Select an Activity
Rowing
Breathing During Rowing As a rower, your breathing muscles are not only used for breathing but also for maintaining your posture and for transmitting force during the ‘drive’ phase. This is because your breathing muscles, including your diaphragm, engage in helping to strengthen your trunk and protect your spine. Both breathing and postural control is […]
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Swim, Bike, Run
Breathing Effort In Swimming Competitive swimming is one of the ultimate challenges for breathing, as you have to inhale as much as possible in the shortest time possible, so that you can return your body to the optimal position for generating propulsive force. This creates an enormous strain on your inspiratory muscles and it is […]
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Football
Breathing Effort In Football On average football players are likely to cover around 6.2 – 7.5 miles during the course of a match, at an average intensity of 75-80% of your maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max.). Throughout the 90 minutes of the game you’ll be cruising for 30-90 seconds and sprinting for 3-5 seconds. Although […]
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Altitude
Breathing Effort At High Altitude At high altitude, the partial pressure is less than at sea-level, meaning oxygen molecules are further away from each other. The higher you go, the more difficult breathing at high altitude becomes. In order to compensate, your lungs work much harder. At sea level, exercise is limited only by the […]
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Wheelchair Sports
Breathing in Wheelchair Sports As a wheelchair user you may experience difficulties with your respiratory system because if your abdominal and chest muscles, including your diaphragm, are affected by injury you’ll find it more difficult to breathe. Your neurological level of injury will determine to what extent your breathing poses to be a problem. If […]
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Rugby
Breathing Effort In Rugby The physical demands of rugby are highly specific to each player’s positional role. Nevertheless, all players require high levels of aerobic fitness, lactate tolerance, strength and power. Although most activity in rugby is sub-maximal, the intermittent sprints, tackling, scrums, rucks and mauls are supra-maximal, taking you above 100% of your maximum […]
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Fitness
Breathe Your Way To Faster Fitness Breathlessness is a common feature of exercise and although aerobic activity does provide training benefits to your breathing muscles, it’s not sufficient to elicit their full potential. Your breathing muscles never really get trained enough to cope with the ‘heavy breathing’ that results from high-intensity exercise, and for this […]
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Racket Sports
During the intense bouts of running that characterise tennis, badminton and squash, such as sprinting to reach a ball, breathing is driven to its highest levels, inducing extreme breathlessness. Being debilitated by your breathing is very frustrating and can hinder your performance. You cannot afford for your breathing to hold you back as it provides […]
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When your breathing feels easier, your heart rate lowers, exercise becomes more comfortable and you can push yourself harder and improve your endurance.
A Dumbbell For Your Diaphragm
When you experience high intensity training above your lactate threshold, your breathing moves from its comfort zone and increases steeply. From 12 breaths per minute at rest to 60 breaths per minute at maximum. In fact, the role of breathing in the athlete’s performance cannot be underrated.
Eventually your inspiratory muscles weaken and fatigue, and your breathing feels harder still. Breathing rate is one the best indicators of exercise intensity.
During heavy exercise, blood flow (and hence oxygen delivery) to your exercising muscles is restricted because your inspiratory muscles fatigue, impairing performance.
This process is called a metaboreflex and is a ‘survival’ instinct, as your body chooses the need to breathe over the need to ‘perform’. However, with a well trained and strong diaphragm (your main breathing muscle), greater blood flow to your limbs can be maintained.
What the Science Says
Independent research found that 5 weeks of POWERbreathe K3 IMT attenuates the respiratory metaboreflex, an effect that persisted after 5 weeks of detraining, which may have other benefits (i.e., reduced competition of blood flow with other muscles during exercise).
POWERbreathe Inspiratory muscle training (IMT) is a dumbbell for your diaphragm. It has been scientifically proven to strengthen your breathing muscles to help them cope with the demands of breathing at a high intensity. It is also proven to reduce whole body effort, making exercise feel easier. As a result, you can increase your training intensity to ultimately improve your performance.
What About Expiratory Muscle Fatigue
Research shows that not only does inspiratory muscle fatigue impair exercise and sports performance, but so too does expiratory muscle fatigue.
During heavy ‘exercise’ your expiratory muscles will play an active role in breathing. During forced expiration, such as in competitive sport, the accessory muscles of your abdomen and the internal intercostals contract, forcing the diaphragm upwards and pushing more air out.
By performing expiratory muscle training with the POWERbreathe EX1 breathing device independently of inspiratory muscle training, you can improve your expiratory muscle strength and stamina and reduce breathing effort during exercise.
Relevant Products
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Digital Inspiratory Training
