Man In Your Corner

Breathing performance for fighters. Why you gas out in round two, why the nerves take your legs, and how to get your heart rate down between rounds. Shaun Tucker is a health scientist and breathing performance trainer in Melbourne. His first MMA fight lasted sixteen seconds. The video of it has been watched more than 2.8 million times. He knows what it costs to walk in under pressure, and what it takes to walk back in after losing in front of everyone. Short daily episodes on nasal breathing, CO2 tolerance, the adrenaline dump, recovery between sessions, and the work he does with young fighters who lose themselves under the lights. You're not switched on too much. You're switched on too hard. If it can be measured, it can be changed. For coaches and gyms: private breathing performance workshops inside Australian fight gyms. Ninety minutes with your squad, measured at the start and measured again at the end. <a href="http://shauntucker.com.au"

Man In Your Corner is a sports podcast hosted by Shaun Tucker, with 235 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Shaun Tucker hosts Man In Your Corner, a sports show with 235 episodes published.

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  Man In Your Corner

  They Say Get Eight Hours Before A Fight. Nobody Can | Ep. 239

  Oct 4, 20268 min

  Everyone tells you to get eight hours the night before you fight. Almost nobody manages it, and the reason is not discipline. It is sympathetic arousal. Tomorrow you go to war with another human being, and your system knows it. Nerves, anxiety, and a long list of things that might happen - whether you perform, whether you get clubbed, whether you put him away. That uncertainty is what holds a fighter in a place of unknowing, and you cannot rest at ease from there. So the eight hours never arrive. The fix is not to chase the sleep harder. It is to treat the whole of fight week as a recovery week. The hard work is already done. Fight week is for settling down, so that on the night you walk in level-headed and grounded. Weigh-ins, face-offs, the staredown - all of it matters. But how rested you are trumps the lot, because none of it lands on you unless you let it. You are the only one who can make an impact on you. The lever is the breath, and the point is not to fake confidence. Being scared is normal. The work is creating distance between what your mind is telling you and what is actually happening, because your body is not scared - your body remembers being scared. That is conditioning, and conditioning is something you can choose the response to. Mechanically it is almost embarrassingly simple. Control the tempo and the rhythm. Need to lift? Breathe faster. Need to settle? Slow it down and lengthen the exhale. On fight night the adrenaline rises, the heart rate climbs and the thinking goes offline - and the aim is not to suppress any of that. It is to be fully on and fully off at the same time: let the adrenaline go through the roof, and still hold the control. What you'll take away: - Why the eight hours before a fight almost never happen - What sympathetic arousal is doing to you the day before - Treating fight week as a recovery week instead of a test - Why nothing lands on you unless you let it - Faster breathing to lift, long exhales to settle - Staying fully on and fully off at the same time Message the word SCORE for the breath hold test - send your number back and Shaun will give you pointers. Chapters 00:00 Cold open + intro 00:35 They say get eight hours. Nobody can. 01:31 Treat fight week as a recovery week 02:34 What actually trumps the weigh-ins 03:26 The one way to deal with all of it 04:36 Your body isn't scared - it remembers 05:05 Control the tempo and the rhythm 05:42 Adrenaline up, thinking offline 06:26 Let it rise, then bring it back 07:54 The breath hold test - message SCORE

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  Man In Your Corner

  The Most Undertrained Minute In The Sport | Ep. 238

  Oct 3, 20268 min

  Every fighter gets about a minute in the corner between rounds. It is the most undertrained minute in the sport. Most of it gets spent being talked at. Which would be fine, except the person being talked at cannot breathe yet, cannot think yet, and is not taking in a word of it. A corner that can actually regulate the fighter - bring the gas tank back toward where it was before he walked in - will out-perform the corner that just shouts. Not because shouting is wrong, but because nobody receives instructions while they are still in survival. And survival is exactly where he is. Walking into a cage or a ring is meant to be primal: nerves, adrenaline, heart rate up. That is the body doing its job. The difference is that we are not animals, and that minute can be trained. There is a second reason nobody trains it, and Shaun names it directly: "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." He thinks that is a myth. The real question is whether the old dog is open to exploring what the next level looks like. Plenty of corners are running the method they inherited because it is how it has always been done - which is traditional, and not the same thing as effective. If you always do what you have always done, you get the same result. The fix is unglamorous. Extend the exhale. Out through the mouth is fine, but through the nose is better - you get the filter, and you get nitric oxide opening the blood vessels. It shifts him out of sympathetic fight-or-flight and into parasympathetic, which is where the heart rate drops and thinking comes back. Then he hears you. Then he sees the jab coming instead of wearing it. The mechanism underneath is the uncomfortable part. The instinct is to gulp more air, on the reasonable-sounding assumption that more air in means faster recovery. It does not work that way. What matters is using the oxygen already in the blood and pushing it out to the cells asking for it - and it is rising CO2, the acid he has to learn to tolerate, that makes that happen. The Bohr effect does the work. It is genuinely uncomfortable. It is also temporary, and a lot less costly than the round you lose without it. What you'll take away: - Why the corner minute is the most undertrained minute in the sport - Why talking at a fighter who can't breathe doesn't land - Extending the exhale, and why the nose beats the mouth - Sympathetic to parasympathetic - what actually drops the heart rate - Why taking in more air is the wrong instinct - How CO2 tolerance and the Bohr effect deliver the oxygen you already have Message the word SCORE for the breath hold test - send your number back and Shaun will give you pointers. Chapters 00:00 Cold open + intro 00:48 The most undertrained minute in the sport 01:36 Why the cage makes it primal 02:25 "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" 03:09 Change what happens in that minute 03:39 Extend the exhale, in through the nose 04:30 Then you see the shot coming 05:14 Why more air isn't the fix 05:51 The Bohr effect does the work 07:16 The breath hold test - message SCORE

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  Man In Your Corner

  Your Hands Drop In Round Three. It Isn't Your Shoulders | Ep 237

  Oct 2, 20265 min

  Your hands drop in round three. You blame your shoulders. You should check your jaw. Here is what is actually happening. You are holding your breath, and you are holding tension in your jaw - and because everything up there is connected, the whole upper chain fatigues together. Shoulders rise, neck switches on, jaw clamps, and none of it gets a chance to recover. That is why the hands come down, and it is not a strength problem. You are probably ridiculously strong. You are probably ridiculously conditioned. You are fight fit. And the hands still drop, because you cannot hold them up any more. The knock-on is worse than one round. If you are not recovering your breath properly in the minute you get, you walk into round two and round three from a handicap - and that is a massive disadvantage before anything has even happened. So learn to breathe first. In through the nose and out through the nose if you can; worst case, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Especially while you are recovering between rounds, and especially if you have been carrying tension in your upper body and jaw. Then extend the exhale. A longer exhale naturally brings the heart rate down, and that is when the muscles that need energy and oxygen can actually start to recover. Do not chase big inhalations - the inhale is a reflex, it is going to happen whatever you do. Put all of your attention on the exhale instead. It will feel uncomfortable. That discomfort is the recovery. And it matters, because when those hands come down you are open. It only takes one good hit. Equally, that is the opening you get when it happens to the man opposite. So do not only train the endurance to hold your hands up. Get better at breathing. What you'll take away: - Why dropped hands are a jaw and breathing fault, not a shoulder fault - How the upper chain fatigues as one unit - What an unrecovered round one costs you in rounds two and three - Nose in, nose out - and the fallback when you cannot - Why the inhale is a reflex and the exhale is the lever - Why the discomfort is the point Message the word SCORE for the breath hold test - send your number back and Shaun will give you pointers. Chapters 00:00 Cold open + intro 00:39 Hands drop in round three - check your jaw 01:10 It isn't that you aren't strong 02:15 Nose in, nose out - and extend the exhale 02:54 The inhale is a reflex, so focus on the exhale 04:40 The breath hold test - message SCORE

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  Man In Your Corner

  They Taught You To Exhale On The Punch. Not How To Recover | Ep. 236

  Oct 1, 20266 min

  Every coach teaches you to exhale on the punch. It gives you more power, and that part is true. Almost nobody teaches you what to do between them. That gap is the whole episode. If you cannot recover your breath, it does not matter how much power is behind the shot - you gas out anyway, and quickly. So: do you recover through your mouth? Absolutely not. Through the mouth there is no filter, and no way to control the temperature of the air before it reaches your lungs. Worse, an open mouth is what your body defaults to the moment it goes into survival. That is not recovering. That is collapsing under the pressure. Nose only. In and out. It drops your heart rate, because nasal breathing opens the blood vessels and gives you more nitric oxide - which is what vasodilation means in practice: the vessel opens and more blood gets where it is going. Then extend the exhale. Roughly one second in and two seconds out, and it is supposed to feel uncomfortable. That discomfort is CO2 rising in your blood, making it more acidic - and that acidity is exactly what lets you push the oxygen you are already carrying into the deeper places, into the cells that are calling for it. This is for boxers at every level. Amateur, pro, or the Olympic Games: the game is the same. When you control your breathing you control your composure, and when you control your composure you control the round. You stop surviving your state and start owning it. And that is when you see the opening - the right hand crossing over, the gap over the top. Without that control you never see it at all. What you'll take away: - Why exhaling on the punch is only half the instruction - Why recovering through the mouth has no filter and no temperature control - Why an open mouth is your body's survival default, not a recovery strategy - What nasal breathing does to your heart rate and blood vessels - The one-in, two-out exhale and why the discomfort is the point - Why more CO2 is what delivers the oxygen you already have Message the word SCORE for the breath hold test - send your number back and Shaun will give you pointers. Chapters 00:00 Cold open + intro 00:43 They taught you to exhale on the punch 01:43 Mouth or nose between the punches? 02:19 Through the mouth there is no filter 02:47 Nose only drops your heart rate 03:30 More CO2, more acid, more oxygen delivered 04:15 Control the breath, control the round 05:35 The breath hold test - message SCORE

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  Man In Your Corner

  Most People Waste The 60 Seconds Between Rounds | Ep. 235

  Sep 30, 20265 min

  You get about 60 seconds between rounds. Most people spend all of it catching their breath. You can spend it taking your breath back instead. Those are not the same thing, and the difference decides what you have left for the next round. The lever is the exhale. Extend it, and your heart rate comes down on command - not eventually, on command. That matters for a reason most people never connect: when adrenaline is high, your thinking goes offline. You stop strategising and default to whatever your body remembers, which is fast, shallow, survival breathing. Drop the heart rate and the thinking comes back online. That is the moment you can actually hear what your coach is telling you, in the few seconds he has to tell you anything. Doing it takes more than "breathe deeper". Control the tempo, control the rhythm, and control the direction - in and out through the nose, driven by the diaphragm rather than the top of the chest. Then the counterintuitive part. The instinct under stress is to gulp more air in. Take less in. Use the air you have already got, so the carbon dioxide can do its job and push the oxygen out to the cells that are asking for it. And there is a ceiling you can raise. Your tolerance for carbon dioxide and your tolerance for stress are the same capacity, and both are trainable. The line that holds the episode together: simple was never made easy. Simple means easy to understand. It does not mean easy to implement. The only real problem is that nobody ever trained you to do it. What you'll take away: - Why catching your breath and taking it back are different things - How an extended exhale brings the heart rate down on command - Why your thinking goes offline under adrenaline, and what brings it back - Tempo, rhythm and direction - what "control your breathing" actually means - Why taking less air in beats gulping more - Why CO₂ tolerance and stress tolerance are the same trainable capacity Message the word SCORE for the breath hold test - send your number back and Shaun will give you pointers. Chapters 00:00 Cold open + intro 00:27 Most people spend the break catching their breath 00:47 Here's how you take it back 00:59 Watch what happens when I extend the exhale 01:18 Your heart rate comes down on command 01:43 Control the tempo, the rhythm, the direction 01:59 Use the diaphragm, not just the chest 02:10 Heart rate drops, thinking comes back online 02:40 The only problem is you've never been trained 03:11 Simple was never made easy 03:28 Catching your breath is just defaulting 03:41 Take back control 03:53 Let the carbon dioxide do its job 04:03 Tolerating more CO2 is trainable 04:34 The breath hold test - message SCORE

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