Curious, does anyone out there have any experience with the Airofit breathing tool/device? I’m curious about results not only for training purposes, but general respiratory therapy (son-in-law had horrible bout with Covid, followed up by double pneumonia). Reviews say it has benefit, just looking for real world feedback.
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@gsp64 I moved your post under the existing topic discussion.
Thank you, apologies…
No problem. We just try to keep topics together when possible and appropriate.
Searching the forum can return existing topics worth review in many cases.
I just got one for a similar reason.
Suffered a pretty nasty bout of Covid with post Covid lung infection.
Starting to get back into more training now (got COVID beginning of Feb).
Lost about 50w.
Lungs feel more sensitive and doesn’t feel like it’s working as well as it has done. Legs and body feel ok, just don’t seem to get as much oxygen to the body.
First couple of sessions were bloody hard work! Light headed at the end, could definitely feel the breathing muscles tiring out.
Maybe some of the above lost watts is due to detrained lung muscles. Actual lung capacity is a fair bit above average for my height, will see how it improves over time.
I have really bad asthma and breathing issues that have forced me out of several races in the past. My pulmonologist recently started me on a host of medications and breathing exercises. Interestingly, he wants me to focus not on inhaling but exhaling. His suggestion? A straw. Learning to exhale fully and using the right muscles helps when inhaling becomes difficult.
While it doesn’t make me look like exercise Bane like the breathing tool does, my old straw is definitely cheaper. Anyone have a similar experience or am I an outlier?
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I bought one of these today and will report back in after a few weeks of training. All the reviews sound too good to be true…so i’m keen to see what results i get.
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Oh boy! First post, but I hear me out. I’m a respiratory therapist by profession. For those not living in North America, or unaware of the profession, we deal with all breathing related issues from diagnostic to therapeutic, including placing breathing tubes, putting patients on ventilators etc.
Essentially this device if making you breather against a resistance. When you breathe in, this resistance hinders you from breathing in, so you use more diaphragm and other accessory muscles to breathe in. When exhaling you are breathing against a resistance, which a) limits the outward flow and primarily helps open up your lungs and b) again you have to use higher muscular effort to breathe out.
You could do the same by breathing in through a straw or blowing a balloon. This device probably has some flow measuring device which they use to tell you what your flows and volumes are, but do you really need those numbers, I doubt it’s as accurate as pulmonary diagnostics.
And this would do nothing for asthma. Asthma and COPD are very, very different .
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Yeah he talks about it from time to time on the EVOQ. Bike channel on youtube. Maybe one of the most underrated cycling youtube channels.
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I agree with you but gamification and making it easier to have a structured workout can make it more likely to do the workouts and have them be productive. The measurements probably aren’t as accurate as real tools but as long as they are accurate enough to show relative differences that’s all that matters to track change and make sure you do enough during a workout.
Should point out they have a device with no Bluetooth and a free app… https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airofit_app
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Anything to report?
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They claimed it will:
“Increase your lung capacity, reduce breathing rate and gain energy” ,
“Airofit allows you to push yourself harder, faster, and for longer”
I am quite skeptical about it and it is not cheap ! USD $300
anyone here using it?
I moved you post under the existing topic. See above for prior discussion.
I’m interested, my lung capacity could definitely be better, but it’s really more expensive.
The Airofit app is now also coupled with Apple Health with HRV and sleep data, sounds very interesting in any case.
For the Premuim features on the App you have to pay extra Money!
Human lungs are massively overengineered - absolute capacity, unless compromised, is almost never the limiting factor in O2 uptake.
Not saying the device is useless, but any performance increase isn’t coming from being able to get more air into the lungs.
It’s not about getting more air into the lungs, its about making it easier to get the air in.
For some people it wont be, but for some the limiter of effort is how hard you’re breathing. If youre ever thinking that youre going hard because youre breathing hard, or backing off because of your breathing rather than your legs, you’ll likely benefit from of the these respiratory muscle trainers.
You dont need a fancy $200 usd one that connects to your phone though, a much cheaper brand that some pro cyclists and triathletes use openly (not many though, I wonder if its more popular but just not sponsored ) and I am sure there are many others doing similar.
Not for everyone but for those who may benefit, will benefit a lot.
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Which other brands are people using?
Just my opinion, but it seems unlikely to provide a material benefit relative to the cost. Most breathing exercises you can look up for free online (e.g., belly breathing). Additionally, you can look up multiple studies on the subject, but most focused on balloon blowing. To summarize a few, subjects tested balloon blowing in different positions or through repetition on a daily basis. While testing revealed improved pulmonary function, it didn’t seem to improve in a really critical way.
My takeaway, you can start incorporating breathing exercises along with yoga (probably good cross training) and blow up a balloon 10-15 times a day while sitting on the sofa and achieve the same pulmonary benefits along with improved core strength, flexibility, and mobility for a fraction of the cost.
It seems like the cheap devices that train inspiratory devices are of limited usefulness.
I’ve been curious about the more expensive devices like the Spirotiger. You read about pros and Olympians using devices like this and getting large gains when they have an identified respiratory limitation but the pricing is not for the casual user ($1000).
This device can train the endurance of the diaphragm and measure other aspects of the respiratory system.
I’ve been wondering if there is a way to DIY a device or find exercises to get maybe 80% of the gains for little or no money.
I posted right above you on the training and gains from pulmonary training. It’s either free or cheap, but you can’t quantify things. Essentially, you’re paying for a machine to provide a baseline value.