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Rob Wilson

@thecheckenginelight

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Author, Check Engine Light: Tuning Body and Mind for Performance Longevity
Force Application & Fatigue Resistance Coach

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In this episode, @thecheckenginelight breaks down how breathing, stress, and performance are actually connected and why breathwork isn’t a shortcut around hard work, but a way to make hard work more sustainable.

We talk about CO₂ tolerance, why panic is usually carbon dioxide and not lack of oxygen, and how high-performing athletes, fighters, and military operators can recover faster between efforts by changing how they breathe under stress.

Rob explains why breathwork isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, why capacity still matters, and how coaches should adapt tools to the culture, goals, and environment of the people they’re working with. We also get into nasal breathing, heart rate recovery, conditioning mistakes, jiu-jitsu, sandbags, valsalva vs breathing with load, and how intensity can sometimes be used to hide psychology.

This episode is about making hard things easier without avoiding hard things. Available now on YouTube and Spotify. by @thecheckenginelight

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10 months ago

When pressure hits, even the best athletes can lose rhythm, focus, and control.

Breathing changes. Shoulders rise. Effort spikes. The system goes into survival mode.

Most coaches call this a mindset problem.

In reality, it’s physiological.

That’s why we built In The Pocket: Breath Control for Focus, Recovery, and Readiness.

It gives coaches a clear, applied framework to help athletes regulate arousal, sharpen focus, and recover faster — using breath as the lever.

After working with elite organizations like the UFC Performance Institute and U.S. Special Forces, Human Performance Specialist Rob Wilson distilled decades of experience into simple, proven tools any coach can apply.

🎓 In The Pocket: Breath Control for Focus, Recovery & Readiness

💰 Launch price: $52 through Monday (23:59 PST)

👇 Comment BREATH below and we’ll DM you the link to access.

#ALTIS #RobWilson #BreathControl #Performance #Readiness #Recovery #Coaching by @thecheckenginelight

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a year ago

Case study drops today!

“Using Load Management to Shape Skill Adaptation in Elite Grappling”

This has been in the works for a while!

Comment READY to get your copy absolutely free! by @thecheckenginelight

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10 months ago

S.E.E.

A couple of weeks ago I was in rural Tennessee for Carry Trainer S12. Every year for the last five years, @carrytrainer has run this event to teach ordinary people the skills to protect life: combatives, pistol foundations, and basic emergency medicine.

On day one, @instructor_zee, part of the core instructor cadre, briefed the students on two things to keep in mind all week.

1. Be safe. That’s obvious when twenty-odd firearms are going off on one line around people you don’t know.
2. Be effective. Are you training for the outcome you want? Have you defined that outcome to begin with?

The longer I thought about it, the more places I saw it apply.
Jiu jitsu was at the top of the list.

SAFE. Jiu jitsu is dangerous by nature, and we still look after our partners. That’s the infinite game. Do you only want to win this round, or do you want to keep playing for years? Health, performance, longevity. It all starts here.

EFFECTIVE. Being effective means getting the outcome you set out to get. Every session needs a clear purpose, chased with full effort, focus and intent, at every scale. Do you know why you do this at all? Do you know what today is for, and what this rep is for? That’s training on purpose.

I’m adding a third.

EFFICIENT. While you work to stay in the game and hit your outcomes, do you know what it’s costing you? Do you know where you’re wasting energy? Efficiency is at the core of jiu jitsu: using your energy in the best way possible to maximize your outcomes with the least amount of cost.

Safe. Effective. Efficient. Next time you train, SEE what you’re doing. by @thecheckenginelight

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4 days ago

by @thecheckenginelight

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11 days ago

by @thecheckenginelight

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21 days ago

Try these breathing exercises to improve your skilled rest:

Between rounds-

Power exhale (like you’re blowing out stubborn candles)
Slight pause
Allow the inhale
3-5x or until you get your shit together (composed)
Slow your exhale down for 1-2 more breaths

After training or before bed for 2-10min -

Sit or lay down
Inhale 3
Pause 2
Out 5 by @thecheckenginelight

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a month ago

INTENT DRIVES OUTCOMES

It’s not just what you do that matters.
It’s how you do it.
Sloppy, lazy, or lackluster repetitions don’t magically create outcomes.
Attendance is necessary but not sufficient to get results.

Another dope image from @fever.shots

While prescribed percentage, time, or reps ranges seem to account for outcomes beneath that lies the assumption of effort and intention.

Effort is doing the work. Intention is working hard at the right thing.

A tabata protocol won’t do a thing if you’re not actually working at the intended intensity.

All exercises are made up.
Your legs don’t know what squats or deadlifts are but they do understand creating lots of force.
They are simply ways to constrain physical action.

You don’t need encyclopedic knowledge of the game to be intentional - but you be asking yourself - what is it that I want my body TO DO.
If you’re not sure - now you have a question for a coach.

This is a fundamental training concept that often gets only surface level consideration.

SAID isn’t specific to the average outcomes reported in research data.

It’s specific to the athlete doing the thing in context.

When you train focus in 1 or 2 very specific things you want your body to do or a feeling you want to create.

Lock in on that during execution.

On of my favorite intentions for explosive work lately is BE VIOLENT.

@nickwinkelman has done extensive work on this.

While I certainly ask for sets, reps, and times for my clients I increasingly rely on intention to guide sessions.

What is the intent of the phase, cycle, day, exercise, scheme?

Don’t waste time with lazy volume of approximations.

BE INTENTIONAL with your work. by @thecheckenginelight

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a month ago

It’s good to be inspired by elite athletes in your given discipline.

But it may be unwise to use their training tools or capacity outcomes as justification for your own training methods.

What goes into making an athlete elite is complex and messy.

Genetics and training history to start, play large roles in the capacities available to elites in a given sport.

While we get inspired by their performances and training practices, it’s important we don’t look at their outcomes as representative of a thoughtful pathway, especially once the context changes.

For example, elite wrestlers are among the most movement-literate athletes on the planet. Not only are they strong, but many are quite advanced at tumbling and basic acrobatics.

Their capacity to bridge, twist, and flip is incredible. That said, jumping straight into the types of exercises they do, without their history of exposure, can be a recipe for overloading the structure of a hobbyist or junior grappler.

Being inspired by those capacities, however, can push us to explore the gaps in our own abilities.

Not so we can try to outright replicate them, but to better understand where our own movement literacy falls short, and how we can progressively close those gaps so we can perform better for longer.

Sick photo by @fever.shots by @thecheckenginelight

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a month ago

HOW TO STAY READY

Managing readiness it not for its own sake. It’s so can you do what you love for a long time.

Readiness is like managing a bank account. Build savings as you watch cash flow.
You must spend money to make money but you want to stay in the black as much as possible.

Metrics shouldn’t rule you but they can help inform your decisions.

Have some that are objective - HRV, RHR, Blood pressure. These can give you insight into how your nervous and cardiovascular systems are responding to training load.
Have some that are subjective - What’s your mood? Are you motivated to train? Are you getting along well with teammates and family members? What’s your threshold for frustration?

Pay attention to these things over time. Watch what your ranges in different contexts. Off season? In camp? Times of year?
Know what adds money and takes money out of the account.
If you watch long enough you’ll be able to tune your training and yourself so you can stay ready when opportunity knocks.

As you organize your training and recovery here are some helpful questions to ask yourself. (Over and over again.)
How much does this cost and how do I know?
Do I have it?
What’s the return?
Is it worth it?

If you want to learn more about how to do this check out my free Substack or my book.

Links to both in bio. by @thecheckenginelight

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a month ago

Off the Mat is my online strength and conditioning program built specifically for grappling and combat sport athletes. Check out my guy @jnforja showing us how it’s done.

This week’s cycle:

Javelin Reach

Borrowed from track and field throwers, repurposed to build range of motion under a long, loaded stretch, while training the hips and shoulders to work independently of each other.

Single-Leg Broad Jump

The ability to express and receive force on one leg, something grappling demands constantly.

B-Stance Zercher

The front-loaded barbell position builds the same strong, connected posture you need in a grappling. The staggered stance overloads one side at a time, building force production from the asymmetric bases you actually fight from.

This is what training that matches the demand looks like. Link in bio to train with us. by @thecheckenginelight

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2 months ago

DON’T GET READY, STAY READY

In athletic performance, much focus is given to the development of attributes that directly support performance outcomes. Strength, power, speed, mobility, endurance, etc. While these are important, they don’t quite tell the entire story.

In the mess of performance it can be difficult to parse out which attribute(s) have a clear and linear path to victory. This is especially true in combat sports where there are many ways to solve problems and even more so at elite levels

Very often athletes and even experienced coaches think of S&C within the narrow parameters of building capacity. Training though is to provide stimuli that keep athletes generally adaptable. It’s to build a deeper well of readiness, “the psychophysiological state that allows athletes to express their developed capacity on a given day” (Nadeskin).

Proper management of ready states means athletes have more reliable access to their skillset when called upon, are more psychologically and physiologically resilient to stress. This means better performance but it also means being available to perform.

In combat sports like MMA and submission grappling entryways into higher levels of paid competition can come on short notice. To seize these opportunities means to stay ready. It won’t matter how good you are if you’re not healthy enough to compete.

Lastly, managing readiness effectively can extend your career and maybe even leave something in the tank for the rest of life.

Do you have a way to measure and manage readiness?

Do you know how much training costs and what to expect during different phases of life and competition?

Or are you just crossing your fingers hoping the house doesn’t burn down before the party’s over? by @thecheckenginelight

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2 months ago