You Get what you pay for. Powerlung is the only Clinically proven Breathing Device. Here is why.:

This model is Designed for top performance & competitive athletes -

The PowerLung Active Series Sport model uses maximum resistance training for high performance athletes and strenuous, competitive training activities.

The PowerLung Sport
User guide
DVD training video
Carrying case
PowerLung Washe sample
Product registration card
One year warranty

Why should I choose PowerLung over similar products?

First, in spite of what another product may say, it is not "similar to PowerLung". They don't work - certainly not like PowerLung! It's as simple as that. Though we wouldn't consider these products to be similar to PowerLung, you may ask what makes PowerLung different? It all comes down to the methods used to create resistance:

• Restrictive Resistance

  Used by products such as Expand-a-Lung, SportsBreather (a/k/a The Breather) and UltraBreathe.

  The best way to describe this method of resistance is to imagine breathing through different sized straws. That's all restrictive resistance is. You are simply "restricting" the space through which the air can flow.

  "It's not fancy," says inventor Jorge Brower... he got the idea for his Expand-a-Lung by watching innovative free divers rig up their own equipment to train their respiratory muscles. "Because of lack of resources, they take any pipe they can find, cap it, put a mouthpiece on it and put a pinhole through it... mine is no different..."
  
  

  Swimming Technique, Oct-Dec 2002
  Pamela LeBlanc

  There you have it. Even you can make your own restrictive resistance product!

  Use this approach or simply use straws with different size openings or just whistle. Regardless of how you want to make your own "product" it will certainly cost less than even these products.

  Unfortunately, regardless of how you choose to implement your restrictive device, it is only useful if you are aiming for no results. The restrictive method of resistance has been shown not to work and can lead to negative effects.

  "...a decrease in inspiratory flow rate resulted and caused a drop in inspiratory pressures, even in situations where a smaller orifice than the original was used. This creates a paradoxical situation where reducing the orifice size may cause a decrease rather than an increase in inspiratory load..."
  
  

  A Target Fedback Device For Ventilatory Muscle Training
  Michael J. Belman, MD, and Reza Shadmehr, MS

  A reduced "load" means reduced resistance and therefore reduced training effectiveness. So even if you make it yourself you may not get the results you seek over time even if you increase the amount of time you use it and decrease the size of the opening you breathe through!

Back to Top

• Threshold Resistance

  Only PowerLung uses this for inhale and exhale.

  There are muscles that support your breathing. Just like any other muscle in your body, the best way to make them stronger and more efficient is to strength train them. Imagine a person who trains or exercises with weights, machines or exercise bands. When a person is training, he or she must "work" against something, a resistance. In this case, lifting and lowering the weight. The weight creates a workload - resistance - for the muscles to work against and overcome. The more the person repeats the pattern of the exercise, the stronger his or her muscles become. As it becomes easier to do the exercise the person can increase the threshold to help make the muscles stronger.

  That is threshold resistance, a proven method of training used only by PowerLung. When you breathe in and out through PowerLung, you are working against a threshold of resistance that is the same for every breath. You ARE NOT breathing through a restricted orifice where the load can be reduced just by changing the way you breathe. PowerLung has two cells one designed to train your inhale and the other designed to train your exhale breathing. Both are adjustable to set your level (threshold) of resistance. Exactly like how a person adds resistance with weights for strength training.

  A study performed at the University of Toronto shows regular training with PowerLung can increase your inhale muscle power greater than 40% and increase your exhale muscle power over 150%.
  
  

  Respiratory Muscle Power Before and After Training (with PowerLung)
  Greg Wells, University of Toronto Respiratory Research Group, 2003

Back to Top

What about the products that only support inhale breathing?

Going back to the weight lifter analogy, why would you only train the muscles in your arms when you lift them up but not when you lower them. Training for "lift and lower" is training for a full range of motion for the muscles. So, why shouldn't this be true for your breathing? Your expiratory (exhale) breathing is just as important as your inspiratory. Ask any musician or someone who has asthma.

Or ask Mr. Barry Jarvis, the inventor of PowerLung. He tried products that focused on inhale breathing only or used restrictive resistance because they were the only products available at the time. This former rower and marathon runner was not getting the results he needed. He needed to exhale. Being an inventor, Mr. Jarvis knew there had to be a way he could create what he needed. After much research and testing, Mr. Jarvis created the first prototype PowerLung and got the results he needed. He knew he wasn't the only one in the world who wanted to breathe better and as an athlete, he knew all about the "Threshold Resistance".

In the 1990's, a group in England joined together and introduced a product, POWERbreathe®, to focus only on IMT (inspiratory muscle training. One of the original founders also participated in research supporting the value of IMT only. A review published in March 2005 Curr Opin Pul Med, Review "Respiratory muscle training in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: inspiratory, expiratory, or both?" gave this summary: "Inspiratory and expiratory muscles can be specifically trained yielding improvements in both strength and endurance. The improvement in inspiratory muscle performance is associated with an improvement in the sensation of dyspnea, exercise tolerance, and quality of life. When the expiratory muscles are specifically trained, a significant increase in exercise performance has also been shown..." Remember, POWERbreathe only does inhale training. Yes you exhale through it, but there is no resistance, no training benefit and no exercise effort of any kind for exhale

The benefits of training with PowerLung have been proven time and time again. Each study showing that expiratory breathing is just as important as inspiratory breathing. One study would show an increase in exhale muscle power greater than 150%! The really great part about our proof is it's not endorsed. Independent researchers approached PowerLung and requested to perform studies on our products.

Back to Top

Similar products say they have advantages over PowerLung.
What are your advantages over them?

Yes, there are products that have an advantage over us (though they claim to have advantages). The only thing they have going for them is price and that is it. You know the story: you get what you pay for.

What does PowerLung have over them? You name it! PowerLung has far more advantages over competing products:

• The Proven Way To Improve Your Breathing
  PowerLung is the only product proven to actually train and improve your breathing. Competing products use an ineffective method that is no different than breathing through different sized straws.
• True Flexibility of Control
  Competing products say you have 100% control of all levels of their product. We know that's not true. Since they use restrictive resistance, that means all you have to do is change the way you breathe with any different sized hole you're breathing through and you change the resistance. What hard work to remember you have to breathe the same way every breath. PowerLung gives you complete control of the resistance for inhale and exhale on its products and is designed to help you breathe deep with every breath. You don't have to remember it helps you do it right. Nothing locks the controls and they are both independently adjustable so you can set your inhale at a different level than your exhale. That's true flexibility of control and true control.
• Comprehensive Instructions To Read Or Watch
  Competitors claim our product is complicated to use but that is far from the truth. There is a right way to train your breathing and PowerLung makes sure you do properly. But why stop with reading how to breathe right? PowerLung is the only product to offer a DVD video with instructions on using PowerLung and properly breathing.
• Designed For Specific Needs And Goals
  We all breathe, but no two people are alike. PowerLung acknowledges this by designing products for those into sports and fitness, music and singing, and health and wellness. PowerLung has talked to many professionals and put a lot of research into these product lines so that they meet your needs and goals. Do you really believe the competitive athlete, or even a sports and fitness enthusiast has the same breathing requirements and goals as a person with emphysema or COPD? They can't possibly because the athlete or fit person already has some conditioning in their breathing muscles. A person with emphysema or COPD is often forced into a more sedentary lifestyle and so their muscles - even the ones for breathing - may not be very conditioned. By the way, does a singer or musician want to breathe the same way as an athlete? These are just a few of the reasons PowerLung offers different models to help people get the most flexibility to meet their goals.
• Additional Training Programs and Methods
  For those who are serious about your breathing, we have you covered. PowerLung offers ways to include PowerLung into your training program whether it is a book, DVD or hints and tips.
• Distributed Worldwide
  You can buy direct from the manufacturer, but it is better to have options. PowerLung gives you those options. Our products are sold all over the United States and the world. Why wait when you can get it close to home.
• Customer Support
  PowerLung trains its personnel and its retailers and distributors personnel on how to help people get the most from their product. Unlike other products available, when you call PowerLung for help during our business hours, there is no answering machine or automated answering systems to navigate only a person who wants to help you use your PowerLung the best way possible to meet your goals. It's not hard to use, but sometimes it is just nice to have someone to talk to - maybe even to share your excitement with a breakthrough. After all, Mr. Jarvis taught us the importance of being able to breathe better.

Back to Top

I'm still not sold. What other proof do you have?

PowerLung has been around since 1999 and growing bigger and stronger every year. Why not read what others have to say about their own experience from using PowerLung products? If you like technical information, check out all the independent studies that have been performed using PowerLung on Powerlung's website. Our products are carried by many retailers and available worldwide. Physicians, coach, music and choir teachers, and even dentists recommend PowerLung products.

PowerLung is the recommended brand
when it comes to better breathing.

Independent studies show breathing muscle training with PowerLung can increase oxygen and lower your heart rate, blood lactate and breathing rate. Get the performance edge over the competition with the PowerLung® Sport, proven to increase lung capacity for people such as swimmers and runners. Are you an advanced free diver or do you compete in a sport that requires a lot of breath control? Enjoy the additional breath control achieved by strengthening your breathing muscles with this model. Strength training for inhale and exhale breathing. Independently adjustable inhale and exhale controls. Hand grip for comfortable use. Detailed user instructions for proper training.

What is a PowerLung? PowerLung is an easy to use, hand-held product proven by independent clinical studies to increase lung capacity and improve your breathing so you can race faster, dive deeper, perform longer, exercise easier, and, overall, breathe better. PowerLung is right for you whether your goal is to improve your competition edge, expand your performance range and projection, get more enjoyment from practice, workouts or weekend athletics, or simply enjoy afternoons with the kids. PowerLung is for anyone who breathes. It does what exercises or other products can not do for your breathing muscles. You won't believe the difference PowerLung can make for you, regardless of your current breathing condition, until you feel it for yourself. PowerLung breathing exercises use strength training techniques to increase lung capacity. Use PowerLung to train your breathing muscles for greater flexibility, endurance, relaxation. Separate controls for inhale and exhale allow you to independently adjust and record your PowerLung settings for breathing training and breathing technique. Simply set up and use, while sitting or standing, for less than ten minutes a day to expand lung capacity with PowerLung.

Inhale by breathing in through the mouthpiece. The knob at the end of the unit is adjustable. The range is from 1 to 6 in resistance. Exhale by breathing out through the mouthpiece. The knob at the bottom of the unit is adjustable. The range is from 1 to 3 in resistance.

White Papers Peak Performance Training Begins with PowerLung A white paper on concurrent respiratory muscle training (CRMT) from PowerLung, Inc. Inhale. Exhale. Breathing just seems so natural. Why do you need to train the muscles you use in breathing? After all, aren't you breathing? You are doing cardio workouts, running, wind sprints or aerobic activity; isn't that the same? But, if they are so well conditioned, why do you "get out of breath"? If you are doing aerobic activity, you are aerobically exercising the muscles used in breathing along with your other muscles. If you have been working out aerobically training your breathing muscles, when was the last time you trained them? Just like any other set of muscles "the respiratory muscles can be trained for improvement in strength, endurance or both." Pardy et al. (1988). This is supported by a number of other studies, notably Dupler & Amonette, who found, using the PowerLung, that in a relatively short period of time, four weeks, respiratory training produced "significant changes in maximal VE (ventilation), maximal VT (tidal volume), and sub-maximal VE..." The study revealed a 1.99 breath/minute decrease in RR (respiration rate) coupled with a 4.93 L/min increase in VE and a .81L/breath increase in VT for the treatment group. Subjects in the treatment group also had a 28.25mm/Hg increase in Pex (peak exhalation force) as compared to only a 2mm/Hg increase for the control group." These findings are supported conclusively by a number of researchers, using a wide range of people, proving that these specific muscles have become stronger. The only way to train your breathing. PowerLung is the original AND only training machine with integrated EXHALE and INHALE progressive resistance to train and strengthen respiratory muscles. It has two load resistance cells, one for inhale and one for exhale, that work and adjust completely independently of each other. 12 sets of breathing muscles to train. The muscles that provide the power, and therefore the pressure for training with PowerLung, are located around the lungs. Those used to inhale are: the diaphragm, external intercostals and the interchondral part of the internal intercostals, while the accessory muscles are the sternocleidomastoid and the scalenes. Those required for exhale are the internal intercostals, except for the interchondral part, the rectus abdominis and the external and internal obliques. There are also, for want of a better phrase, "core body muscles" that are involved in the breathing process. Specifically these are the transverses abdominis, the muscles of the pelvic floor, the multifidus and the lower trapezius. These muscles are activated as a result of the deep breathing required to perform the respiratory muscle training. PowerLung provides a resistance on both the inhale and exhale part of the breathing, against which, all the muscles mentioned above have to work so that air can be drawn in and expelled from the body. And what can better breathing do? The question of whether or not this has an effect on either exercise performance or living everyday life can be examined in terms of basic physiological principles and then backed up by the research. The relationship between strength, power and endurance must be fully understood before embarking on an explanation of how this affects our breathing. The strength of the muscle is the maximum possible output that it can produce. The power of the muscle is a combination of strength and speed defined as the amount of work done in a unit of time. To increase power, therefore, the person could either lift a heavier weight in the same time, or lift the same weight in a faster time. The endurance capacity of the muscle is the number of repetitions it can produce before it fatigues. Equating this to a bench press, the person may be able to lift 100kg once. If they were wanting to then build up the power of the muscles, they would look at working at around 80% of that maximum, i.e. 80kg, trying to contract the muscles as quickly as possible. They would attempt the lift 8 - 12 times. As they move in to endurance they would lift 40 - 60% of their maximum and repeat the motion 20+ times. These are obviously rough guidelines depending on how much endurance, or number of repetitions the person wants to do, or how fast they want the contractions to be as contraction speed is vitally important in a number of sports. What is important is that as we move from strength at one end of the spectrum, to endurance on the other, the weight decreases. Therefore, in very crude terms, if we increase the strength of the muscle, still keeping power and endurance work, then the range shifts up. So, the person that is required to work at a certain level will find it easier to work at that level if the muscle is stronger because they are working at a lower percentage of their maximum. Applying this theory to the fact the respiratory muscles are trainable; so increasing the strength of the respiratory muscles combined with the power and endurance training, would increase their endurance capacity. Boutellier showed in his 1992 papers with both sedentary people and endurance trained athletes that respiratory training improved the endurance of the respiratory muscles by over 300% with the sedentary people, and over 600% with endurance trained athletes. Neither showed an increase in VO2 max, but both showed a large increase in sub-maximal exercise time, sedentary, 50%; endurance trained, 38%. This would suggest, confirmed by Boutellier himself, that "the respiratory system is an exercise limiting factor in normal, endurance trained subjects", as well as sedentary subjects. All these studies, which look at respiratory training, can be applied to PowerLung. This is because PowerLung is a respiratory trainer that trains the respiratory muscles. All these studies train the respiratory muscles to prove or disprove their hypotheses. The respiratory muscles are being used to do the work. Taking the example of a bench press, it has been shown that this exercise strengthens, for simplicity's sake, the chest. The weight is just a catalyst for that. It doesn't matter who made the weight just that the weight enables the person to perform the task. In conclusion, using PowerLung increases respiratory muscle strength leading to performance improvements at any level. It also reduces the feeling of breathlessness as it specifically warms up the respiratory muscles. It also decreases the perception of dyspnoea as a result of improved performance and efficiency, and through the body being warmed up properly.