FRESH BREATH

Training your breathing skills can pump up your general health and inflate your athletic performance

Practising ‘strength training’ drills for your breathing muscles, for just five minutes per day, can lower your blood pressure, improve the efficiency of your heart and lungs, and boost your sports performance, according to a new study by the University of Colorado. The research, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found that high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) – inhaling vigorously through a hand-held breath trainer, which provides air resistance – delivers extraordinary benefits. After just six weeks of breath training, subjects enjoyed a drop in systolic blood pressure of nine points – similar to what you’d achieve by walking five days a week for 30 minutes per day. They also experienced a 45 per cent improvement in vascular endothelial function, which is the ability of the arteries to expand upon stimulation and a sign of good physical health.

BREATHE EASY

“We found that not only is it more time-efficient than traditional exercise programmes, but the benefits may be longer lasting,” explained Professor Daniel Craighead, an assistant research professor at the University. “And IMST can be done in five minutes in your own home while you watch TV.” All the evidence suggests breath training could be a useful tool for endurance athletes, too. “If you’re running a marathon, your respiratory muscles get tired and begin to steal blood from your skeletal muscles,” says Professor Craighead, who uses IMST for his own marathon training. “The idea is that if you build up endurance of those respiratory muscles, that won’t happen and your legs won’t get as fatigued.”