Building The Perfect Beast & Tuning Your Body's Electricity With Qi Gong.

Ben Greenfield (0:01)

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

Gary Daniels (0:04)

What I try to do is I get up in the morning, I have a pretty good size backyard, and I have a nice little patch of grass in the back that faces east. And when I get up in the morning, I will usually use the eight-brocade qigong, which is all standing, all motion, and face east. Then I'll finish up with a little meditative qigong.

E equals MC squared, so atomic energy, and then we break that down into basically protons and electrons, and we say that all the forces in the universe are either stem from or tied to some form of electromagnetism.

SPEAKER_3 (0:36)

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness.

His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Ben Greenfield (0:59)

Whatever it is for you that's the natural movement. Get out there when you look at all the studies done.

Studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

SPEAKER_3 (1:11)

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On the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Ben Greenfield (1:33)

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And man, you probably know that I tend to get pretty infatuated with using special breathing techniques to work on my body or work on my mind.

And in previous podcasts and articles, I've talked about like rhythmic breathwork while running and bicycling, using techniques from, for example, the book Body Mind Sport by John Duyard or the book Running on Air by Bud Coats.

I've talked about hyper-oxygenation breathing and crazy 90-minute sessions spent literally like taking the body to another dimension while doing some of the training that I've done down at the SealFit organization in Encinitas, California. I've talked about fire breathing using Wim Hof style techniques. I've talked about hypoxic and apnea training, the type of things that freedivers do, Kundalini yoga and beyond. And in today's episode, I actually want to hone in on a specialized style of breathwork that I actually don't know that much about, but I really want to learn a lot more about just because I've seen a lot of folks using this. It's called Qigong, it also goes by the name Chi Kung. You may have heard of it before. It's also spelled Q-I-G-O-N-G.

My guest today is a guy who does this Qigong. His name is Gary Edwards, and Gary has been a martial artist his whole life. He's a former competitive boxer. He's a former elite bicycle racer. And he basically works with people all over the world to do things like use breath techniques to extend their time to failure, like how long they take to fatigue, to increase their core competency, to focus on cognitive balance.

The stuff that he does, he's a USA Cycling Certified Coach, black belt in karate. He's a three-time Florida Golden Gloves competitor. He's a cross-country cyclist. He's a road racer in cycling, and he coaches a bunch of athletes all over the globe via this system that he has called Health Defense Training Systems. So if you have ever wanted what Qigong is or you ever want to delve into or you've ever wanted to delve into how breath work can make you a better athlete or help you to think better or move faster, then Gary is your man. So Gary, welcome to the show, man.

Gary Daniels (3:59)

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Ben Greenfield (4:01)

So I guess like the first glaringly obvious question here is what exactly is Qigong? And I'm also curious, kind of like how you discovered it and started to implement it.

Gary Daniels (4:13)

Yeah, well, I'll explain first what Qigong is and...

Ben Greenfield (4:17)

Or Qigong, sorry. You'll probably have to correct me a million times. Oh, and by the way, I should mention, you know, the spelling of it, Q-I-G-O-N-G, that's exactly where you can go to get the show notes. So like if you go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/q-i-g-o-n-g, bengreenfieldfitness.com/qigong, you can get the show notes.

All right. So pronunciation out of the way, Gary. Go ahead.

Gary Daniels (4:40)

Well, let's, hey, while we're on that subject, I know we're all going to get a laugh, but it's actually Daniels, my last name, Gary Daniels. You said Edwards, but it's okay.

Ben Greenfield (4:49)

Did I say Edwards, really?

Gary Daniels (4:51)

Yeah, it's okay.

Ben Greenfield (4:52)

Geez, I'm off to a fantastic start here. All right.

Gary Daniels (4:54)

Yeah, it's all good.

Ben Greenfield (4:55)

Go ahead.

Gary Daniels (4:56)