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With threshold loading the subject must exert a level of inspiratory pressure to initiate inspiration, and this pressure depends on the magnitude of the threshold load. For the rest of inspiration, the inspiratory pressure is constant and is independent of the inspiratory flow rate. Threshold loading is therefore guaranteed to force subjects to generate relatively high pressures with their inspiratory muscles. However, to maximize the training response, it is still probably important to ensure that inspiratory time and breathing frequency are controlled. And...
All studies reported an improvement in inspiratory muscle endurance in trained patients...
Summary and recommendations
Respiratory muscle training is a promising new therapy. There has been a gradual maturing in this area over the past 15 years to the point where it is now quite clear that the respiratory muscles can be trained for improvement in strength, endurance or both.
Recent work has indicated that, particularly with inspiratory resistive loading, many previous studies may have failed to sufficiently overload the respiratory muscles during training because breathing pattern and the pressure target with each breath were not carefully controlled. Given a sufficiently intense training program, an improvement in respiratory muscle performance should be expected.
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