Well, I read Scott Carney's book. I was hoping it would have more about Wim, but was still an interesting read. What fascinated me, is before reading this book, I had no idea the WHM also utilized what the author described as "breath out" holds, which sounds to me very similar to the tenets of what Buteyko breathing, and the practices outlined in the Oxygen Advantage book recommend.
I felt the description of the science to the method was lacking - repeated references of hyperventilating to "radically increase O2 saturation "(page 53) when normal O2 sats are between 95-99. I actually didn't mind the deviations into anthropological discussion, as I find that sort of thing interesting (side note- Yuval Harari's book "Sapiens" is my gold mine for that sort of subject matter). Apparently, breath in holds work the parasympathetic system, while breath out holds work the sympathetic system. Direct line from the book - "breath in holds are better for getting to your absolute maximum number of pushups or retention duration, but are less efficient at cracking into you nervous system "(p56)
This made no sense to me and is a burning question I would love more info on.
@Iron Tamer @Wesker11 could you provide any info from the course that would help me with that question?
I did like that fact that although the author appreciates Wim's work and what he does, there are numerous comments about how Wim has a tendency to be low on the science part and high on the love and compassion when he talks. He even mentions an argument between the two while climbing Kilimanjaro that almost resulted in a mutiny of the group from Wim. However, he does have a chapter that interviews several people who all claim Wim and the breathing method saved their lives from differing chronic conditions.
All in all, interesting read but still leaves me with lots of questions as noted above.