Dr. Anthony Alessi, Associate Clinical Professor of Neurology at the University of Connecticut, recently wrote in an article in The Norwich Bulletin about how an efficient respiratory system is crucial for the success of endurance athletes.

He explains how endurance athletes are most vulnerable to any alterations in the respiratory system “due to their reliance in efficient air exchange over prolonged periods of time.” The high-intensity training these athletes have to endure pushes their respiratory system to its limits which can result in respiratory conditions such as exercise-induced asthma.

“A series of breathing tests are necessary to differentiate these conditions and plan a course of treatment,” says Dr. Matt Hall, a sports medicine specialist who works with athletes at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Alessi summarises his article by saying, “Asthma and other respiratory conditions can be the result of intense exercise but should not be an obstacle to competing, even at the highest levels.”
One type of training that would benefit these endurance athletes and help strengthen their respiratory system for the rigours of their training, is POWERbreathe Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) which uses the principles of resistance training to improve the strength of the breathing muscles and increase their stamina. And because POWERbreathe is drug-free, if an athlete does find they need to take medication for say, asthma, then they can safely continue to train their breathing muscles using POWERbreathe as it will have no interactions. Stronger breathing muscles mean more resistance to fatigue and therefore more endurance – a win-win for endurance athletes.
So with POWERbreathe, endurance athletes can help make their respiratory system more resilient by improving the strength and endurance of their breathing muscles, also making their respiratory system more efficient and resilient.

How POWERbreathe Works?

POWERbreathe benefits for sports and exercise.
We gave each athelete POWER breath, and one of the reasons Power breathe Inspiratory Muscle Training will be of benefit to this team of cyclists is because the hunched position they cycle in makes breathing more of a challenge. This hunched position creates breathing problems as the contents of the abdomen become compressed and push up against the diaphragm, the main breathing muscle. This restricts normal movement of the breathing muscles and makes breathing feel much harder.
POWERbreathe exercises the inspiratory muscles, training them to become stronger as the girls breathe in through the adjustable resistance. This daily training improves their breathing strength and stamina and reduces fatigue, which means they’ll also find they’ll be able to cycle for longer with less effort – all because they’ve been ‘working out’ their breathing muscles which are often neglected.Another reason POWERbreathe training will be beneficial to the girls is because research has shown that ‘oxygen uptake in respiratory muscles differs between men and women during exercise’, with respiratory muscles in women consuming a greater amount of oxygen than men. Another study also found that ‘women have greater shortness of breath than men when exercising due to greater electrical activation of their respiratory muscles.
Deep breathing reaches the deepest depths of your lungs, and by practicing POWERbreathe inspiratory muscle training you’ll be training your respiratory muscles to breathe deeply into your diaphragm, taking in as much air as possible, breathing more in per breath.As you’re breathing in more air per breath, you’re receiving more oxygen into your body, giving you more energy.
Senior consultant at the National heart Institute, India, and Founder, SAANS Foundation in India, Partha Pratim Bose offers a good example of this,

“By deep breathing exercises you breathe more per breath. If you breathe more per breath you expand your lungs more, you receive more oxygen. You will feel more energetic and also save your breaths. For example, if you breathe 250 ml per breath and your requirement is 5 litres then you need 20 breaths per minute. If you breathe more breath say double i.e. 500ml then you will require only ten breaths. So by breathing deep you breathe less and you feel better and conserve energy.”

Thankfully you can train your breathing muscles to breathe deep, as your respiratory muscles respond in the same way as skeletal muscles do to a training stimuli as they undergo adaptations to their structure and function. POWERbreathe is one such training stimuli, using the principles of resistance training to strengthen the inspiratory muscles. Its pressure loaded inspiratory valve offers the resistance on the inhale, while an unloaded expiratory valve allows for normal, passive exhalati

You can read about other benefits of deep conscious breathing in Bose’s article ‘Wellness: Breathe like a tortoise, live like a king’ and here in POWERbreathe Benefits.

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