POWERbreathe – Improves Performance In Rugby Players

• Accelerated recovery during repeated sprints by up to 7%
• Improved inspiratory muscle strength by 31.2%
• Improved inspiratory muscle endurance by 27.8%
• Reduced whole body effort during exercise

• Improved performance within 4-weeks (following tried & tested training regimen)

POWERbreathe Inspiratory Muscle Training For Rugby Players

The physical demands of rugby are highly specific to the player’s positional role, nevertheless all players require high levels of aerobic fitness, lactate tolerance, strength and power.

Although most activity during a game is sub-maximal, the intermittent sprints, tackling, scrums, rucks and mauls that are integral to the game, are supra-maximal. This pattern of exertion places extreme demands upon breathing because these activities are anaerobic and generate high levels of lactic acid. Lactic acid, stimulates breathing to increase as part of a compensatory strategy to overt fatigue of other muscles. A unique feature of rugby is the involvement of high intensity upper body activity. This can induce conflicting demands upon the breathing muscles, which as well as bringing about breathing, are also essential in activities that involve the upper body.

“Following an intense bout of activity such as a sprint, breathing is driven to its highest levels, inducing extreme breathlessness. If players are to continue to make an active and effective contribution to the game, their breathing must recover quickly” explains sports scientist and respiratory physiologist Dr Alison McConnell.

The breathing muscles are also essential for the fixing, twisting and flexing movements of the trunk and contribute to stabilising and turning the trunk during a scrum, ruck and maul along with kicking and passing, so fatigue of the breathing muscles can affect more than running ability.

As well as helping players to recover more rapidly and avoid breathing muscle fatigue, inspiratory muscle training can be used as part of a pre-match and pre-substitution warm-up.

As well as helping players to recover more rapidly and avoid breathing muscle fatigue, inspiratory muscle training can be used as part of a pre-match and pre-substitution warm-up. By warming-up the breathing muscles the sense of increased breathing effort and breathlessness experienced during the first few minutes of activity can be avoided.

POWERbreathe training specifically targets the breathing muscles, strengthening them by around 30-50%, significantly improving performance and helping to eliminate breathing fatigue. And in studies, POWERbreathe training enabled rugby players to recover and sprint maximally again more quickly. 

Train smarter, not harder, to perform better.

Resources:

• Rugby: POWERbreathe Training Protocols - COMING SOON!

• How Training The Inspiratory Muscles Can Improve Performance For Rugby Players 

Research:

Links to research papers, published in peer-reviewed, high quality scientific journals. As well as original studies, we have also included some articles that review IMT; these have been written by experts in this field of research.

Inspiratory Muscle Training

• Inspiratory muscle training enhances pulmonary O2 uptake kinetics and high-intensity exercise tolerance in humans
• The effect of inspiratory muscle training on high-intensity, intermittent running performance to exhaustion.
• The influence of respiratory muscle training upon intermittent exercise performance.
• Effects of inspiratory muscle training upon recovery time during high intensity, repetitive sprint activity.
• The effect of inspiratory muscle training on high-intensity, intermittent running performance to exhaustion. 

Warm-up and Cool-down

• Inspiratory resistive loading after all-out exercise improves subsequent performance.
• Effect of specific inspiratory muscle warm-up on intense intermittent run to exhaustion.
• Blood lactate during recovery from intense exercise: impact of inspiratory loading.
• Inspiratory muscle training reduces blood lactate concentration during volitional hyperpnoea.

Exercise-induced Inspiratory Muscle Fatigue

• Influence of environmental temperature on exercise-induced inspiratory muscle fatigue.
• Aerobic fitness effects on exercise-induced low-frequency diaphragm fatigue.
• Exercise-induced diaphragmatic fatigue in healthy humans.
• The effect of exercise modality on respiratory muscle performance in triathletes.
• A comparison of inspiratory muscle fatigue following maximal exercise in moderately trained males and females.
• Inspiratory muscles experience fatigue faster than the calf muscles during treadmill marching.

Miscellaneous

• Development of respiratory muscle contractile fatigue in the course of hyperpnoea.
• Inspiratory muscle training attenuates the human respiratory muscle metaboreflex.
• Development and evaluation of a pressure threshold inspiratory muscle trainer for use in the context of sports performance.
• Specificity and reversibility of inspiratory muscle training.

• Inspiratory muscle training: a simple cost-effective treatment for inspiratory stridor.

Review Articles

• Inspiratory muscle training and endurance: a central metabolic control perspective.
• Does training of respiratory muscles affect exercise performance in healthy subjects?
• Respiratory muscle energetics during exercise in healthy subjects and patients with COPD.
• Respiratory muscle training in healthy humans: resolving the controversy.