I’ve ben using the Airofit since January 1, 2022. I got the non-bluetooth model (“Airofit Active”) which cost me less than $100 CDN. A really solid, well constructed device, which continues to perform like it was new. The Airofit app provides you with progressive exercises every day but you can’t measure anything. You adjust the resistance and follow the exercises and then try to determine if you have gotten improved breath function over time.
In my opinion, after using the device for 4 months (every day for between 10 minutes at the beginning to nearly 30 minutes now in two sessions per day) I would say I notice improved breathing and lower heart rate at higher levels of exertion. I wouldn’t say the effect is dramatic, but it does appear noticeable. In fact, I continue to use it every day because I do believe my breathing is less laboured and less of a limiter than it was pre-Airofit.
i ordered the new Airofit 2.0 today, very good price 249 EUR/USD and lifetime Membership for the App, normally the Mebership costs arround 40 EUR/USD a year.
I am curious how it works and if i have a benefit of it, anyway there is a option to give it back after 45 days
I don’t think it’s snake oil but it’s a very limited tool. It only trains the inspiratory and expiratory muscles.
Top athletes are training their diaphragm’s endurance because the diaphragm can consume 20% of your VO2 at a maximal effort. This requires a Spirotiger device which costs like 1000 euros. I’ve heard that the swiss mountain bikers are very devoted to this type of training. Also, a lot of cross country skiiers.
I suspect that you don’t hear about us common folk using these techniques because the equipment is expensive and you are chasing those last few percentage points of performance.
This will give you an idea:
Coach Steve Neal has posted a bit over on Fasttalk about respiratory training.
I tried this for a few weeks, it was a pain in the ass and I wasn’t sure it was actually helping me. So I stopped. I’ll sell it to anyone willing to try it! LOL
My feeling is that the limiter is not my ability to transfer gas into and out of my lungs. It is more about getting the oxygen from my lungs into my blood.
That’s a really common and valid distinction — and you’re both right to a degree. For most trained cyclists the primary limiter at VO2max is cardiac output (stroke volume × heart rate), not ventilatory capacity. So if your aerobic system is already well-developed, IMT alone won’t move the needle much.
That said, where Airofit tends to show benefit is a bit more indirect: at high intensities the respiratory muscles can compete with the legs for blood flow (the “respiratory muscle steal” effect), and reducing the effort cost of breathing frees up more cardiac output for working muscles. The research on this is reasonably solid — Harms et al. showed ~1L/min improvement in leg blood flow when respiratory work is unloaded at near-maximal efforts.
So it’s not about improving gas exchange per se — it’s more about making breathing less metabolically expensive, so your heart can prioritise the legs. Whether that’s worth the effort depends a lot on the individual and how hard you’re actually working those respiratory muscles.
