POWERbreathe Series

Put simply, breathing training is for anyone who breathes since everyone will benefit from stronger breathing muscles.

POWERbreathe IMT devices are popular amongst three main groups: sport & fitness enthusiasts, people with health conditions, and those working in the performing arts. We’ll take a closer look at how breathing training benefits these individuals.

Sport & Fitness

Whether you want to get fit or enhance your sports performance, improving the strength and stamina of your breathing muscles will make exercise feel easier.

As a result, you will be able to do more, or train more, with less effort. Furthermore, stronger breathing muscles will help delay the onset of metaboreflex – the body’s built-in brake. With a well-trained and strong diaphragm there is greater blood flow to your limbs, and sports performance improves. In fact, there are many benefits of IMT in sport and fitness.

Older adults & people with medical conditions

Our IMT devices are also ideal for those with breathing muscle weakness, such as breathlessness. This may be due to a sedentary lifestyle, advancing age or medical condition such as COPD or heart failure.

Using IMT, your breathing muscles will become stronger and resistant to fatigue. As a result, these muscles will require less effort during a given task, reducing shortness of breath. Research has found many more benefits of IMT for health and medical conditions.

Singers, musicians & dancers

Breath control is essential to perform at your best in all of the performing arts. Exercising your breathing muscles with POWERbreathe will improve their strength. And the stronger your muscles are, the more you’re able to control them.

With a stronger diaphragm, you will be in a better position to control the movement of your thoracic cavity whilst singing, dancing, or playing a wind instrument.

Research shows many benefits of IMT for singers, musicians and dancers.

The POWERbreathe breathing trainer strengthens your inspiratory muscles using a technique called resistance training. Your inspiratory muscles are the muscles you use to breathe in.

The device creates a resistance to your in breath, which makes your breathing muscles work harder. Think of it in the same way as you might use weighted dumbbells to strengthen your biceps. This is why POWERbreathe IMT is often referred to as the ‘dumbbell for your diaphragm’.

When performing breathing training with POWERbreathe, you’ll notice that you have to work harder to breathe in. This effect of the resistance training acting on the breathing muscles you use to inhale. Primarily, these muscles are the diaphragm, your main breathing muscle, and the rib cage/intercostal muscles.

Just as you would use a heavier dumbbell as your bicep strength improves, you can increase the resistance on the breathing device as your breathing strength improves.

The POWERbreathe EX1-Medic EMT device is helpful to patients who need to forcefully empty air from their lungs. It is particularly beneficial for patients with dysphagia and dysarthria, as well as for older adults as they begin to lose muscle strength due to advancing age.

Expiratory muscles are also often recruited in critically ill ventilated patients. Weakness of abdominal expiratory muscles leads to poor cough, and ineffective clearance of secretions from airways, and increases the risk for re-intubation. The four abdominal expiratory muscles that help in weaning, are the rectus abdominis, internal oblique, external oblique, and transversus abdominis.

• Dysphagia
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
• Cough, such as chronic bronchitis
• Subacute stroke
• Dysarthria
• Multiple sclerosis
• Parkinson’s disease
• Tracheostomy patients / ICU patients
• Speech therapy
• Sleep apnea
• Respiratory issues such as dyspnoea due to obesity or older age decline in functions
• Cervical or spine injury.

The POWERbreathe EX1-Medic is a pressure threshold MT breathing device developed to exercise the expiratory muscles. It uses a one-way, spring-loaded valve to maintain a constant breathing load while the patient exhales through the device. This breathing load is sustained throughout the exhalation, regardless of the patient’s airflow.

The internal, calibrated, spring-loaded valve requires the patient to produce an expiratory pressure sufficient to overcome the threshold load set and open the valve to enable expiration through the device.

When the patient generates enough expiratory power, the one-way valve opens at the set breathing load, allowing exhalation through the device. The spring-loaded valve requires a constant flow of exhalation for the valve to remain open. It’s this that presents a challenge to the expiratory muscles. The valve will then close completely as soon as the pressure is less than the breathing load set.

If, however, the patient is not able to produce enough expiratory force, the spring-loaded, pressure-threshold valve will remain closed, and no air will flow through the device. To rectify this and allow the patient to continue training, the training load can be reduced by using the adjustable external dial.

Inspiratory muscle training, such as training with POWERbreathe, is not recommended for patients with certain conditions, including the following:

• Patients who have undergone recent abdominal surgery and those with abdominal hernia.
• Asthma patients who have a very low symptom perception and suffer from frequent, severe exacerbations or with an abnormally low perception of dyspnoea.
• If a patient is suffering from a ruptured eardrum or any other condition of the ear.
• Patients with marked elevated left ventricular end-diastolic volume and pressure.
• Patients with worsening heart failure signs and symptoms after RMT / IMT.
• If you are suffering from a cold, sinusitis or respiratory tract infection, we advise that you do not use your POWERbreathe IMT device.

When determining if a patient is suitable for EMT, it is worth considering if a Valsalva manoeuvre would be contraindicated for their condition. This is because like the Valsalva manoeuvre, EMT involves exhaling as hard as possible while the nose is pinched closed. Therefore, if the generation of intrathoracic pressure (ITP) and/or intracranial pressure (ICP) is contraindicated for the Valsalva manoeuvre, then so too is the use of EMT.

Expiratory muscle training, such as the POWERbreathe EX1, is not recommended for patients with certain conditions, which include the following:

• Patients who have undergone recent abdominal surgery and those with an abdominal hernia.
• Asthma patients who have a very low symptom perception and suffer from frequent, severe exacerbations or with an abnormally low perception of dyspnoea.
• If a patient is suffering from a ruptured eardrum or any other condition of the ear.
• Patients with marked elevated left ventricular end-diastolic volume and pressure.
• Patients with worsening heart failure signs and symptoms after Respiratory Muscle Training (RMT)
• Patients who are or might be pregnant.
• Patients with untreated or uncontrollable heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux (GERD).
• Patients with untreated and uncontrollable high blood pressure (hypertension).

You should use your breathing trainer for 30 breaths, twice a day – preferably in the morning and evening.