Powerbreathe - opinions?

[Sharla]

Ok I'm trying to workout what i think of this and i think it sounds good but i'm not sure if it's the sort of thing you might be able to do without having planned your training for it.

Thing is the only exercise i can think of which would simulate the same thing is swimming underwater as far as possible before coming up for air.

Or i have heard of a boxer who used to be local to this are who would run up a hill with his mouth full of water.

Sort of like trying to do weight training for your inspirtory muscles but without thing (expensive) thingy it's fumbling around without weights

Opinions?

The official POWERbreathe website. Hand-held inspiratory muscle trainer for anyone who breathes.

[Salty]

For $150 I don't think it would be worth it, maybe try breathing through a straw? That provides resistance.

[Scrap]

Blow a Fit Ball up.

[Salty]

or a hot water bottle, that looks pretty intense

[Sharla]

I did manage to loose the pump to my fit ball and blowing that up was intense!

I have to admit it didn't taste too good!

Perhaps it is overpriced crap - i guess I just read a lot of the papers attached to their website and it seemed legit.

I liked the idea of being able to alter the resistance and track progress etc too.

[Kev]

There are a few people on the Concept 2 rowing forum I use belong to that use these regularly.

Apparently they do work but are really hard. You have different level settings and virtually everyone is on a really low setting and moving up a setting is a big deal.

I've had them recommended to me by people on the rowing forum and my own doctor.

From the sounds of it they definitely work, I think science trials show improvements in rowing time trials of around 2.5% and in running slightly higher.

I guess at competitive levels a 2.5% increase would be fairly significant, certainly the difference between winning and losing. They do sometimes do deals on the older models, which are functionally the same just not quite as stylishly designed.

I remember them doing a powerbreathe classic for £19.99 once on a website so shop around definitely don't pay over $100 for one!