Has anyone used these at all?
http://www.powerbreathe.com/products/po ... 71u3atr670

On the surface they look a little gimmicky, but I can see how they'd work.
Altho I would have thought using them whilst exercising would give better results than what they suggest?

I'm beginning to find that my oxygen intake is now effecting my endurance training, as in on a 10-13 mile run I'm finding my legs are able to keep going but my breathing is taking a lot more effort to get the oxygen in. I think if I can improve the strength of my lungs a bit quicker then this should enable me to smash some PB times.

I've never tried it.

Certainly appears to be back with solid "science". But I wonder if it is it worth the money for just doing what you can do for free. The body will adapt and your lungs will get better.

An easy & cheap way is to train with a mouth-guard in; like MMA fighters & rugby players. Sure, it restricts air on the way out, but it's cheaper.

Are you doing much speed work Rich?

If not, get your ass over to Redland Road and get sprinting up to the downs. That'll sort your lungs out!

Ollie, I'm usually hitting about two interval training sessions a week, but I've had problems lung wise since I was 16, and numerous collapsed lungs seems to have effected their ability to work as well under pressure.

I'm not looking for a way of getting out of the sessions, just an additional aid to help bring it up to scratch (i.e. in the same way that you may add in an extra few exercises on certain bodyparts to bring them up with your other areas).

I might just wear a nose clip on the bike and runs as the small amount of restriction should tell me if getting one of these is a worthy investment or not.

ALmost tempted to buy the 30 quid heavy resistance one and see if ti benefits me. In October il be training 10-11 times a week.

Have no personal experience of them but a friend of mine who is well into his running says they do make a noticable difference. Worth trying if you can afford one I think.

Dtlv74 wrote:Have no personal experience of them but a friend of mine who is well into his running says they do make a noticable difference. Worth trying if you can afford one I think.

think might get one, 30-50 quid, not too expensive i guess for something your using twice a day.

No I've no experience of them either - sound like they'd be worth trying though.

I'll sell you a pool ball and a roll of duct tape for a fiver Rich (price includes installation).

Only if it's an 8 ball Ed, I don't want it clashing with my black pvc all in one compression suit

You can get it a bit cheaper here Rich
http://www.sweatbandfitness.co.uk/power ... 15869.html

So I got one of the IronMan heavy resistance power breathe's and been using it for a few weeks now...

Initial thoughts were that it was a gimmick and not really going to live up to the hype and numbers it claims to give, but...

It pretty much does.
My 5km run time trial route ends in a pretty hefty hill which always gets the lungs really burning... I've been completing this route in around 19:30secs for a while now, not really getting much quicker, until I started using this, and after about a week of "breathing" 3x daily (It states twice, but I see no harm in thrice), my times have come down, and I've noticed that getting up the hill towards the end is getting considerably easier. My time today was 19:02, and that's after about two and a half weeks of using this thing.

Plus when I get to the top of the hill and the slight recovery period that occurs as I run along the flat, I'm definitely feeling that this helps the lungs ability to get the oxygen in quicker, which is great, as it means I can get recouperated and ready for the sprint finish.

Longer runs have been slowly coming down overthe past few months now, so can't really pinpoint it down to the PB at all...

All in all, I'm pretty much loving this! weather it placebo effect, or real, my times are improving and that's all that counts.

They were going cheap (£35) on Amazon recently so I bought one Rich. I've only just started using it so it will be interesting to see.

I used to be a smoker - stopped 10 years ago, and the only time I can still feel it is when I run & get out of breath quite easily. So hopefully this will help - as will running more

You may have this covered already but, are you sure it's not asthma - I used to get EIA (exercise induced asthma) when I did a lot of running and couldn't do speed work without an inhaler on standby.

And more speed work and/or harder work will soon get your V02 up, which may be teh issue too of course.

What sort of intervals are you doing at the moment?

I dont know if you meant that for Rich or me Ader - In my case I'm pretty sure its not asthma. I just havent really done any running for years & need to get used to it again - & smoking affected my lung capacity.

I'm not doing any intervals at the moment. Once I can run for a decent amount of time I'll consider it.

Richard wrote:I dont know if you meant that for Rich or me Ader - In my case I'm pretty sure its not asthma. I just havent really done any running for years & need to get used to it again - & smoking affected my lung capacity.

I'm not doing any intervals at the moment. Once I can run for a decent amount of time I'll consider it.

It was more meant at Rich - But you're rigt not to consider speed work till you've got a decent aerobic base!

Aha ... the curse of smoking

If you're even a slightly asthmatic / struggling for breath though, running on cold morning/evenings in the winter will trigger it in my experience :lol

Sorry Ader mate, been slack on the old esn front.

Speed training I split between two sessions over the week, one working on out and out speed, so 6-10 sprints of 20secs to 95% max output 2min rest, and a second session of 10x 6min high intensity (about 85% MHR), with 5min slow pace between (heart rate back down to around 60% max).

I had asthma back when I was 12ish, but seem to have grown out of that, and the docs don't seem worried about that... I think it's down to the collapsed lungs, and not being able to really REALLY push them for a fair while.