Wim Hof Method Fundamentals – Best (and WORST!) Parts – Week 7 Review

I’m glad my Wim Hof Method Fundamentals approach includes accountability partners.   This is so much learning.   It’s hard to stay consistent and make that kind of space in my life week after week.

Week 7 review below.

You can also check out my  week 1,  week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, and week 6 experiences.

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Wim Hof Week 7, albeit being titled “under pressure,” really took the pressure off in terms of time required.   We had one less round of breathing, cold water training switched to cold-only and therefore only took a few minutes.   The homework was a style of physicality we’d already broached, so took up less mental space for me.

Here’s what I thought about week seven:

Wim Hof Breathing

Best:

• Sustainable
  • We did the same breathing style as last week (that both my accountability partners have come to love), but we did one less round.   It was really easy, compared to other weeks, to fit in the breathing.

• Arrived… again and again
  • I continue improving at getting my charge!   Each week I discover important and empowering nuances and think I’ve finally “gotten it.”   And then the next week I discover more!  

• Code Crack?
  • Since day 1 of the fundamentals course, Wim has been talking about “squeezing to the head” during holds.   And he says that releasing this pressure is supposed to feel amazing.   Finally, in week 7, I think I’ve figured out where to put pressure in my head to get the “release” everyone talks about.

Worst:

• Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
  • I added about 3,000 feet to my base elevation this week. #nomadlife   As anticipated, my hold times dropped.   Strangely, they were significantly longer on day 2, before going back to ~sub 1:20 the rest of the week.   Presumably this was an issue with decreased hemoglobin – e.g. oxygen carrying capacity?   I certainly experienced that when I had trouble with Wim Hof breathing before.

• Monkey Mind
  
  • I got sick late in the week.   I couldn’t focus on my first round of breathing.   As is thematic for me during this training, no focus equals no charge.

• Can’t Win for Losing?
  
  • The pressure was on during this Under Pressure week!   If I prioritize the Wim Hof Fundamentals tasks at the beginning of my day, I tend to rush through them to get to other tasks.   If I wait until later in the day, I’m more relaxed… if I even make time for it at all.   Which is rare when I put it off.   What’s a monkey to do?   (I know.   I know.   Something I’m not good at.)

Wim Hof Cold Water Training

Best:

• Once better than nunce?
  • I did get in one, legit cold-shower this week, although not the prescribed cold-only.   I needed to wash my hair and need hot water for that.   So I did last week’s cold-hot-cold.

Worst:

• Damn Desert!
  • I’m in the Sonoran Desert for a few weeks and it’s up to 105 degrees (40C) every day.   The tap water is warmer than the ambient temp in air conditioned homes.   With my high-pressure week, I struggled to find a solution until the end of the week.   (Run a bathtub of water as early as possible in the day, let it cool down for a few hours, add ice, soak for prescribed time.)

Wim Hof Stretching

No prescribed stretches this week.   I just did  my regular yoga.

Homework: Plank & Scissors

Although not assigned, I continued the pH testing this week.   Like last week, I continued not to have any consistently correlated results.  

Our assigned homework this week was holding a plank and executing scissor kicks for as long as possible.   We were meant to do this before the breathing so we can re-alkalize the body afterward.

I managed to do at least a 3′ plank and at least 3′ straight of scissor kicks each of the five days I fit this homework in.   I was never sore, despite the long holds.   I do wonder what percentage of the lack of physical issues comes from mentally just deciding not to get acidic (like in week 4) vs. allegedly alkalizing or re-alkalizing the body.  

E.g. one of my accountability partners climbed Long’s Peak in Colorado, did a lot of alkalizing breathing on the climb, and had noticeably fewer problems than usual at that elevation and noticeably fewer problems than those around him.    

I’m going to Peru in a few weeks.   Can’t wait to try it out at 11,000 feet!

My biggest problem this week is that I don’t have a good “why.”   The longest plank I held/scissors I did were 4 minutes.   I didn’t have a good reason not to give up.   “Because this is part of the Wim Hof Fundamentals,” is not a good enough reason for me.   I was not motivated to push myself past that point “just because.”   I’d love to know how other people make themselves care about things like this.

Wim Hof Fundamentals Course – Week 7 Review

I love that the Wim Hof Fundamentals quickly builds to an intensity that leverages natural early momentum, but cools off as the “honeymoon” period and related enthusiasm begins to fade.   Despite being insanely busy this week, I felt like I could keep up!

Wim is so wacky!  

I get the impression he is like, “Yeah, whatever, you structured-people-who-want-to-make-a-course.   Who cares?!   Let’s just do this awesome breathing and cold water training that totally levels up your life!   Under pressure?   What does that even mean?   [Insert wacky joke]   Forget the dumb titles!   Let’s just be awesome!“

It’s great, though.

Happy Breathing!  ♣

Read about week 8 here.

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Want to do the Wim Hof Course?!

If you’re grateful that I didn’t just take my Wim Hof benefits and keep them to myself, and you think you’re going to give the Wim Hof Fundamentals Course a try, I’d really appreciate you using any of the course links  on this page.  

It doesn’t cost you anything more.   Instead of keeping your whole purchase to themselves, the Wim Hof people will give me a little “thanks for spending hours of your time writing about your experience” funding.

At the end of the day, I have spent hours writing about my Wim Hof experience, because I love helping people.   If I can unlock a self-improvement opportunity for someone else by  spending hours in front of a screen, I will. (Wait… now that I’m “saying” this, it sounds kind of crazy.   But… I guess I am crazy!)    

Here’s more about my blogging ethos.