You Don't Want to Have to Think About Your Breathing: Matt Hanson on Lung Health

Most of the time, you don't want to have to be thinking about your breathing. If you are, because you're hindered in any way, it's going to impact your performance. But even beyond performance, if you're thinking about your breathing, you're not thinking about what you should be. You're not focused on going faster or executing your session or staying present in the moment. Anytime you're having to think about your breathing, you're not thinking about what you should be. You want to be in a situation where you don't have to think about it. Ever.

Living just south of Denver is great most of the time, but we have a number of days each year where air pollution is a real problem. The pool I use has very high chlorine content. And then when the sets get hard, you're already in a compromised environment. During allergy season, the pollen count gets so high that your bike wheels turn yellow just from riding through it. That pollen is in your lungs. You're coughing it up. Those are the days where your environment is working directly against your training.

The first samples I got came right at allergy season. I was up riding in the mountains, pollen count was high, wheels turning yellow. And I wasn't coughing. That kind of gets back to what I said at the start: I don't want to be thinking about my breathing. To be at that point where I have yellow tires and I'm just not thinking about it, not coughing, just having a better training day. That was the moment I noticed something was different.

I played around with taking it right before a swim and also immediately after, because that's usually when things are the most irritated. After a really hard swim set, you still have two more sessions on the day. What I noticed before the swim is I can get into the set faster. Normally the first 500 meters you just have to adapt, but I don't need that adaptation period anymore. I'm not restricted early on, not coughing through the warm up. And then after, if I take it right away, I feel like I can get onto the next workout easier.

That's actually where I've noticed it most clearly. A lot of races you can do a run beforehand, but you might get a two minute swim warm up. At the World Championships in Nice, we couldn't even leave transition. One minute swim to the start. That was it. So being able to have free and open lungs right at the onset is really important when your options are limited. The first 500 meters of a race is probably the most important five minutes of the entire day. It puts you in the position you're going to come out of the water in. You're either fighting for position or you're in the group. The ability to manage that first stretch has been the biggest change I've felt with L Max.

Both, depending on the day. On days with high pollen, coming off a cold, or any kind of restriction beforehand, I feel the benefit directly. But what keeps me using it on every other day is the same reason I take a multivitamin. No one can feel vitamin B12 working, but you take it because you know you need it. If you trust the science behind the product, why wouldn't you keep using it? It's an insurance policy. It gives you that added psychological benefit too. Even on a day where you don't immediately feel it, you know you're doing the right thing for your lungs over time.

Back in the 80s and 90s, research came out suggesting the lungs were so overdeveloped they would never be the leading limiting factor. That became the tradition. That's what everyone believed, so no one paid attention. But when you're looking at limiting factors, you're looking at averages. On my average workout, my lungs probably aren't the limiting factor. But on the days I need them most, they are. And those are the days with the biggest potential for gains. If L Max allows you to hit VO2 max sessions a little higher, sustain threshold a little longer, or deal with the pollutants and allergens that weren't factored into those original studies, that matters. Things change. We have to keep coming back and challenging the long-held traditions.

We take a multivitamin for internal health. We spend enormous amounts of time and money optimizing everything else. But we don't do anything to protect our lungs and ensure we're getting the most out of them. That's what L Max can be.