HEALTH RELATED RESEARCH

Here you will find research links that report the findings of clinical trials on Inspiratory Muscle Training. Find out how using POWERbreathe can benefit you by reducing your breathlesness and improving your health and wellbeing.

Clinical Implications of IMT - Health Related

SPORTS AND PERFORMANCE RELATED RESEARCH

Here you will find research links that report the findings of trials on Inspiratory Muscle Training and Powerbreathe and it's impact on sports performance. Find out how Powerbreathe can help strengthen your breathing muscles as well as assist in your recovery and warm up.

Clinical Implications of IMT - Sports and Performance

 

POWERbreathe Warm-Up Boosts Your Inspiratory Muscle Performance

Research has shown that a standard pre-exercise warm-up routine fails to prepare the inspiratory muscles (breathing muscles) for the rigours of exercise¹, and laboratory trials on competitive rowers showed that a POWERbreathe warm-up significantly improved rowing performance and reduced breathlessness.²

Neglecting to warm-up the breathing muscles leads to excessive breathlessness during the start of any form of exercise. POWERbreathe Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) can be used to specifically warm-up these muscles prior to exercise, using a reduced load setting.

Train smarter, not harder, to perform better.

 

POWERbreathe Interval Training

Periods of hard physical exercise followed by periods of rest that are repeated several times in one training session, is known as Interval Training, and has become a major part of structured training for enhancing athletic performance.

Both the aerobic and anaerobic system is worked during interval training, and a by-product of the high intensity exercise phase is lactic acid, which leads to discomfort and muscle fatigue.

Following the high intensity phase is the recovery phase, in which the heart and lungs work together to break down lactic acid and repay the body with oxygen. It is in this recovery phase that POWERbreathe inspiratory muscle training pays dividends, speeding lactate clearance more effectively than traditional active recovery strategies.

Integrating POWERbreathe into your interval training will improve your respiratory endurance and hasten recovery. POWERbreathe interval training can be tailored to meet the demands of your sports discipline, and for ease, POWERbreathe will be developing sport specific interval training protocols to help you incorporate POWERbreathe into your interval training.

 

POWERbreathe - Reduces Lactate During Exercise & Speeds Up Clearance

A POWERbreathe ‘cool-down’ can help to speed lactate clearance even more effectively than traditional active recovery strategies.

Lactate is a by-product that accumulates in the tissues and blood during intense exercise, leading to discomfort and muscle fatigue. Research shows that POWERbreathe Inspiratory Muscle Training reduced lactate concentrations at equivalent intensities of exercise^1,2.

Research suggests that POWERbreathe’s influence upon lactate comes from POWERbreathe training, which:

• Ensures that fatigue of the inspiratory muscles doesn’t cause blood flow to the working muscles to be redirected to the inspiratory muscles³. This preserves limb blood flow and reduces reliance upon anaerobic metabolism.
• Increases the aerobic capacity of the inspiratory muscles, making them more efficient lactate consumers during and after exercise.

Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil have found that breathing against a small inspiratory load immediately after exercise reduces lactate by 16%.⁴ What’s more, unlike a normal active recovery, which takes around five minutes to speed-up lactate clearance, inspiratory loading reduces lactate as soon as exercise stops. Furthermore, when using the inspiratory load, lactate concentration after just 5 minutes was equivalent to that achieved in 15 minutes during passive recovery.

"The implications of these new findings are very exciting, because one can see how an active inspiratory cool-down might bring benefits to a wide range of training and competition scenarios, from speeding recovery during repeated sprinting, to enhancing total body recovery following any form of high intensity training where lactate has been elevated." Alison McConnell, Professor of Applied Physiology, Brunel University.

Train smarter, not harder, to perform better.

For a POWERbreathe Cool-Down & Recovery:

Adjust the load/level on your POWERbreathe to 2 levels below your normal daily training load/level. Then breathe deeply and slowly against the load continuously for 5 - 10 minutes, or for as long as you have available.