What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength

by Scott Carney

My daily routine mixes elements of all these practices, plus a few more I borrowed from a local yoga class. I always start before breakfast, when my circulatory system is the most active and hasn’t yet been weighed down by the process of digestion. I begin with three rounds of power breathing followed by a breath-hold with no air in my lungs. I time myself and try to add a minute to each breath-hold until I hit 3 minutes. Then I do another round of breathing followed by 50 breath-out pushups. I follow this with a headstand for 30 seconds to let blood move to my head. I usually start my shower warm, but finish with at least a minute of cold water. I get out feeling refreshed and pumped full of endorphins. On top of that I do some kind of cardio exercise outside about three times a week. All together it really isn’t very time consuming. It’s also pretty much all I will do to prepare myself for the coming challenges.