Breathing Training – Back to Basics

A holistic approach to health and fitness continues to grow, year after year. And in 2024, high on the list of priorities is wellness. One area of wellness in particular is becoming more popular; breathing training basics for better breathing.

What is Breathing Training?

It is a targeted form of breathing exercise that helps to improve the strength and stamina of your breathing muscles so that they become more efficient and effective.

Think of it as resistance training, or weight training for your breathing muscles. Just as dumbbells improve and build muscle strength and boost muscle power and endurance, training your breathing will build breathing muscle strength, power and endurance. But it must be performed regularly, as the principle of “use it or lose it” also applies to your breathing muscles. After all, practice makes perfect.

Breathing Training Device

Such devices by POWERbreathe apply the principles of resistance training to your breathing muscles. This includes the breathing muscles you use to inhale, using inspiratory muscle training (IMT), and the muscles you use to exhale, using expiratory muscle training (EMT).

POWERbreathe better breathing devices are adjustable. This means that you can increase the breathing load (‘weight lifted’) as your breathing muscles become stronger and get used to the current setting. By being able to increase the breathing load on the device, you can continue challenging your breathing muscles to become stronger. Just as you would add extra weight to a barbell if you were weight training.

How Does Breathing Training Work

POWERbreathe breathing trainers use the most effective methods of resistance training to elicit the training benefits:

Pressure Threshold

This is the most widely studied method of respiratory training (developed in the 1990s). It requires users to inhale (in IMT) or exhale (in EMT) through the device with enough force to overcome and open the precisely calibrated, spring-loaded pressure-threshold valve to enable airflow. This threshold can be manually increased to make the training more challenging, as the breathing muscles become stronger.

POWERbreathe Pressure-Threshold IMT Breathing Trainers

POWERbreathe Pressure-Threshold EMT Breathing Trainers

Dynamically Adjusted

This is a revolutionary method of respiratory training, developed by POWERbreathe in 2010. It uses an electronic, dynamically adjusted flow resistance to generate the breathing load. We wanted to develop a method of training the breathing muscles that improved upon pressure threshold loading by preventing breath clipping.

POWERbreathe Dynamically Adjusted Breathing Trainers

How Can I Train Myself To Breathe Better?

Aerobic exercise can provide a training benefit to your breathing muscles as it brings both your heart and lungs into action. However, it is not enough to elicit the benefits that specific breathing muscle training with POWERbreathe breathing trainers can bring. POWERbreathe Inspiratory Muscle Training devices, in particular, strengthen your main breathing muscle; your diaphragm, and train your body to breathe more deeply and effectively. Find out How To Keep Your Lungs Healthy With Exercise, in our blog.

Training with POWERbreathe IMT for just 30 breaths, twice a day, is scientifically proven to be effective in improving breathing strength and stamina and reducing breathing fatigue, within 4-6 weeks. You can find out more about the systematic testing that identified the training protocol for POWERbreathe IMT, in our blog.

POWERbreathe IMT and EMT subject your breathing muscles to a sufficient stimulus that results in an improvement in breathing muscle strength and endurance, and a reduction in breathing fatigue. You can read more about this in our blog, How Does Breathing Training Work?

Can Breathing Exercises Lower Blood Pressure?

Yes, the University of Colorado trial found that high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) with the POWERbreathe K3 IMT device, lowers blood pressure, improves endothelial function, and promotes adherence in midlife and older adults with above-normal systolic blood pressure at baseline, saying:

“Improving blood pressure control and vascular endothelial function through inspiratory muscle strength training could decrease the risk of cardiovascular diseases and other clinical disorders.”

Journal of the American Heart Association

Find out more about how to lower blood pressure naturally with IMST.

For more Breathing Facts, click here.