07/04/2008
Is the salt pipe like the powerbreathe? Or can you use both?
The powerbreathe is designed to strengthen your respiratory system.
The Salt Pipe is designed to calm and provide relief and heal.
25/05/2007
How do you clean the Powerbreathe Classic Fitness?
You can take the whole of the Powerbreathe Classic Fitness apart especially the spring. Keep the very back part on as there is a silicone chip in it and if that comes out there is no resistance for that. Use warm soapy water or Milton Sterilising or any form of sterilising solution.
25/05/2007
Which way does the outer sleeve of the Power breathe Classic Fitness
go on?
The outer sleeve of the Power breathe Classic Fitness goes on as follows:
The bit that overlaps goes at the bottom. There is a spring and then a protector. A dial which turns the spring. A lip that goes at the bottom of it. Protecter/Sleeve goes over the whole section at the bottom where the resistance spring. The Protecter cover – there is a lip that is on one end that goes at the bottom of it.
06/05/2007
Whats the difference between the POWERbreathe Classic, and the POWERbreatheplus
POWERbreathe Plus builds upon the design and success of POWERbreathe Classic, but incorporates the latest research and comes with advanced hi-tech design features and new benefits:
Improved airflow dynamics
Ergonomic design
Comfortable antibacterial mouthpiece (protects against bacteria such as E.Coli and MRSA)
Soft-touch nose clip for improved comfort and grip
Angled handle for optimum grip
Simple disassembly for easy cleaning
Easy-to-read resistance level indicator for improved monitoring
Scratch resistant
01/05/2007
What is the POWERbreathe training regime?
The tried and tested POWERbreathe training regimen is 30 breaths twice per day. Each session takes around 3 minutes and can be completed virtually anywhere.
PB = 30 x 2
A comprehensive instruction manual accompanies every POWERbreathe and includes information on training for performance and warm-up. Results are measurable in a little as 3 weeks, with almost full training benefits accrued within 6 weeks.
01/05/2007
What causes breathlessness?
Breathlessness is a common feature of lung and heart disease, but as we know all too well, its also a feature of normal exercise. Recent research has shown that the strength of the inspiratory muscles has a direct influence on how hard we can breathe and how breathless we feel whilst doing it. If the muscles are weakened or fatigued (inspiratory muscles can fatigue by as much as 20%) then we can't breathe as hard and breathing requires greater effort; we experience the effort as breathlessness. A useful analogy is to think about how much heavier a barbell feels on the 12th repetition than it did on the first. In the same way, if the inspiratory muscles are weakened or fatigued, breathing feels harder.
01/05/2007
How do the Inspiratory muscles contribute to the breathing process?
The diaphragm and chest wall muscles act together like a bellows to pump air in and out of the chest. To breathe in these muscles contract to expand the chest cavity, causing a pressure drop into which the air flows.
To breathe out, you simply relax these 'inspiratory' muscles and the chest springs back forcing the air out of your lungs. During exercise the exhalation is assisted by contraction of the abdominal muscles. Thus, the inspiratory muscles undertake most of the work of breathing. In contrast to our frequent observations of inspiratory muscle fatigue, our research has never identified exercise-induced expiratory muscle fatigue. For this reason we've found it unnecessary to train anything other then the inspiratory muscles. At rest you breathe around 12 litres of air per minute, but during heavy exercise this can rise to over 150 litres per minute, and in elite athletes, this can be as high as 220 litres.
01/05/2007
What causes the inspiratory muscles to become weak?
Weakness of the inspiratory muscles can result from a number of causes, including disease, but a potent influence upon their condition is the amount of exercise they receive. The phrase 'use it or lose it' applies equally well to the inspiratory muscles as it does to your leg muscles. If you get out of breath on the stairs, then you'll take the lift, with the consequence that your inspiratory muscles get less exercise.
As they become weaker, the level of physical activity that brings on the breathlessness gets lower, so you avoid the stairs even more…it's a vicious cycle of breathlessness, lack of exercise and inspiratory muscle weakness. In addition, the use of oral steroid medication (not inhaled steroids) to control lung inflammation in conditions such as asthma and emphysema has been shown to cause weakness of the inspiratory muscles. This weakness can impair lung function and can be counteracted by inspiratory muscle training. N.B. inhaled steroids do not cause inspiratory muscle weakness.
01/05/2007
Can POWERbreathe assist firefighters?
A bit about fire-fighting...
Fire fighting has long been regarded as one of the most physically demanding of all civilian occupations. One aspect of performance, which has received little or no attention, is that of the spontaneous physiological response of the respiratory system. This is surprising, particularly as all active fire fighters use self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).
An on-going project at the University of Birmingham Sports Medicine and Human Performance Unit has unearthed some surprising and not-so-surprising findings about respiratory performance in fire fighters. Background: Fire-fighter ensemble with SCBA weighs up to 26kg. This mass is carried on the upper body and restricts movement of the upper body, including breathing.
Background findings:
Lung function is impaired whilst wearing SCBA
Respiratory muscle strength and lung function are impaired further after physical work in SCBA
The respiratory muscles of fire-fighters are stronger than those of matched civilians
Fire-fighters adopt a special breathing strategy to minimise the breathlessness induced by working in SCBA
Inspiratory muscle training with POWERbreathe does the following:
increases inspiratory muscle strength
reduces breathlessness
reduces heart rate
reduces the rate of air use from the cylinder (increasing wear time by around 1.5 min from a 15 min cylinder)
increase time to exhaustion during a standard laboratory treadmill test
01/05/2007
Can POWERbreathe improve breathing at high altitude?
You should read POWERbreathe for fitness or performance to get the most from the following section.
At high altitude the air is 'thinner', containing less oxygen than at sea level. The higher we go, the thinner it gets. Climbing or skiing at high altitude place enormous demands upon the breathing muscles. In order to compensate for the thinner air, the lungs must work much harder, and exercise which at sea level brings on nothing more than a slight increase in breathing, can push your breathing to its limits at high altitude. At 3km (3000m) the amount of oxygen in the air decreases by 30%, and at 5km its half that at sea-level. This means that at around 1km you begin to experience breathlessness during moderate exercise, and at 4km you feel breathless at rest.
At sea level, your ability to exercise is limited by the capacity of your heart to pump blood to the exercising muscles. At high altitude, you become limited by the ability to pump air in and out of the lungs.
Just to put things into perspective: whilst resting at sea level, you breathe about 12 litres of air in and out of your lungs each minute. At the summit of Mt. Everest (8848m) it requires almost maximal levels of breathing (in excess of 150 litres per minute) just to put one foot before the other. This level of breathing can be sustained for only a couple of minutes at a time.
Human beings tend to 'learn' from experience what is an appropriate level of breathing for a given exercise task. When there is a mis-match between your previous experience and your current experience (as occurs at high altitude), you get a heightened sensation of breathlessness. Also, if your respiratory muscles are working very hard, they can 'steal' blood from the legs to meet their own requirement for oxygen, thus impairing leg performance. Finally, all that respiratory work can lead to chronic fatigue of your breathing muscles which also increases breathlessness and impairs performance.
By training with POWERbreathe prior to trekking / climbing at high altitude, or a skiing trip, you can prepare your breathing for the rigours of the increased work of breathing, minimise fatigue and breathlessness, and improve performance and enjoyment. Short of spending a few weeks doing lots of aerobic exercise at 3000m, there's not much else to rival POWERbreathe's ability to get your breathing prepared for the mountains!
01/05/2007
How can POWERbreathe helps Singers, Musicians and Actors?
Based upon our understanding of the response of the inspiratory muscles to training, a number of factors may be involved in the benefits to respiratory athletes:
training enhances the ability to inflate the lungs (you can take deeper breaths)
training enhances the ability to control the breath
training enhances the ability to sustain forceful breathing (your breathing does not become fatigued)
training may affect the intrinsic laryngeal muscles which control the action the larynx
If we make any muscle stronger, we improve the ability to control it (and the movement it creates) whilst it is operating under load. For example, consider your ability to undertake a task requiring fine control of your arm if it is weighed down by a heavy weight.
If you strengthen your arm by training, you will discover that your ability to perform the same task is improved as a consequence of your superior arm strength. Similarly, enhancing the strength of your inspiratory muscles improves the ability to control their activity under load, i.e., when they are contracting and overcoming the elastic recoil of the lungs and chest wall. Whilst this explains some of the potential benefits of POWERbreathe training, there may be something more specific occurring to the muscles of the larynx.
Basic anatomy and physiology of the larynx The larynx is a complex amalgamation of cartilage and muscle. During normal vocalisation, the pitch of the sound produced by the larynx is varied by the action of the vocal folds, whilst the loudness is varied by changes in respiratory pressure. The muscle that controls the tension of the vocal folds is the cricothyroid to find out more about the vocal folds .
The potential role of POWERbreathe training When we breathe via an external resistance (e.g., the POWERbreathe) all of the muscles of inspiration are activated to an extent which is proportional to the size of the added resistance. It is reasonable to suggest that this also applies to the lateral cricarytenoid muscles, and to the other muscles that act to pull the vocal folds apart, including the cricothyroid. Certainly, there is a large movement of the larynx during loaded breathing that is readily observed externally. This being the case, training with POWERbreathe may enhance the ability to generate tension in the vocal folds and thus increase vocal range.
Our work with singers supports this notion as they report an improvement in their singing ability and that their voices feel "warmed-up" after using the POWERbreathe.
But isn't 'normal training' enough?
In common with physical athletes, respiratory athletes engage in specific training to maintain and enhance their performance. Our work with physical athletes has demonstrated that even in the highly trained international standard competitor, their inspiratory muscles are essentially untrained. This is because most of their training occurs at intensities of exercise that do not provide a training stimulus to the inspiratory muscles. Whilst this problem may not be quite so pronounced in respiratory athletes who engage is specific breathing exercises, our anecdotal reports suggest that they too can benefit from the 'super-enhancement' of inspiratory muscles performance which comes from training with POWERbreathe. For the respiratory athlete, POWERbreathe provides a unique stimulus to the inspiratory muscles, as well as to the smaller vocal accessory muscles. This stimulus cannot be produced without imposing an external load to inhalation, but the functional enhancement it stimulates may provide for enhanced capacity, endurance and range. Respiratory athletes have reported that training and warm-up with POWERbreathe provides something that they cannot achieve through any other means of training, practice or warm-up.
01/05/2007
Which conditions can be improved by using POWERbreathe to reduce breathlessness?
Just getting older
Asthma
Emphysema
Bronchitis
Bronchiectasis
Cystic Fibrosis
Chronic and congestive heart failure
Heart-lung transplant patients (pre- and post-operatively)
Spinal cord injury
Neuromuscular diseases such as MS and Muscular Dystrophy
Obesity
Here are some other conditions where POWERbreathe users have reported improvements:
Snoring
Sleep apnoea
Speech disorders
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