Tag Archives: powerbreathe trial

Festive greetings,

Apologies it’s been a while, I have been rather busy with the usual things in life (NVQ, Youth Work, Kickboxing, General Fitness training, Fund raising, meetings, my regular full time job and of course family life).

The good news is I have almost completed my NVQ  and I have now broken up from Youth Club for Christmas so have my evenings back and have taken a little time out from Kickboxing over Christmas.

 

Over the last few weeks I have been training hard and raising funds for Cancer Research UK for my friend Matt and his family and along the way I have had Powerbreathe on my side.

I have been...

I have just completed week 8 with the Powerbreathe.
 
This week still working at level 5 with my 10 breaths at half load, 30 at full load and 10 at half load routine.
 
I could probably move the level up a little but I think for me it is more beneficial to concentrate on getting fuller breaths at the current level than shallow breaths at a higher level.

Another spanner in the works, talk about ‘best laid plans’. The cardio work has increased over the last 2 weeks more than I’d anticipated due my tearing brachioradialis in my arm. Gutted.  It’s not that common, so I must have some deep biomechanical issues that I wasn’t aware of – embarrassing as I’m a Biomechanics Coach!  So I’ve been doing quite a bit more cardio than I’d planned.  Anyway, that’s starting to progress well as you’d expect and I’ve lost a couple of kilo’s so the old ticker is happy.  I’ve actually started an indoor cycling class, which is fun, but hard work!  I must try a proper spinning class to compare.  Has the powerbreathe...

So 12 weeks have come to an end, and wow, what a change has occurred.

When I started this trial I was an athlete and an asthma sufferer. Now, quite simply, I'm an athlete. You think I exaggerate? No I don't!

I stopped needing the inhaler in about week 3 or 4. I carried around with me for a further 3-4 weeks 'just in case'. In fact, my coach was quite concerned when I first stopped carrying it.

I usually needed it when I was doing intense training. I have an inhaler I got from the doctor, that is still in the box. One prescription charge wasted I think! In fact the doctor recently refused to give me a flu jab because i 'no longer seemed...

Well, my POWERbreathe has now arrived and I look forward to using it.

I’m going to be blogging in the lead up to the CRASH-B sprints in Boston in February 2012. So a bit of background on me.

I’m a rower who competes both on the water and indoors on the Concept 2 rowing machine, otherwise known as the erg (or by various other terms not suitable for publication!). I also do some running as cross training and dabble in cycling just for good measure.

So what is the CRASH-BS? Every year in February rowers descend on Boston to compete over 2000m – the length of an Olympic regatta. There are categories covering all ages – I believe the...

Just completed the third week of using the Powerbreathe unit and here is my update :) Would love your comments below.

I continue to consistently carry out two sessions per day with the Powerbreathe. Still gradually moving the setting upwards and have just moved up to 4.5, at which I find it difficult to reach the full 30 breaths, so I will keep working at that. As the loading as increased I find I need to concentrate more on my breathing practice, its too easy to fall into a panting style.  To maintain good practice requires a determined effort on each breath and this has made me slow down and pay attention. Just out of interest I...

I’ve had an interesting few weeks actually.  I’ve reduced the amount of cardio training I’ve been doing and mainly focused on strength work. This includes weight lifting rather than weight training as such, so; squats, deadlift, cleans etc.  Mixing it up to reduce the boredom factor!  Some time ago I sat one of the UKSCA weight lifting courses and since then I’ve tried to practice what they taught me (often unsuccessfully I’m sure!).   Anyway, usually when I do work that puts a compressive force through my spine, my thoracic spine doesn’t like it.  In previous blogs I’ve mentioned about rib issues I have and I also have an old crush fracture of...

Hello sorry for the silence! It has been a hectic few months at Diverse Health & Fitness!

The last time I blogged I had just completed the Love Life Love Running 10k in Cannock Chase smashing my previous personal best time, I believe my POWERbreathe training played a huge part in this and also came in handy warming up before the event to get my lungs ready to perform.

A couple of weeks after the event I took a well deserved summer break! Unfortunately there was no room in my case for my POWERbreathe................

Although I did not use my POWERbreathe during my holiday, my training came in handy when...

This week sees the return to full training after my two week end of season break. 5.30am is very dark you know, specially now half the street lights are strategically turned off!!

Up to level 7 now on the powerbreathe. The other day when I started my 30 breaths I thought it was blocked or something, as it's getting very tough now!! (it wasn't blocked, it was just me being a wuss!) it was also my first track session since my head injury. I felt very scared and expected it to be rather tough! It lived up to expectations - my legs the next day were screaming with DOMS! (delayed onset muscle soreness).

I - as always, take the...

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...