In terms of sports, my primary one is cross-country skiing, where I teach and race some. The issue respiratory exercising faces is much like that in the weight room. Purely resistive exercises, such as in the gym, are of limited value to x-c skiers beyond a beginning or jump-start level. Motion and muscle activity need to go together, preferably with an emphasis on endurance. And with endurance, generally a lighter load is called for. Another element that applies specifically to breathing is that most of our lives, including our training lives, are done at low respiratory loads or levels, which our bodies acclimate to, and get the habit of, quite well. Yet, races call for a lot more output, as well as a lot more respiratory and upper body (torso) muscle recruitment. Unfortunately, our bodies can’t take the amount of higher intensity training that would be required to break the lower respiratory “habit.” Thus, in races, we find in fairly short order that we end up fighting our bodies to a certain degree, and vice versa (i.e., under respirating relative to effort)…
… I’ve been using the Sport Power Lung for two or three weeks now and could sense a difference in normal breathing ease immediately.
