opinions on powerbreathe

turbo_hamster

...before anyone tells me I should have used the Search tool, I have used the Search tool and found nothing at all.

I went to the NEC bike show and there was a presentation from Alison McConnell about the Powerbreathe and quoting extensively from her book. It sounds convincing and the website has lots of testimonials. I'd been interested in the gadget years ago, then kind of forgot about it.

I'd be interested in anyone's experiences of using a Powerbreathe. The basic one is only about £30 now, so not a huge outlay.

derbygrimpeur

I used one for a bit in preparation for my second marathon. There's no doubt it helped develop my breathing muscles for running such a distance, but I'm not sure how useful it would really be in cycling. When running, I used to find over 2.5 hrs I used to end up post-run a bit wheezy and with a bit of a cough. Powerbreathe helped that. But I can comfortably manage 6hr+ rides without any breathing trouble.

I guess if you have problems with your breathing it could help.

term1te

I've wondered what the advantage of their gadgets are over, say a biro with the ink taken out, or just breathing through your teeth to restrict the flow? Won't that work your diaphragm and intercostal muscles?

nferrar

I bought one a couple of years ago (was about £70 I think, from Wiggle), used it on and off for a couple of weeks and then gave up on it. Mind you I'm pretty lazy (I don't do any core strength stuff or stretching etc.) so you might get more mileage out of it, certainly didn't notice any difference during the short time I was using it though.

Lazarus

Term1te wrote:

I've wondered what the advantage of their gadgets are over, say a biro with the ink taken out, or just breathing through your teeth to restrict the flow? Won't that work your diaphragm and intercostal muscles?

+1 I've also wondered if just taping a few straws together and breathing though them would do the same .

Herbsman

"quoting extensively from her book"

"sounds convincing"

"the website has lots of testimonials"

gives it away really.

simon_e

Herbsman wrote:

"quoting extensively from her book"

"sounds convincing"

"the website has lots of testimonials"

gives it away really.

+1.

Spend the money on something that you know will make you train harder. If you want to develop your lungs you could:
- ride more, especially uphill
- learn to play a wind/brass instrument
- inflate some of these:

turbo_hamster

Thanks for taking the time to feed back. Much appreciated, especially those who have tried the gadget for themselves.

JustinLeeAtkinson

I think you can get all the info as to how it works on their website. It explains how the powerbreathe is apparently much more effective than the methods mentioned above, I have one, did a few weeks with it, and noticed that I was able to up the resistance on it gradually, so it seemed it was having some effect.

However, at a certain level of resistance the breathing became really uncomfortable. Got kind of a vibrating effect at the back of my throat and nose as I was breathing in. So I stopped using it. I may go back to it, but I am convinced it will happen again. It was only 3/4 weeks into the program when I hit the wall as it were.

cougie

Do you really think its your lungs holding you back ?
My Lung capacity isn't great but training helps me far more than that thing would.
Hardly anyone sticks with the plan.

JustinLeeAtkinson

Yes, lungs hold you back. Road cycling is an aerobic activity. Lung capacity affects performance. No doubt about it. If you cycle up a hill you breathe heavier, you need more oxygen. If your lungs can take in more oxygen, you dont get out of breath so easily.

If you can get powerbreathe to work you dont use it instead of on the bike training, you use it in addition to.

Alex_Simmons/RST

JustinLeeAtkinson wrote:

Yes, lungs hold you back. Road cycling is an aerobic activity. Lung capacity affects performance. No doubt about it. If you cycle up a hill you breathe heavier, you need more oxygen. If your lungs can take in more oxygen, you dont get out of breath so easily.

If you can get powerbreathe to work you dont use it instead of on the bike training, you use it in addition to.

Ventilation capacity is not a limiter to performance. Unless you have acute asthma or other pulmonary dysfunction.

Even highly trained athletes don't get to maximal voluntary ventilation capacity when at VO2max. Maybe 90%. Less well trained will be far less.

The cyclist in question is far far better off doing the hill climbing than sucking on a tube with air flow restrictions.

Mr Dog

Is you heart one of the limiting factors?

Ps Forgive me Alex... I'm using again.. the gym. The weather has been mingin and it started with a little core work. Before I knew it I was in power cage. :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

I'll try to keep it to twice a week.

POWERbreatheUK

Hi all we are POWERbreathe and we came across this forum and thought we would post a response to the interesting discussion that is going on.

The POWERbreathe has a variable resistance, so whereas if you were to breathe through a straw, you couldn’t increase on the resistance. POWERbreathe includes training levels where you turn up the resistance so you’re always set with a challenge (like increasing the weights on your barbell). You’d only turn up the resistance when the 30 breaths presented no challenge. If however you really struggle and your breathing technique suffers, you should lower the resistance until it becomes comfortable and proper breathing technique returns (e.g., no hunching of the shoulders). And it really needs to be used for 3-4 weeks continuously (like regular training), as if you stop training your breathing muscles it displays the ‘use it or lose it’ phenomenon, like any other muscle.

By training your inspiratory muscles you will achieve an increase in resistance to fatigue and improved efficiency, so less oxygen is required by the lungs and can be used by other working muscles. This results in increased performance, whether in running or cycling.

Hope this helps you.
POWERbreathe

Lazarus

POWERbreatheUK wrote:

The POWERbreathe has a variable resistance, so whereas if you were to breathe through a straw, you couldn’t increase on the resistance.

But I could reduce the number of straws used to force my lung muscles to work harder ?

POWERbreatheUK

Hello, we are POWERbreathe and we came across this discussion while browsing the website. We tohught we would join and offer our advice. Please feel free to respond:

[16/11/2011 12:26:52] Vanessa Potter: The POWERbreathe has a variable resistance, so whereas if you were to breathe through a straw, you couldn’t increase on the resistance. POWERbreathe includes training levels where you turn up the resistance so you’re always set with a challenge (like increasing the weights on your barbell). You’d only turn up the resistance when the 30 breaths presented no challenge. If however you really struggle and your breathing technique suffers, you should lower the resistance until it becomes comfortable and proper breathing technique returns (e.g., no hunching of the shoulders). And it really needs to be used for 3-4 weeks continuously (like regular training), as if you stop training your breathing muscles it displays the ‘use it or lose it’ phenomenon, like any other muscle. By training your inspiratory muscles you will achieve an increase in resistance to fatigue and improved efficiency, so less oxygen is required by the lungs and can be used by other working muscles. This results in increased performance, whether in running or cycling.

Thanks
POWERbreathe

Alex_Simmons/RST

or you could just ride your bike harder, which would be a far more useful training exercise for cycling performance improvement.

duncj12

Read the book and use the product for a month and then comment. Otherwise your opinions are worthless.
Sir Matthew Pinsent (4 Olympic Gold Medals) rates the product in the foreward. How many Gold Medals do you have?

Tom Dean

duncj12 wrote:

Read the book and use the product for a month and then comment. Otherwise your opinions are worthless.
Sir Matthew Pinsent (4 Olympic Gold Medals) rates the product in the foreward. How many Gold Medals do you have?

can I send my £30 directly to you dunc?

Alex_Simmons/RST

duncj12 wrote:

Read the book and use the product for a month and then comment. Otherwise your opinions are worthless.
Sir Matthew Pinsent (4 Olympic Gold Medals) rates the product in the foreward. How many Gold Medals do you have?

Cracking first post.

Would you take up smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years to prove it's bad for your health?
Homeopathy - read the book and follow the celebrity endorsement - it's a no brainer :roll:

A resort to celebrity endorsement is the first sign of a snake oil sales strategy.

What my performance achievements are is irrelevant. But you're right, after having a leg amputated I'm unlikely to ever win an Olympic rowing gold medal, let alone 4, breathing through this device or otherwise.

Provide some evidence. Red herring arguments and an ad hominem attack don't cut it I'm afraid. You'll have to do better. Now lift your game.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Speaking of snake oil (not that I am say PB is, just the marketing tactics):
http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/- ... ankruptcy/

chrisbrett2k

Cracking first post.

Would you take up smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years to prove it's bad for your health?
Homeopathy - read the book and follow the celebrity endorsement - it's a no brainer

A resort to celebrity endorsement is the first sign of a snake oil sales strategy.

What my performance achievements are is irrelevant. But you're right, after having a leg amputated I'm unlikely to ever win an Olympic rowing gold medal, let alone 4, breathing through this device or otherwise.

Provide some evidence. Red herring arguments and an ad hominem attack don't cut it I'm afraid. You'll have to do better. Now lift your game.

I was introduced to powerBreathe back in 2000 as part of an extremely successful study with a rowing crew who surpassed all expectations. I therefore find your cursory dismissal of a whole field of Sports Science technology somewhat arrogant.

Just because the 'snake oil sales strategy' you refer to may well include a celebrity endorsement does not mean that all celebrity endorsements are therefore invalid and mercenary. It's an easy point to get confused over. There is plenty of evidence out there if you read it but you clearly haven't and yet you feel qualified to dismiss a product with years of academic research and testing behind it.

The amputated leg wouldn't stop you entering the Paralympics and achievements at that event are at least as valid as anything Matthew Pinsent has ever achieved. Yes I do think that sporting achievements are relevant when talking about a product that among other things assists the training of elite athletes.

A common misconception is that powerBreathe for elite athletes is an easy miracle improvement. It is not. It only works at this level if you train hard with it. 30 breaths at the optimum resistance is an exhausting and uncomfortable experience. I don't see why it is so hard to grasp that resistance training of this group of muscles is likely to produce an improvement in performance when everyone takes it for granted that the same is true for virtually any other muscle group.

The same dismissive unresearched arguments were made against HRMs and indeed virtually any other new Sports Science technology when they were in their early years of development.

To compare IMT with Homeopathy is extremely lazy and woefully misleading. I think you may have to up your own game and make some more reasoned points to justify your own partisan stance.

Alex_Simmons/RST

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I was introduced to powerBreathe back in 2000 as part of an extremely successful study with a rowing crew who surpassed all expectations. I therefore find your cursory dismissal of a whole field of Sports Science technology somewhat arrogant.

Really? What field of Sports Science would that be?

Sounds to me like you are resorting to ad hominem. Shame, I thought perhaps that could be avoided.

If the crew surpassed expectations, then was it because of this product, or did they train better, or more, or have better preparation, diet, team bonding, technique? One off anecdotes with confirmation bias simply don't cut it. By doing so you are dismissing science altogether.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

Just because the 'snake oil sales strategy' you refer to may well include a celebrity endorsement does not mean that all celebrity endorsements are therefore invalid and mercenary. It's an easy point to get confused over. There is plenty of evidence out there if you read it but you clearly haven't and yet you feel qualified to dismiss a product with years of academic research and testing behind it.

Then I suggest posters here that say it's the greatest thing since sliced bread stop with the snake oil tactics and provide some actual evidence. If there is plenty of it, peer reviewed in quality journals, with proper controls, then please provide references.

But all we seem to get is anecdotal tripe.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

The amputated leg wouldn't stop you entering the Paralympics and achievements at that event are at least as valid as anything Matthew Pinsent has ever achieved.

That's true. I won't get to Paralympics, just a bit old now, I only made it to UCI World Cup level.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

Yes I do think that sporting achievements are relevant when talking about a product that among other things assists the training of elite athletes.

The problem with sporting celebrity endorsement is that it implies their performance is a result of using the product, when no such causal link has been established.

I find evidence far more compelling than celebrity endorsement.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

A common misconception is that powerBreathe for elite athletes is an easy miracle improvement. It is not. It only works at this level if you train hard with it. 30 breaths at the optimum resistance is an exhausting and uncomfortable experience. I don't see why it is so hard to grasp that resistance training of this group of muscles is likely to produce an improvement in performance when everyone takes it for granted that the same is true for virtually any other muscle group.

I don't think anyone is dismissing the claim that training with a breathing restriction device makes you better at using a breathing restriction device. The reasons for that presumably are multifactoral, and may well include changing a group of muscles related to breathing.

The problem is the inference that these muscles are actually an inhibitor to endurance cycling performance, and such training is required to improve endurance cycling performance.

If breathing hard is an inhibitor (and the data we have suggests this isn't the case), will it lead to better performance outcomes than simply doing hard efforts on a bike?

chrisbrett2k wrote:

The same dismissive unresearched arguments were made against HRMs and indeed virtually any other new Sports Science technology when they were in their early years of development.

Red herring argument. i.e. irrelevant.

Not sure what evidence there was to show that HRMs didn't measure heart rate, since that's all HRMs claim to do.

I'm not criticising new science. Far from it. What I am criticising is claims made without being backed up by science. So if such evidence exists, help us to see it, and stop going on with anecdote and celebrity endorsement.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

To compare IMT with Homeopathy is extremely lazy and woefully misleading.

I was comparing sales tactics, not the actual product. But if the product relies heavily on such sales tactics, then the skeptical red flags go up. So I suggest the product lift its game on the evidence side.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I think you may have to up your own game and make some more reasoned points to justify your own partisan stance.

Show me a body of evidence that use of such a product leads to quantifiable improvements in endurance cycling performance beyond that one attains from actually training, and I'll shout it from the rooftops.

simon_e

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I was introduced to powerBreathe back in 2000 as part of an extremely successful study with a rowing crew who surpassed all expectations. I therefore find your cursory dismissal of a whole field of Sports Science technology somewhat arrogant.

Ha ha, you obviously don't know much about him then :roll:

He hasn't dismissed "a whole field of sports science", merely questioned the claims made by the people marketing this gadget. It's not his fault that you swallowed the hype.

I would be more interested to know whether Pinsent had to buy his own powerbreathe and whether he has been paid to endorse it. There have been enough professional athletes gullible enough to wear power balance bands, so any similar endorsement means sod-all to me.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I don't see why it is so hard to grasp that resistance training of this group of muscles is likely to produce an improvement in performance when everyone takes it for granted that the same is true for virtually any other muscle group.

"Likely". Is that the best you can do? You don't explain how breathing through this particular tube (or even straws) helps anyone ride a bike faster. I tihnk you're bluffing... and puffing and I'll blow your house down!

chrisbrett2k

My word I see that it seems harder to reason with you guys than the main protagonists on other forums. Look I'm just a rower who cycles a lot as a means of cross training. I am therefore not an expert on the specific training requirements of your discipline. I have the greatest respect for cyclists and some of my sporting heroes come from your extremely challenging sport. Hopefully there is some respect due in the other direction as well due to the not entirely exclusive nature of our two sports.

Sounds to me like you are resorting to ad hominem. Shame, I thought perhaps that could be avoided.

Is that deliberately hypocritical, a joke or have you just not read what you typed. I mean really, its just staggeringly funny. Are you the guy who wrote the line:

"I'm not being condescending ,.. which by the way means talking down to someone." I actually think that yours is better.

I think the term cursory was actually warranted because a lot of your statements seemed to have very little analysis behind them. It was a direct statement of an observed fact and was not an attempt to discredit you in general. Its very hard to point out the observation that someone either hasn’t read all the relevant facts or given them all reasonable consideration without the statement having some impact on the credibility of the person in the specific context of the observation.

Really? What field of Sports Science would that be?

So Inspiratory Muscle Training does not exist and there are not significant numbers of papers published on this topic? If you believe that then it does stunt the debate somewhat.

If the crew surpassed expectations, then was it because of this product, or did they train better, or more, or have better preparation, diet, team bonding, technique? One off anecdotes with confirmation bias simply don't cut it. By doing so you are dismissing science altogether.

&

He hasn't dismissed "a whole field of sports science", merely questioned the claims made by the people marketing this gadget. It's not his fault that you swallowed the hype.

OK I will concede that I didn’t make myself clear here. The crew was a Loughborough Students crew who were virtually all experienced, well qualified scientists and many of which were, as you might expect, Sports Science specialists. They all believed that powerBreathe gave them something extra during the latter stages of periods of maximal exertion.

This conclusion was made after consideration of the balance of their training histories which were indeed detailed and taking into account the training programmes for the periods prior to and during the study. Your points are trivial and obvious unless you are assuming that you are talking to someone with no understanding of science or logic etc. If you are making that assumption then simply stating that fact is probably your most efficient response.

Hopefully this makes it clear that the obvious stipulated scientific considerations that you have listed were indeed met in the assessment of the trial period. I assume that it is also reasonable to imply that my statement is not just a case of me having “swallowed the hype “

"Likely". Is that the best you can do? You don't explain how breathing through this particular tube (or even straws) helps anyone ride a bike faster. I think you're bluffing... and puffing and I'll blow your house down!

You aren’t going to blow anything down with a weak straw man argument like this are you? I was making a general logical statement to just get across the point that it is a proven concept that resistance training of one part of a physiological system involved in a given sporting activity can benefit the overall performance in that activity. This is all that is being claimed.

The science however is much more specific and very well documented. One key benefit is that by making inspiratory muscles more efficient, the significant drain they exert on the cardiovascular system is reduced. This has the effect on improving the cardiovascular capacity available for the remaining relevant physiological demands required for the sporting activity in question. This in turn improves performance.

You cannot replicate powerBreathe IMT training with straws. Its simply nonsense and only someone who knows nothing about the field would suggest such a fallacy.

The problem with sporting celebrity endorsement is that it implies their performance is a result of using the product, when no such causal link has been established.

True but it is still a valid point that I would trust Matthew Pinsent’s genuine opinion on the use of a training product to benefit rowing more than that of a man in the street. The only complaint with this issue you can have is if it is not his genuine opinion. I have talked to him in person and I would be extremely shocked if he were that mercenary.

I think any objective assessment of this thread would ask the question that if you applied the same desperate level of analysis to your own weak arguments you would find them easier to pull apart than the fairly modest and reasonable claims being made for this product.

The problem is the inference that these muscles are actually an inhibitor to endurance cycling performance, and such training is required to improve endurance cycling performance.

If breathing hard is an inhibitor (and the data we have suggests this isn't the case), will it lead to better performance outcomes than simply doing hard efforts on a bike?

No no no. This is not what is claimed at all. Read the published work and then make your criticisms. You have made the inference directly. Look bicep strength is not the limiting factor in sprinting. All sprinters exercise their biceps. The logic does not hold at all. The mechanism of benefit is more complex than this basic assumption. Your argument would suggest that the only way to get faster on a bike is to cycle more. The only way to row is to row more. Etc.

Alex_Simmons/RST

chrisbrett2k wrote:

My word I see that it seems harder to reason with you guys than the main protagonists on other forums.

It's not harder to reason with us. Perhaps we just don't swallow hype as quickly as others, I don't know.
But you have to have a sensible argument in order to reason. You have not provided one.

In that long post (and all the ones preceding it by you and others), there is not one attempt to provide the evidence that this product will enhance endurance cycling performance. All we are getting is belief based information.

Evidence to support the claims is all I am asking for.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I am therefore not an expert on the specific training requirements of your discipline. I have the greatest respect for cyclists and some of my sporting heroes come from your extremely challenging sport. Hopefully there is some respect due in the other direction as well due to the not entirely exclusive nature of our two sports.

Where have I not shown respect for rowing? And what would that have to do with an assessment of evidence to support claims of performance enhancement in any case. Again you are resorting to logical fallacy.

Provide the evidence. That will shut us up.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

Sounds to me like you are resorting to ad hominem. Shame, I thought perhaps that could be avoided.

Is that deliberately hypocritical, a joke or have you just not read what you typed. I mean really, its just staggeringly funny. Are you the guy who wrote the line:

"I'm not being condescending ,.. which by the way means talking down to someone." I actually think that yours is better.

No, I wasn't. In fact no one on this thread has said that.
Next.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I think the term cursory was actually warranted because a lot of your statements seemed to have very little analysis behind them. It was a direct statement of an observed fact and was not an attempt to discredit you in general. Its very hard to point out the observation that someone either hasn’t read all the relevant facts or given them all reasonable consideration without the statement having some impact on the credibility of the person in the specific context of the observation.

Hmmm, I think you have this thread and/or me confused with someone else. I have no idea what you are going on about here.

And again. Provide the evidence. Is it really that hard? Or perhaps it doesn't exist?

chrisbrett2k wrote:

Really? What field of Sports Science would that be?

So Inspiratory Muscle Training does not exist and there are not significant numbers of papers published on this topic? If you believe that then it does stunt the debate somewhat.

I was not aware that Inspiratory Muscle Training was a field of sports science. It's a training tool/method, that's all.

Science it ain't.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

OK I will concede that I didn’t make myself clear here. The crew was a Loughborough Students crew who were virtually all experienced, well qualified scientists and many of which were, as you might expect, Sports Science specialists. They all believed that powerBreathe gave them something extra during the latter stages of periods of maximal exertion.

This conclusion was made after consideration of the balance of their training histories which were indeed detailed and taking into account the training programmes for the periods prior to and during the study. Your points are trivial and obvious unless you are assuming that you are talking to someone with no understanding of science or logic etc. If you are making that assumption then simply stating that fact is probably your most efficient response.

Hopefully this makes it clear that the obvious stipulated scientific considerations that you have listed were indeed met in the assessment of the trial period. I assume that it is also reasonable to imply that my statement is not just a case of me having “swallowed the hype “

No, it doesn't make it clear at all. Again you are asking us to believe the word of someone without the supporting evidence. Just because someone is a scientist doesn't mean they produce good science. We want to rely on the data, not the qualification of the person delivering it. Given the people involved are scientists, I would expect better information. But instead you present a logical fallacy know as an "appeal to authority".

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I was making a general logical statement to just get across the point that it is a proven concept that resistance training of one part of a physiological system involved in a given sporting activity can benefit the overall performance in that activity. This is all that is being claimed.

OK, so you are *not* claiming there is any benefit to endurance cycling performance from IMT, since there is no evidence that inspiration muscles are a limiter to EC performance. Thanks for letting us know.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

The science however is much more specific and very well documented. One key benefit is that by making inspiratory muscles more efficient, the significant drain they exert on the cardiovascular system is reduced. This has the effect on improving the cardiovascular capacity available for the remaining relevant physiological demands required for the sporting activity in question. This in turn improves performance.

OK, now I'm confused. Now you say it will enhance performance for cycling.

OK, show us the science please.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

The problem with sporting celebrity endorsement is that it implies their performance is a result of using the product, when no such causal link has been established.

True but it is still a valid point that I would trust Matthew Pinsent’s genuine opinion on the use of a training product to benefit rowing more than that of a man in the street. The only complaint with this issue you can have is if it is not his genuine opinion. I have talked to him in person and I would be extremely shocked if he were that mercenary.

Irrelevant. It's implying a causal link when none has been established. He may genuinely believe it, or he may be being paid, I don't know or care. Belief matters little.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I think any objective assessment of this thread would ask the question that if you applied the same desperate level of analysis to your own weak arguments you would find them easier to pull apart than the fairly modest and reasonable claims being made for this product.

Which one?
I'm simply asking for evidence that IMT enhanced ECP better than training does.

Any objective assessment of this thread would conclude that you are either refusing to do that or simply cannot because it doesn't exist.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

The problem is the inference that these muscles are actually an inhibitor to endurance cycling performance, and such training is required to improve endurance cycling performance.

If breathing hard is an inhibitor (and the data we have suggests this isn't the case), will it lead to better performance outcomes than simply doing hard efforts on a bike?

No no no. This is not what is claimed at all. Read the published work and then make your criticisms. You have made the inference directly.

So IMT doesn't help endurance cycling performance. OK, got it, thanks. Was getting confused as there seem to be quite mixed messages coming from you.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

Look bicep strength is not the limiting factor in sprinting. All sprinters exercise their biceps. The logic does not hold at all. The mechanism of benefit is more complex than this basic assumption. Your argument would suggest that the only way to get faster on a bike is to cycle more. The only way to row is to row more. Etc.

Hmmm. More red herrings.

But there is no better training for cycling (even sprint cycling) than cycling.

simon_e

chrisbrett2k wrote:

My word I see that it seems harder to reason with you guys than the main protagonists on other forums.

No, some of us are a tougher sell. And you are not a great salesman.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

The crew was a Loughborough Students crew who were virtually all experienced, well qualified scientists and many of which were, as you might expect, Sports Science specialists. They all believed that powerBreathe gave them something extra during the latter stages of periods of maximal exertion.

Many people believe all sorts of things, belief doesn't make anything a fact (the emphasis is mine BTW).

chrisbrett2k wrote:

"Likely". Is that the best you can do? You don't explain how breathing through this particular tube (or even straws) helps anyone ride a bike faster. I think you're bluffing... and puffing and I'll blow your house down!

You aren’t going to blow anything down with a weak straw man argument like this are you?

I'm approaching this from a non-scientific viewpoint. The terms "likely", "believe" and so on are not reasons to buy this device. It is you that is trying (and, in my view, failing) to defend/promote the device in the face of scepticism.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

[The science however is much more specific and very well documented.

Where?

chrisbrett2k wrote:

You cannot replicate powerBreathe IMT training with straws. Its simply nonsense and only someone who knows nothing about the field would suggest such a fallacy.

I don't know anything about it. If you do then please explain. I'm all ears. Honestly.

chrisbrett2k wrote:

I think any objective assessment of this thread would ask the question that if you applied the same desperate level of analysis to your own weak arguments you would find them easier to pull apart than the fairly modest and reasonable claims being made for this product.

Again, I'm asking you to give good reasons why anyone should buy this device. In my eyes you have failed.

apreading

I hesitate to post here because I can see two opposing sides getting inflamed, but about 12-18 months ago I got one of these because they were cheap and I was mildly asmatic with some wheezing and low lung power compared to when I was younger, fitter and 'less heavy'.

Thought I would give it a go because I found that when I tried exercising I couldnt really push my muscles hard because of either or both of my heart & lungs being the limiting factor.

I used it for a month or maybe 6 weeks and found that it reduced the wheezing and out of breath problems and increased the effective capacity of my lungs. This is not an imagined placebo effect either - it really did.

Dont know why I stopped using it - I think I stopped training and got lazy for a while and forgot about it but it did make a difference while I was.

Now admittedly, I imagine someone in peak fitness with good lung capacity and no problem in this area might not see as much or maybe even any benefit but I believe it to work for people that need help in that area.

Just my 2p - hopefully I wont get shot down in flames - I dont intend getting into long & heated debate, but felt I had a viewpoint worth adding to the discussion/arguement.

I hope it is appreciated!

Scrumple

If you pay me, and give me 100 of them, I'll write something good for you in my book.

For anyone but an athlete in the top 0.5% range, you'd be better just riding harder and stop looking for miracle cures.

shockedsoshocked

apreading wrote:

Thought I would give it a go because I found that when I tried exercising I couldnt really push my muscles hard because of either or both of my heart & lungs being the limiting factor.

I used it for a month or maybe 6 weeks and found that it reduced the wheezing and out of breath problems and increased the effective capacity of my lungs. This is not an imagined placebo effect either - it really did.

Like Alex pointed out in a previous post about the rowers though, could this have been due to simply doing exercise?

Wirral_paul

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

duncj12 wrote:

Read the book and use the product for a month and then comment. Otherwise your opinions are worthless.
Sir Matthew Pinsent (4 Olympic Gold Medals) rates the product in the foreward. How many Gold Medals do you have?

Cracking first post.

7 mins after joining!! Wouldnt be the first time a fake profile is set up by a company to defend their product :shock: