Effectiveness of respiratory trainers - powerlung vs. spirotiger?

I read JulieAnne’s review of the spirotiger and am interested in the product both for training and alleviating the need for asthma drugs. I use both a steroid nasal spray and steroid inhaler. However the Spirotiger is fairly expensive. The powerlung sells for less than $100. Is it comparable and does anyone have experience with it?

Being an asthma guy myself, and tried one of these things and didn’t like it that much. My asthma is pretty bad, but a lot better than some other people I know of. For me, the thing that worked the most was just breathing drills and learning how to relax everything to not get tight.

I can’t give you too much advice on the the spirotiger because I never used it, but some other things that could help would be:

When you sitting around, breath in a normal breath, and then breathe everyting out, don’t inhale, just hold it as long as you can and keep trying to progress on that.
When your training, try holding a longer breathing patter. Like for swimming, try not breathing every 2-3-2, try every 3. then 2-5-2… you get it. =) Good luck.

okay two things. First, i dont have athsma, second i havent tried the specific brands you’ve mentioned. I bought a breath restrictor thing off of ebay for $20. And used it. I noticed results within a week. At first, my lungs hurt. They hurt like they do after a really realy tough training session. But i felt like in my swim, i was able to get a better breath when i breathed in, which made me feel less hypoxic.

I purchased the Powerlung Sport and have been using it for a little over a month now and love it. My situation is different from yours so let me give you some background.

I had asthma as a kid but outgrew it by my teens. I have not used any medication since. Once every few years I experience an asthmatic episode but it is always triggered by anxiety and it is always under specific conditions (physical exertion and high humidity, to name a few). My experience with asthma left me with more than a little anxiety. Anytime my breathing became restricted or hindered I would have to fight the anxiety that would inevitably come on. I have been swimming with my local masters group for the past several months to prepare for my first tri (still a few months off). Try as I might to do it differently, I had to breathe every stroke. And, god forbid, if I took in any water when I went for that next breath I was immediately behind in my breathing and destined to have to stop the set to catch up. I realized that as my fitness level improved I wouldn’t get so far behind in my breathing but I was still having to deal with the anxiety.

That being said, I have noticed a big change since using the Powerlung. Not having a way to quantify any improvement, I’m not sure how much it has helped strengthened my breathing muscles (it is still early in the program). The one thing that I am sure about is that it has helped me deal with the anxiety I experience when my breathing becomes hindered, and I noticed a difference almost immediately. This reduction in anxiety has, in turn, helped improve my confidence that I can survive the workouts (don’t laugh). So now my swimming has improved because I can work harder during the workouts and finish them.

So, in short, the Powerlung works for me. I hope you find something that works for you. Good luck.

Rusty

I have to start out with I have never used one of these things… I can honestly say that I would never spend my money on one of these things either.

First off I have no idea how this would help with asthma… Asthama is due to a bronchoconstriction caused by a release of several hormones in response to something else of unknown etiology… It has nothing to do with how strong your muscles are or anything of that matter…

Second breathing has two components inhalation and exhalation. The maximum rate of exhalation is determined SOLELY on the elastic recoil of your lungs… So if you can’t change how well you exhale, it doesn;t matter what you do on the inhale… (muscular development of your respiratory muscles could theoretically increase this) if you can;t improve your exhalation.
Elastic recoild depends on the makeup of your lung tissue and nothing to do with your muscles.

Third. Your diaphragm has the lowest requirement for oxygen of any muscle in your body… it is also the least fatiguable… if we are talking about the weakest link the diaphragm is definately not it…

NOw I am a skeptic but I can be convinced if I was shown the evidence…

Since you are concerned with a medical codition it would be useful to speak to your doctor / pulmonologist about your specific situation… I would not spend the money before you do this.

good luck

I asked a few respiratory therapists what they thought of this idea as a training aid. And, (beside the strange look I got) they seem to think it would have a very limited effect.

If my memory is correct, (it’s been about a year ago when I inquired) the research that is used to back up the use of such devices are based on respiratory problems that revolve around muscular disfunction. Examples of these would be individuals with CP and/or MS and other neurological disorders. If you have no neurological problems, the use of these devices would provide limited advantage (if any). It’s wasn’t a question of strengthing the muscle groups that support breathing, but rather it was a deviced used to aiding in control of muscle groups*. Control of muscle groups will not (in and of itself) increase air intake for the normal person. Nor, will it improve oxygen absorption and use by the body (a much more crucial aspect of training).

I thinks it fair to be a skeptic… it takes more than breathing to improve bodies use of oxygen intake. It takes a change in the bodies ability to use the oxygen more effectively… this can be accomplished through altitude training. Simply restricting the airflow probably wouldn’t significantly change the bodies ability to use oxygen.

FWIW Joe Moya

*Special note: Sometimes control of breathing will have a subjective effect on asthma… it helps reduce the anxiety and stress associated with asthma. In that case, the device may have a positive effect.

The body is not limited at all in performance by the lung capacity or the ability to take in more oxygen. You can have the lung capacity of a ten year old, but performance is based on the heart, i.e. cardiac output. Stroke volume has a much higher impace on performance than lung capacity. Anything that teaches your body how to take in more oxygen doesn’t necessarily teach it how to use the oxygen, which is a function of the heart.

tommy

i talked to a resp. physiologist about this very topic…know what he told me, if you think its going to help, dont buy some fancy device, breathe through a straw…it has the same effect.

he didnt seem to think it did a whole lot for you though, but hey, even if its in your head, and you believe it, then you are getting better,

-kevin

okay, so first off i know my lungs were sore after using it, that definetly wasnt “in my head.” Secondly, i would see it only being effective in the swim, where it helped me with inhalation—quicker inhalation that means i got my face back in the water faster. I’m not going to say that breathing in quicker and more powerfully is actually going to result in measurable or actually faster swim/bike or run splits. But it definetly helped me with the feeling of getting in more air in my inhalation. Secondly, i have a hard time taking advice from people whove never used a product. Its like taking PC advice from Gary in SD (im kidding Gary) but you know what i mean.

When you say your lungs were sore, do you mean that your chest wall was sore? I can understand that your accessory respiratory muscles could get sore from restrictive breathing/forceful exhalation (ever hear of people breaking a rib when they coughed?)…but, Lungs?

One thing that I didn’t see mentioned is the possibility of acute pulmonary edema brought about by too much negative inspiratory pressure. I guess these devices have some sort of setting that limits the negative inspiratory pressure, or are built such that only a certain amount of negative pressure would be generated, am I right? But, a straw doesn’t have such a safety mechanism. While most people wouldn’t have a problem breathing through a straw for a while (depending upon the length and diameter of the straw, and the amount of air exchange the person needed to meet metabolic requirements), the point is that healthy, strong people can generate enough negative pressure to send themselves into acute pulmonary edema.

From looking at Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseased people, it’s obvious that many accessory breathing muscles can be developed to assist your normal breathing…but, it isn’t efficient breathing. In fact, it takes up a lot of oxygen to have those muscles working so hard.

Like someone else said, you aren’t limited by lung surface area, or even CO2 removal, your athletic endeavors are limited by your oxygen delivery. Oxygen delivery is limited by cardiac output and Hemoglobin levels. Trying to train inefficient muscles to work harder (and thus use up some of your available cardiac output that could better be used somewhere else) seems counterintuitive to me. Then again, rake and trail on a bike front end are counterintuitive to me.

The quote, "Second breathing has two components inhalation and exhalation. The maximum rate of exhalation is determined SOLELY on the elastic recoil of your lungs… So if you can’t change how well you exhale, it doesn;t matter what you do on the inhale… (muscular development of your respiratory muscles could theoretically increase this) if you can;t improve your exhalation.
Elastic recoild depends on the makeup of your lung tissue and nothing to do with your muscles. "…isn’t exactly correct. As breathing becomes more labored you do actively exhale using intercostal muscles and even abdominal muscles.

There is some science behind improving endurance with respiratory muscle trainers. However, the benefit probably comes from training the diaphragm to use lactic acid as a fuel more efficiently. Beter lactate removal can improve sustainable speed. At least that is the current theory.

Mike P.

Slight inaccuracy in what I said… the maximum exhalation or maximal expiratory flow volume loop… is determined by lung parenchyma which is a determinant of elastic recoil…

yes you use your abdominals and other muscles of breathing to exhale however the entore lung is a compressible system and as you increase the pressure by which you exhale you develop choke point due to collasing of bronchi, especially segmental and lobar bronchi. This is also referred to as the flow limiting segment. The dynamics of the flow limiting segment is what determines your maximal expiratory pressure.

This is why inspiratory pressures can far exceed inspiratory pressures becuase insiparation is not limited by bronchiol collapse. This is despite the fact that the there is a greater potential for creating pressure becuase the inclusion of the abdominals and other muscles of respiration…

However you are right in that the abdominals are involved, but with much of respiration and pulmonology, the limiting factor is almost never muscular strength… however this is not the case with conditions such as myasthenia gravis paralysis or other musculo skeletal dysfunctions.

If you would like a more detailed explanation i could send you one with more complete references.

I asked a few respiratory therapists what they thought of this idea as a training aid. And, > (beside the strange look I got) they seem to think it would have a very limited effect.

I had a brief chat on this topic a month ago with one of the key researchers behind the SpiroTiger. Caveats: this was an idle conversation, I don’t even play respirologist on TV, comments only apply to the research behind the SpiroTiger patents and it was after a rather nice New Year’s brunch. (He and his wife came up from Florida for their annual winter fix. They’re both fundamentally boreal animals, trapped in Panama City.) On the flip side, he does research and is not part of the company selling the device, and he wasn’t making a sales pitch. This was a purely geek discussion.

The hypothesis behind the experimental prototypes was that lungs could indeed limit performance, and the studies used US Navy subjects—divers, if I recall correctly. They were universally jocks, but different types of jocks. The findings were that running top speeds didn’t change much, but endurance did. This was especially true for weight-lifter types. Anecdotally, some subjects who hated running found they enjoyed it when they could just keep going. Also, they noticed a decrease in endurance after not using the device for a while, and some subjects actually begged to get it back.

I’m at a stage where I don’t much care whether the theories make sense. I’ll believe a well-designed, properly-conducted clinical study. In this case, both theory and studies seem credible, so I will believe that this can make a large difference to a non-endurance athlete, and a significant difference to an endurance athlete.

The question then becomes whether such an expensive device is the best place to put your marginal tri dollars and whether using the device is the best place to put your training time. How’s your wallet? How’s your time?

I heard nothing about using the device to alleviate medical conditions. It may or may not do something, but that doesn’t seem to have been hypothesized or tested in the original research. I suspect there aren’t many asthmatic US Navy divers.

Cheers – John

I am many years removed from my studies of the pulmonary system, so I will not try to contend with any statements of the learned posters who have already responded.

My major concern with these devices is the possibility of induced pneumothorax. As I understand it the devices are analogous to weightlifting for the respiratory muscles. Is it not true that in doing so the pressure gradient between the lungs and the pleural cavity increases? Some people are predisposed to tears in the pleural lining (the membrane between the lung and the chest cavity). Once air enters the pleural cavity, one is headed to the ER and in the worst case, death in three minutes from a “tension pneumo”. This is the condition Marc Wahlberg’s character in The Three Kings had.

Just my partially-informed speculation…

JulieAnne White’s review in slowtwitch of the spirotiger makes me think that there is something to these devices.

JulieAnne wriites that “normally it takes me a few days to adjust to altitude with my breathing rate. This time, with the Spirotiger, after the first day I was well within my stride and by the final day I was running 50km up and down mountain trails feeling stronger as the run progressed. I attribute this very quick adaptation to my daily use of the SpiroTiger, which gave me a workout in a way that simply running did not.”

As for the astma part of this post I’m not a doctor nor especially knowledgable about the etiology of asthma. But from first hand expericence, I know that exercise helps reduce asthma symptoms. I don’t know if these respiratory devices have a similar effect. With my current drug and exercise protocol, I am pretty much symptom free. But in the past, the more out of shape I got, the more asthma would bother me. Taku and others could explain how this works.

My interest in the new respiratory devices is to reduce drug dependence and as a training supplement. I am very interested in any info on effects of long term topical cortico-steroid use.

Also I’ve read somewhere that Nike is using one of the respiratory devices at training camps it sponsers. This is being used strictly to enhance traing, not for relieving asthma.

Will the spirotiger be next year’s PowerCranks.?

A mantra to repeat if you are a skeptic… this is the first thing that you learn in statistics class (OK not the first but one of them)

“correlation does not equal causation”
Just becuase two things happen in a similair distribution does not necessarily mean that they are cuasative.

ex. Ice cream consumption goes up in the summer as does crime. No one would make the conclusion that ice cream consumption causes crime… but this is the same point that is made with a lot of these products.

I felt better after using something therefore that something is the reason I felt better… This is a very easy trap to fall into, this is why good experiments are hard to design. There is a whole host of psychological somatic things that play into respiration it is hard to make generalizable claims without good research.

Also just becuase Nike uses something doesn’t necessarily mean it works. I can think back to tons of things people were doing that top athletes were doing that aren’t done anymore… (drinking burbon during a cold marathon comes to mind)

If you have money to drop go ahead and try it and see if it works for you… personally I don’t believe in the premise and I don;t have the extra scratch to drop…

I am by no way faulting Julie Ann White or slowtwitch. If I felt I had great results with something I would rave about it too. Except I would also think about other contributing factors such as more mindful breathing, dietary considerations (there is a acid base component to altitude compensation), general state of mind, and on and on…

blah blah blah… who knows the thing may actually work…

I don’t think your results are unusual. What you described is muscular control of breathing… swimming has a lot to do with controlled breathing (but you already know that). I believe the device may have improved your swim times because it allowed you to added more control to your breathing. I can’t see how it would improve your ability to convert oxygen. Unless, you count breathing with greater control allows for better form and more pull per stroke. That would have a more direct correllation to improved times.

But…what the heck… does it really make a positive difference? In your case - yes. I agree with your thoughts, it doesn’t matter… what’s important is that it helped you. Whether it can help other on a broad and consistent basis is probably a different matter.

FWIW Joe Moya

In the abscence of penetrating trauma, tension pneumo is unlikely… however there is a portion ofthe population who can have spontaneous penumothoraces… these people know who they are and should stay away from such a product without conculting their physician first.

In answering some of the things brought up by tommy and joe

Your ability to “take in” more oxygen is determined by.

  1. How much air can get into your lungs (dependant on the lungs, rib cage, and muscles)
  2. How well you can get blood to the parts of the lung where there is oxygen (depends on the status of the lungs)
  3. How much oxygen your blood can hold (determined by the number and the composition of the red blood cells)
  4. How well you can get the oxygen into the blood (dependant on the status of the lungs)
  5. How well you can get blood to the parts of your body that need it.

… Tommy the essence of what you stated is true. No heart no movement. But the heart does not determine how well you use oxygen, it determines how well you can deliver the blood that contains the oxygen

… Joe the altitude training that you spoke about increases the red blood cell content and quality of the blood thereby increasing the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. You increase the amount of reb blood cells through exercise… it is just hightened when you train at altitude.

consumption issues. The theory is that the respiratory muscle training helps train the respiratory muscles to use lactic acid more efficiently. At least that is the prevailing theory. I dont think that anybody would argue that it helps you absorb or utilize more oxygen. Your hemaglobin is 98 % saturated even at max exercise for all but the fittest athletes. THe lactate theory is the best working theory right now to explain the performance increase.

Mike