here is now, if you feel that sense of panic again, create a pause,

(26:06):
set the dumbbell down gently, have control over the body and then surface.
You'll realize that the panic isn't because you're about to LMC or lose consciousness.
It's because your body's having a response.
And how do you strengthen and facilitate that bond between mind and body?
So that way, if you encounter a stressor stimuli in your job,

(26:26):
in what you're doing, you have the ability to say, oh, okay, stress in front of me.
I know exactly how to unholster my gun and go and proceed to steps ABC,
which is, that's a huge, huge, huge part of the improvement that I've seen,
especially with some of our younger attendees, and just being able to crush
certain parts of training that really are truly more mental.
And then from a like mental health perspective, too, an imbalance of carbon

(26:51):
dioxide in the body naturally calms us down.
We see this a lot in pop culture with people using a brown paper bag to rebreathe
carbon dioxide back into their body.
And so there's this general understanding that for some reason,
when there's a higher level of CO2 in the body, it calms the vagus nerves and
it takes us out of a super heightened stress response.

(27:14):
And so what's happening, too, is that people, especially in these lines of work,
are practicing the ebb and flow between a relaxed and a heightened sympathetic state.
And I think that that's something that is so understated and undervalued in
this line of work is once the job is completed, how do I feel relaxed?

(27:35):
Do I even have a relationship with feeling relaxed? I had a firefighter come
through and he said, like, I'm stressed at my job.
And then when we are just sitting at the firehouse, a lot of times I have this
feeling of anticipation where my thought that the next call is right around
the corner makes us that way.
I am constantly in a kind of a wherewithal mode. and he's like,

(27:59):
I just can't really remember the last time I actually relaxed.
And I was like, wow, that's super important for you from a recovery standpoint.
Let's try to rebuild that relationship here. And actually just having that science
aspect of CO2 surplus in the body, my body's gonna start to relax,
helps people to rebuild a relationship with it.

(28:20):
Wow, so many thoughts came into my head just as you were talking.
And for our, again, for our listeners, just so they understand in terms of, you know, the nerves,
the Vigo nerves and what you're talking about, can you explain a little bit
about that on how it is an actual understated on how important that is?

(28:40):
Can you kind of go over what that actually is in the human body and how,
you know, it connects us to the mind and the body and our responses to stress?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love this. And I think that it should be a part
of every law enforcement, first responder military training.
And unfortunately, it's not. So my lifelong mission.

(29:01):
But the vagus nerve is a cranial nerve that is our body's threat detection system.
And when we are somebody who wants to be in a line of work where we get to act
and protect and create a safe environment for others, it's likely that we love
detecting threats and we like acting on that.

(29:21):
So we're in that fight or flight a lot and we like who we are when we're in that state.
Our bodies are not meant to be there indefinitely.
Even though we love these ideas of being able to endlessly endure and to be
just, you know, this idea of resilience means that I'm never offline.
Physiologically, our body and our cranial nerve, the vagus nerve,

(29:44):
needs to ebb and flow between the two states.
However, what ends up happening is because I work here, I work 12-hour shifts,
I'm a firefighter, I'm at the firehouse for 72 hours straight,
we start to spend a larger amount of time in that sympathetic state.
And then neurons that fire together wire together.

(30:07):
And now we like being here. I like who I am when I am at my job and I'm good at what I'm doing.
So now I also have a propensity to want to get myself here all the time.
And the extended periods of time that we see people spend there and their inability to relax,
even though we don't think this, ultimately ends up making it so that longevity

(30:31):
is not a huge part of what they're looking at.
They're looking at careers that are a lot shorter because they've just like
burned the fuse and way faster.
So getting people to reconnect with this idea of I have to relax.
How do I do this if I just spent the last five years not relaxing?
It's a task in and of itself. And it's something that I've been really curious about.

(30:55):
And I actually stumbled on a little bit of research a while ago where a yoga
research study was performed with children who had been exposed to high amounts
of stress early on in their lives.
And they tried to use yoga as a way to help relax them. And it had the opposite effect.

(31:17):
It made them go stir crazy and it really heightened and sent them into their
fight or flight response because stillness to them meant danger.
Being still and not being on my guard means that I'm in danger.
And so trying to find and work with these communities, trying to really build

(31:38):
this understanding of, okay, well, if I tell, you know, all my firefighters
to go to a yoga class and they come back, like that was awful.
She tried to make me like lay on my back for 10 minutes with my eyes closed.
Like I wanted to leave the room.
I need to get creative and say, okay, that didn't work. How do I get you into
your relaxed parasympathetic state?
How do I get you there as an individual who needs to be there.

(32:00):
And so again, coming back to when we're at Deep End Fitness,
we're doing something physical.
We're tapping into people's natural inclination, who they like,
what they like about themselves, when they're good at their jobs.
But we're also pairing it with that science of when there's a CO2 imbalance,
you're going to naturally feel a little bit more relaxed. It's just the way of the world.
So it is really niche and wonderful in that regard. And I think it's such a

(32:24):
great resource for these communities.
I think it's a great hack for you guys because and I don't mean hack in a negative sense.
I mean, like hacking the problem, right? Like you would with computer science
and then and that it's a positive term because what you've done is identify,
you know, the vast majority, overwhelming vast majority of first responders
and military personnel are wired that way.

(32:44):
They seek that career field because that's how they are getting their fix,
for lack of a better term, for what makes them feel good as a person.
Obviously, there's lazy fucks in everything and they don't really work that
way. They're not going to be, you know, that's why I seeking out deep end because
they're not running that hard when they're on the job. That's a whole different conversation.
But for the ones that are exactly as you outlined, they want to go from call to call to call.

(33:07):
They want to be wired. They like who they are when they're on.
Right. And I mean, I think everybody listening can absolutely identify with that.
It's like, man, when you're clicking, you are fucking awesome in your own mind.
I am a fucking legend. Let's go. Right.
And you guys hit the nail on the head with that, because not only are you presenting
them with something that's physically arduous, so it's difficult to do physically.

(33:28):
It's mentally complex. And to the point of, yes, taking a bunch of hard charger,
you know, A types or hard charging B types into a yoga class to where they're
sitting there like sit still for 10 minutes. Like, go fuck yourself.
I don't want to listen to myself breathe.
I've got an anxiety attack now. Thank you, fuckface. I got to go. Yes.
But you put it at the bottom of a pool, essentially not moving or collecting,

(33:49):
you know, conserving energy to do simple tasks, you know, like not tying or,
you know, Kim's game stuff and then add in the component of, oh, I'm underwater.
Oh, I've got, you know, so you're you're structuring and stress and complexity.
It's actually causing them to relax. It's I it's funny because people don't
really talk about that. And we've talked about this on the podcast a number of times.

(34:10):
I love shooting to gun. I love tactical games. i
love riding my motorcycle i like doing the things that
where it's multitasking in real time you
know read react respond but the consequences like
especially to you know your training you're having fun motorcycle yeah clearly
obviously if you aren't paying attention you're going to be you know but it's
but it's fun deep in you know deep end is fun it's a good time to go out there

(34:32):
get your ass kicked you know kick some ass and then the the consequences are
no one's going to die you know you're not going to call you're not you know
you're not running to a burning house or or a gunfight or whatever.
So, Oh, I can do this again. I can rinse and repeat. I can do this for the next
two and a half hours. And that calming effect is very, very real.
Plus the fatigue factor. It's like, you're fucking tired.

(34:55):
Yeah. Yeah. And then the best part about that too, is when they leave the class
and they're tired, they go have a phenomenal night's sleep, which is very difficult
again, for members of all of those communities.
So it's two birds, one stone type deal.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's real. The way you guys are just,
So we were at SIG in May teaching a class and.

(35:18):
So this is kind of what we like to do, almost, I wouldn't say similar,
but in terms of baseline, right, we throw these officers into a scenario, right?
We get them primed, ready to go, ready to rock at a scenario.
What I've found is through using myself as a guinea pig, if I'm going to some
certain call, depending on what the call is, if it's a gun call,
my heart rate is already, my B department is already at 170, 150 to 170.

(35:42):
That's just where I am when the call initially comes in. And then once I get
to the call, you start to see it's interesting.
I start to go down because I'm doing the work, right? And it's like one of those
things. Yeah, I'm comfortable in chaos because that's me.
That's like, yeah, this is where I've been for the last 20 plus years of my
life, you know, to include the military time.
So, man, actually, I should say like close to 30 years of my life I've been doing that. You're old.

(36:06):
I am old. I'm an old man. And that's why, you know, we got to get the young
to take over so I can just ride into the sunset and just, I don't know,
grow my hair out and smoke weed. I don't know. Do something.
But, you know, so when these officers, when we get them in their baseline,
right, where their heart rate.
So to me, so if you're going to a domestic call, my heart rate is anywhere between 130 to 150.

(36:29):
So Jake loves to torture the cops and we'll get them to 130 and 150 just to start.
And we send them on that call. Right. I will tell them just like,
you know, we'll give them a radio. I'll have a radio. I'll dispatch them to the call.
They'll go and they have to deal with whatever situations on the other side
of the door, they're not going to, all they know is a domestic, they go in there.
And now, like you said, we're establishing a baseline. Let's see where they're

(36:52):
at without the coaching.
Let's see what they do. Yeah, you get a lot of mistakes as a result because
they are so tunnel vision, the physiological, the amygdala hijack,
the cognitive overload because we're throwing noise at them,
music, the TV's blaring.
They're getting overloaded purposely.
Some of them would even tell me that auditory exclusion actually happened.

(37:14):
They would report back like, we didn't even realize the TV was on or we didn't
even realize that there was music blaring.
Again. Well, there you go. So now they felt it. They know what it's like.
And then we'll send them back again.
We'll kind of rinse and repeat, right? They got a couple reps in.
Then later on in the day, we'll send them on that same exact call.
And what you'll see is calmness, right?
They're just doing their job. They're doing it because they got a couple reps.

(37:36):
So similarly to kind of what you guys are doing, obviously with water,
it's a lot different than doing it on dry surface,
but you could see on both spectrums, you see it in their eyes,
you see it in the way they talk, you see it in the way that they're dealing with the situation,

(37:56):
the simple problem solving, right?
Oh, okay, they got kids. Now what do you do? Oh, oh, you see it.
You're like, they are locked into that stimulus too much.
So when we pull them back and we coach them on breathing techniques and stuff like that.
And then when they go back, it's such a different dynamic.
And I'm sure you see, Laura, with the students, when you send them a second,

(38:20):
third, fourth time, or they come back second, third, fourth time,
all of a sudden they're doing better and better and better, right?
It's because of those repetitions. So at what point, I mean,
do you guys see the improvement?
Is it immediate or is it over time?
How quickly? I mean, I'm sure it's probably subjective depending on who the individual is.
But overall, do you see the students really like, because it's a steep learning

(38:44):
curve, you know, jumping, literally jumping into the deep end and doing this.
It's a very steep learning curve, just like brand new cop who goes into SWAT.
It's a steep learning curve because it's just throw you right into the deep
end and let's go see what you do.
So my question is, yeah, do you see kind of like the, they just get better over time?
I would say the more panicked an individual shows up and the greater lack of

(39:11):
connection that they have with their mind and body, by the end of the session,
they are the ones who have the largest amount of growth. else.
My biggest like sort of obstacle right now and the challenge that I face is
when I've got the people in like the top 1%, how do I continually challenge them?
Because they kind of start to ebb and flow between, oh, I was able to rip a

(39:31):
50 last week, this week I'm struggling a little bit.
But my individuals who come in with really heightened stress response,
a really large lack of belief in self, not really understanding the mind-body
connection and trying to help keep ourselves calm,
by the end of the session, they're the ones that are like, I couldn't even duck
my head underwater at first.
And then by the end, I did a 10 meter dumbbell walk.

(39:52):
And so they have these huge gains a lot of the times with the greater your initial stress response is.
And then from there, from classes about two to five, we start to see real skill acquisition.
Like, okay, they're hitting really proper form on their keyhole stroke for this underwater crossover.
They are, you know, their body position. Yeah. Their body position while they

(40:14):
are doing their dumbbell walk is the most advantageous for them using as little
amount of oxygen as possible.
Like we start to see these little gains here and there from classes up until about the fifth.
And then from there, people then that's the point where like,
OK, I've got to figure out ways to challenge you.
I've got to figure out ways to ebb and flow because they'll have good and bad
classes from that point.
Yeah. And it's really it's such a fun, great process.

(40:37):
And and sort of that class trajectory is why a lot of our tactical prep programming
works so well, because we're running eight weeks, eight classes total.
We're doing these cycles to help you build skill and kind of build that mind-body awareness.
And by the time people finish that two-month, eight-week cycle,
they're like, wow, this is leaps and bounds better from where I was initially.

(40:58):
And then just maintaining from there, it's a practice of continually showing up.
Wow. So let's take the eight-week program.
And you said, actually, Jake loves torturing the one-percenters because he's
like, yeah, you know what?
I'm still going to find a way to break you. No matter what, that's,
that's, he loves that challenge because we've had a few that are like that in
past classes and Jake somehow finds a way and I yell, he does my program and

(41:22):
I yell at him every morning when I work out.
So he, he, he wakes up like, I'm in, are you, are you, yep, you're yelling at me.
But anyway, so do you find that, that with those individuals,
they have good days, bad days?
They keep going, right? They still show up. They still do, do what they got to do.
And at one point you said that even the ones with the heightened stress response, you said one session.

(41:43):
So in one day, in one, two hour session, they're so much better.
Is it because their body and mind really connected and now they're all of a
sudden doing the better, you know, the better form, or is it something you guys
went over with them with the form and then went back in? Is it,
you know, is it kind of automatic?
For me, what I think a lot of of individuals benefit from is the behavior modeling

(42:07):
in our group fitness classes.
And so watching other people do the task that's in front of you and you're like,
I can't get my head underwater, but Laura just went down and walked with the
dumbbells to the end of the pool and back.
And so people start to see it and they sort of ask like, well,
how long have you been doing this for?
Like, what are you doing? And they're like, I just tell myself,
be calm, take it step by step.

(42:30):
And then all of a sudden with that behavior modeling, people start to find that confidence.
They start to actually understand what the internal dialogue is dictating for themselves.
And they start to wrestle with those components, belief of self, internal dialogue.
And I think that once people actually have the opportunity to believe that there
is a realness to those two things, then we start to see that growth.

(42:54):
I think that sometimes it maybe sounds a little bit hooey or like woo woo about
like, oh, internal dialogue.
Like, yeah, that's going to really help me grow, but it is the ultimate game
changer subsurface. Oh, absolutely.
Uh, internal dialogue. If you're not doing it, I mean, you know,
tickets from just working out, like when I was doing powerlifting for a while
and you know, I wanted to get that 500, that was my goal, 500 pound deadlift,

(43:17):
just one rep, just wanted, just wanted to do it. And I'll never forget.
I was getting, I was at 415 at that point.
And I go to lift and I got just bar and, you know, the plates off the ground, maybe an inch.
And I just went back down and I said, literally, I said to myself,
all right, motherfucker, let's go and get back.
And I just did it. Like, yeah, I'm like, what the fuck? Like, that was so easy.

(43:40):
But again, that internal, like you said, that internal dialogue when you talk
to yourself and you say, yeah, Laura did it or Jake almost drowned,
but he's weak so I can do this.
So it's like, you know, whatever internal dialogue you might have for yourself, it's very real.
And critical to have that positive internal dialogue versus the negative because
your subconscious and the deeper you dig into the conscious and subconscious,

(44:03):
your subconscious really listens. So if you're like, oh, I'm shitty.
Oh yeah, you're going to perform shitty versus, hey, fuck it. I fucked up now.
I'm going to do better on the next one. It is what it is. And you just go and you just go do it.
So I love that, that, you know, so much of that modeling I could tell from the
founders are from the, is from the military, that team mentality.
Because I just think of back when I went down to Florida to do some airborne

(44:28):
jumps with a few veterans.
And there were veterans that have never jumped out of a plane before, static line, airborne.
And we put them purposely in the very back. So that way, when we go,
they're just following us out.
That way, they see all of us veterans, oh yeah,
we're jumping out, we're doing our thing we're having fun and it also

(44:48):
boosts their morale their like their
thought process of oh dude this guy i
mean we had an an 85 year old vietnam vet jump out of the plane he was badass
the guy had a cane dropped the cane and jumped out as if he was 20 years old
and we were all like dude if you don't do that fucking shame on you let's go

(45:11):
you know so so So imagine somebody like that, right?
80 plus year old Vietnam War vet wearing his original OD green suit yells out
at all of us at the door and says, follow me.
I mean, how motivating is that? Especially for people that have never done it before.
And they're just like, hell yeah, let's go. So I mean, it is so true about that

(45:32):
team mentality where I don't want to fail my teammate, right?
It's real, you know, within the veteran community, within the military community,
within the SWAT community, any sort of specialty unit, our biggest fear is failing our teammates.
It's not so much us dying or anything like that.
It's me doing something that caused my buddy to die.
That is the biggest fear that we have.

(45:53):
And to see that kind of translate into the D-Pen Fitness, it's really cool.
You could totally see and tell that the founders brought all of that team mentality
into the program, which is awesome. I mean, I'm sure you see it all the time
with teammates when they do the tactical deep end fitness.
You know, those teams that come together and they go to the class,

(46:16):
I bet you could see that teamwork right away where they just pick each other up no matter what.
Oh, absolutely. And also that iron sharpens iron mentality.
It starts to become like, I want to work with these guys that I show up with,
because I know that we're going to be in that headspace of like,
we've got some boxes we have to check, and we need to get it done.

(46:36):
And we hold each other accountable to I think that's a really wonderful part
of the training environment that we've created as well is that the opportunity
to hold each other accountable is there. and that replicates the work environment
like really well as well.
So I love seeing that and it's always so inspiring in our sessions.
So how did you find your way here? Because you walk like us,

(46:58):
you talk like us, you sound like us, you're clearly going to drown us and kick our asses in the pool.
But you don't fit the mold of big dumb mammals playing in the water. How did you make it here?
So I would say personally, I embody duality really well.
I have a half of me that is in love with competition, in love with conditional

(47:22):
environments where I have to perform. I have to meet this expectation.
And I grew up playing competitive soccer and have been seeking that stimulus
for the last 10 years. I did competitive powerlifting, competitive CrossFit.
I did Team USA bobsled last year. Like I love like if you give me a task and
a challenge, I'm like, I will figure out any way possible to get there.

(47:45):
And then I have this other like the dual part of me of I love coaching.
I love encouraging people.
I love hearing their stories and sort of that empathetic nature.
And i guess really
like those two passions coming together really brought
me into environments like deep end fitness i got my first
exposure to it was when i was in competitive crossfit they did a free class

(48:09):
for my comp crew and we came out and i was like i love this like you mean i
get to wrestle with myself internally and like make all of these cool jumps
and gains and so immediately Immediately when I can see like those,
that those two things coming together for me personally,
and I can play a role in the betterment of others in these really challenging environments.

(48:29):
That's when I think my own strengths and duality is, is most honored.
And so I, I do actively seek those environments for sure.
Duality is a perfect word. Cause nothing says San Diego pool training,
like team bobsled. Wait a minute.
Fucking team USA bobsled. Two man or four man? Two man. Girls,

(48:49):
girls are, girls are too bad.
What's that movie what's that movie you were at you sure
why aren't you yeah you were the brakeman yeah i was gonna say you're way
too strong to be a driver what what's the uh what's that movie
i'm thinking of bobsled cool running cool runnings that's what i'm thinking
of i'm like that's so fucking old i am so fine all right i'm dating myself that's
pretty fucking awesome to bobsled like i'm all about the crossfit stuff and

(49:13):
the competitive lifting space but i mean the fact that like because tia toomey
also was a good yeah yeah like because nothing says bobsled like
australia but you
know i mean but again the transferability skill set right i
mean you're you're not necessarily coming at this from a mars soccer
maybe you're a coast guard background you know rescue swimming
stuff it's like no you're transferring but the mindset right so it's

(49:35):
it's really and that's something that's important for a lot
of people listening because it is hard to get buy-in from first responders because they're
a bunch of fucking assholes but like really it's like oh well
you haven't done this you don't know what the fuck you're talking about not exactly true there
chief because i have done the same
you know shared experience different pathway but shared
experience and that transferability really helps with
buy-in i i like i like that you came at it from a non you know emergency service

(50:00):
or or military background because there's there's a different way of thinking
to get through stuff because again we're all dumb we'll just hey big wall go
through wall that's pretty much what i say the wall, dumb shit. Just go around the wall.
The goal is to be the other side. It doesn't mean you have to destroy the wall.
And that kind of problem solving and thinking outside the box and getting after
it in this specific environment is huge because, like you said,

(50:24):
it's not just physical, you know, physiological.
It's also mental and skill set building. And.
You know, I was kind of raising my hand when you're talking about the keyhole
swim. I wasn't good at any of it to begin with, you know, because I can't float.
I actually could get down underneath the water really well.
I was really good at going down and coming up fast, right? Because the up-down stuff was great.
So all the deck side things, like the, I forget what you guys call them,

(50:47):
but where you basically dive down with your dumbbells, do a burpee on the bottom of the pool.
Basically, you pop back up, get up on the deck, pop a snatch,
do a couple of things, jump back in.
I liked the up and down stuff. That was great. Because I could get down and
I could get up really fast. It
was the underwater static stuff that I was terrible at, the keyhole thing.
And it was a skill set problem. It wasn't a physical capacity problem.
It was like, hey, dummy, dive deeper, lower, slower underneath,

(51:09):
and then start to surface and you'll clear the side of the pool.
Like, oh, that's a lot less work, i.e. build efficiencies, build skill set to
the point where now you guys are transitioning.
Some of your kind of more top end, high level people into
the only thing I can describe it as if you
were to take jujitsu and rugby and

(51:30):
put it underwater yeah the underwater torpedo league yeah holy shit those guys
are insane they are people you people are fucking crazy but it's pretty awesome
to watch can you and i know that's okay explain it though yeah exactly explain it
it's rugby, jiu-jitsu, and I mean, I can't really say football,

(51:54):
but kind of. But yeah, the Underwater Torpedo League is kind of this like.
Here comes the game part. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Because I know you guys are deep, no pun intended in that.
So again with prime
and dawn using a lot of different modalities in their
training that was something that came out of
their own training as a way to help people to again create a a little micro

(52:17):
dose of hell that really stressful environment work on breath control but then
also sort of like tap into their natural strengths of you know we were we're
jujitsu guys are we were guys who want to know how to be combative of underwater.
We have to kind of like blend these
elements together. And it was created originally as a, as a training tool.
And then, you know, they were a little bit hesitant about introducing it out

(52:41):
into the civilian world and seeing like, would it take, would people be interested?
Is there, is there a market for this? Do people want to get kind of like this,
this squirrely underwater?
And a lot of people have, they've gravitated. Turns out they do.
It turns out, you know, like there's and there are individuals,
too, who are no longer in whatever line of work they were in.

(53:01):
And so it kind of reminds them or it's kind of like a little glory day,
like a victory lap when they get to participate in it, which is fun.
And so that's how UTL has developed and sort of grown. And now they host tournaments for it.
And it's it's pretty incredible to watch. The individuals who like go hard on
that are just getting clobbered underwater and unfazed, just like torpedo needs

(53:27):
to go in back of goal. I will get there.
And the thing I like about it, too, is, you know, it's essentially it's coed,
right? Because when it comes when it comes down to CO2 tolerance.
Some of the world's best freedivers of all time, female. Yeah.
So if you can be really efficient underwater, your strengths are beneficial as far as speed goes.
But if you can stay under longer and you don't have to cycle back out,
you're going to score more goals.

(53:48):
It's it's kind of a it's a it's a fascinating and also like,
let's just find new ways to kill ourselves.
But it is it is wonderfully violent in a different environment that you would
never expect to see the capability and capacity for.
And so it's for me it was like 100 told ben
i'm like i am never playing this with you because you're gonna kill me

(54:11):
and nor does it look like fun but i will absolutely stick my
head underwater watch it but it was really neat to see
because it is you take those people that are looking for that next step or
that next phase that next thing and you can
do it pretty much indefinitely because you're
underwater all your joint compression stuff that's an issue on dry land
that aren't underwater right i mean so you you know

(54:31):
and then i mean the swimming component and things like that but it's really
more just the the tactical side it's it's a lot of fun you get banged up a little
bit you get bruised up a little bit but it's nothing it's nothing you can't
recover from and it's just flipping fun so i was super stoked when i saw that
for the first time i was like oh that's simp i can see where this is gonna be on espn8 the outro yeah.

(54:53):
Nothing like a couple uh ibuprofen and some water you'll be fine and then just
head back Back into the water, into the pool water.
My Bostonian is coming out water.
But yeah, you head back into the water and just do your thing.
You know, it is what it is. Totally game. Wow. Okay. That'd be something I'd be. Okay.
But just all the ideas coming to my head with that in terms of how fun it would

(55:17):
actually be to do stuff like that.
But so I'm going to take it just a little bit back.
One thing you said was that when you have the first responders that go back
and they're so dead tired and they're actually able to relax,
like someone like me who has been doing this from the military onto law enforcement and all that.

(55:40):
There's no such thing as relaxing for me. Because like you said,
if you tell me that I got to go to a yoga session and sit for 10 minutes, I will lose my mind.
I'd be like, nope, I am not going to sit here because the way my mind works
is I identify threats and I identify exits and how many people in a room and

(56:00):
who's most likely going to be the one to run or who's most likely going to be
the one I'm going to have to fight.
I'm already sizing everybody up and everything. And that's just the way I've
been engineered over 30 years of kicking in doors and doing stuff like this.
So you're 100% right where first responders, military members who've actually
been there, done that, got the t-shirt, they will never sit still for 10 minutes.

(56:24):
Like that's that's nearly impossible because the
way we were trained and i've always said when i got out you
know medically discharged and even in law enforcement is they
never teach you how to turn it off you turn it on but there's
no such thing as turning it off because in the military why turn it off we need
you to be an efficient quote-unquote killer right so how why why would we want
you to turn that off so you know do you have veterans that come out of service

(56:49):
that at the same time they seek that adrenaline rush,
but at the same time, they want to relax.
They want to be able to just sleep, you know, finally. Do you find that you
get those at Deep End Fitness too?
Absolutely. And I, it's just, it breaks my heart that it isn't communicated
about the physiological implications of being on all the time, because there are two,

(57:13):
well, there's like three really big ones for me that sort of really relate to
a lot of the physical health conditions that that individuals in this line of work see.
The first and foremost is that when you are in your sympathetic state or your fight or flight,
Because your stress hormones are firing, your body shuts off the production of sex hormones.

(57:34):
So testosterone, even though we feel like our most like, go,
go, go, I'm my strongest right now, your body's shutting off the production of testosterone.
And so that in and of itself, when we look at individuals who go through all
of this arduous training, these jobs that are physically demanding,
and they have that shut down for so long, and we try to look at muscle repair,

(57:55):
hair muscle growth naturally,
we're not allowing for that time back in the parasympathetic,
the relaxation when the sex hormones turn back on that production to really
help ourselves heal and recover in an adequate way.
The second is the fact that when we're in that heightened sympathetic state,
that fight or flight, we have a lot of heart and breathing sort of heightened.

(58:18):
Those aspects are heightened.
So we have vasoconstriction that happens sometimes if we have a little bit more
of a prey stress response, as well as a higher heart rate and a more shallow breathing pattern.
A lot of that can be tied to the propensity to develop heart conditions and
the fact that we're asking our body to participate in this state for so long
when we really need to be able to drop down and relax.

(58:40):
So those physiological implications, again, and there's a myriad of mental health
stuff that is intrinsically tied into that, for me should be like,
we have to be teaching these guys how to relax,
how to turn it off for their health, for their longevity, for the life after service.
And so we do see a lot of the older individuals that we have,

(59:00):
because again, like you were, you're saying with UTL, it's low impact.
So guys who are used to be able to like having full hand on the throttle and
going can kind of hit that element in these classes while again,
tapping into that CO2 benefit of like, okay, I'm going to learn how to relax.
I'm going to feel tired after this and I'm going to hit a great nap this afternoon.
So it's it's truly wonderful in that regard. And then when we when we look at

(59:25):
other modalities and other ways to try to learn how to relax.
The best piece of advice that I can give here is that if you are someone who
wants to incorporate meditation, if you want to incorporate yoga,
if you want to learn how to turn it off, you have to be really patient with
yourself and diligent about your practice.
Because neurons that fire together wire together.

(59:46):
And if we can create and really start to get neurons firing into a relaxed state
when we are trying to learn how to meditate or do yoga, it might take some time,
but we can eventually develop that relationship.
We can get there. There just has to be an element of patience with it.
The longer you've gone without it, the longer it might take to build that relationship.

(01:00:07):
So my goal is to, especially people who are newer in the field,
right off the bat, like you need to start ingraining this in your recovery practice.
The days that you have off shift, you need to incorporate something like this
for your longevity in your career.
But yeah, those are probably the big things that I see coming through with Deepend
and how it can really help people who are seeking that.
Wow. yeah that's i mean there's

(01:00:28):
so much more we can talk about but you know just time wise
just want to be respectful of it because we could we could probably
go for four hours talking about this stuff but but laura
just hang out for a second i'm going to kick it over to jake close out but just
hang out for for a couple minutes and laura it was amazing to have you on for
anyone who wants to look you guys up or find you can you please provide just

(01:00:53):
information how how they can get a ahold of you or how they can find deep end fitness?
Sure. I am. My social media handle is at Laura Gordon with a double underscore.
And then for deep end San Diego, where I'm a coach, usually on deck on Sundays,
we are at deep end San Diego.
We're also, we host sessions in La Jolla and Oceanside, and I hope that I get

(01:01:14):
to see some of you guys soon.
Yeah. And we'll put those links in the show notes too. I will say one just thing
on the back end of that, you know, inviting people out to the classes.
When I went out with Ben, it was a Friday.
Memorial Day was the following Monday. So I went from Friday with a deep end
class and then crushed Murph on Monday morning.
Yes, you're exhausted. You're tired. You get a good solid night.

(01:01:34):
You get a lot of fucking cookies that you get to eat afterwards because of what calories you burn.
But it isn't something that you can't just, you know, get back to work, get back to life with.
I mean, it's not it's not soul crippling for weeks on end, like a 2K for time
might be where you can't walk for three weeks. Yeah, no, it's phenomenal.
I absolutely love the program. We'll be going back out there again here real
soon with the team that I'm on right now.

(01:01:56):
And yeah, Laura, thank you so much for joining us and giving just a taste of
all this. I have no doubt this will not.

(01:04:12):
Music.