Tag Archives: breathing technique

So, week two has started and am thoroughly enjoying the POWERbreathe. The best news is that my Test scores have gone up. I did a test after 3 days, and my results had already gone up to 189.8. As I mentioned in my first Blog, the first few sessions were just about getting used to the POWERbreathe and developing the technique.

The best news is that after 2 days of training the results started to improve and I felt like I am making some improvements.

One of the great features about POWERbreathe K series is that it has an auto-level feature. As I understand it, based on your first 3 breaths, the unit automatically sets the training load for...

I have just completed week 9 with the Powerbreathe.
 
This week I have moved up to level 5.5 and still doing my 10 breaths at half load, 30 at full load and finishing with 10 at half load.
 
In December I generally start to feel very tight in my chest when under exercise stress and this does affect my cycling as I struggle to get enough breath in.
 
I hope I am not tempting fate here, for the first time I can remember this year my breathing is significantly easier and this makes exercise much more productive.
 
If this continues I will consider using the Powerbreathe has been a success for me.
 
Phil Bradbury

The POWERbreathe unit arrived just as I was about to leave for the station for a four day trip to Paris, so I stuck the box into my bag and left. Which meant I did not have the opportunity to view the DVD before I started using the unit.

I already knew a little about diaphragm breathing but the instruction booklet contains no pointers to how important this is in the breathing training regime. In fact it says when describing how to inhale through the unit, “Take in as much air as you can, straightening your back and expanding your chest”.  It mentions the diaphragm only once on the inside cover simply saying, the muscles used to inhale...

Short of breath is also known as suffering from dyspnoea or suffering from breathing difficulties. In fact if you suffer from any respiratory condition you are more than likely to be short of breath.  Being short of breath can have serious repercussions for your health if not addressed.  Not everyone knows or recognises the symptoms of a person suffering from shortness of breath, so here are the common signs and symptoms:

Rapid breathing Breathing through pursed lips Constant feeling of being winded or unable to speak Sitting down with hands on your knees Using chest and neck muscles to breathe

However, adopting some breathing techniques can help...

This week has been by far the most progressive of all the weeks I've been training on the POWERbreathe, I have finally been able to up the resistance to 4! I'm sticking to between 3.5-4 depending on how tired I am after training as the Loughborough University swim squad pre season program is now under way! This means lots of cross training and can mean feeling out of you depth at times ( no pun intended) due to the varied methods in which we can train our bodies, this can be a whole mix of things such as circuits, pool based circuits, spinning, medicine ball sets, core sets and running, however unfortunately due to my...

Hi everyone I’m back at last with my 20th journal it’s been a while!!!  So I was off on holiday there in sunny Spain for 3 weeks and then last week was just mental with work so I didn’t get the opportunity to catch up with you all.  You’ll be please to know I packed my trainers and PowerBreathe for their holidays too though I wasn’t quite as productive as I had of hoped!!  When I landed it was 41 in the shade and suffering from asthma it did take me a couple of days to adjust to the humidity and I also to decrease the resistance on my PowerBreathe as I couldn’t do it at the level I’d reached.

After a couple of days (and now behind already with...

My daily POWERbreathe training is going OKish, especially since I have been quite exhausted all week following last week’s excursions.

I haven’t been swimming this week, though it’s a matter of conserving my energy until things improve again. Hence not a lot to report this week but I did do my Pilates on Monday and went to my neuro physio on Tuesday; she spent most of the time calming my muscles down and realigning them, plus I have been doing a light Pilates routine each night. So all in all, not too bad.

Thanks

Madeline

My brother-in-law’s 50th birthday party was excellent - the food, the music and the company. It was a late night, but I was not as late leaving as others… I think the last person left at 3am!

As I promised last week, here are the results from my POWERbreathe K3:

Load      3.4 cmH2O Power    4.7 Watts Volume  2.1 Litres T-index  89% - High

Looking through the description of the statistic results in the POWERbreathe booklet I realise there is definite room for improvement. So now I have declared my results (that’s the hard bit) I will give you a regular update every 4 weeks. There’s nothing quite like sharing your results with others to make you work extra hard to improve them.

Just took another set of readings and am quite excited! It's 9 days since the last post and there have been more definite improvements for me.  Laura is very much looking to catching up where she left off when I meet up with her again.  I haven't managed to do the exercises twice every day, but I have managed at least one set of 30 breaths everyday.

I thought perhaps I wouldn't see as much improvement as I would have liked. But I got a clue to my developing breath control while singing for a wedding in the chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea on Saturday.

My ability to sustain long phrases is definitely better.

I have been using the...

I’m an Elite XC Mountain Bike racer; I have only been racing for three years so when it comes to training at this high level I’m still very much finding my feet.  I assumed that as I was getting fitter and my body was getting stronger that my lungs would follow suit, surely with the training I was doing they would benefit too.

Unfortunately, I had a little bit of a rude awakening following a nasty bout of bronchitis about three months ago.  I made sure that I was fully recovered before beginning to train and race again.  When I was doing high intensity intervals I began to wheeze a little, I probably should have...