Expand-A-Lung

shawn702

 Has anyone ever used the product Expand-A-Lung and what were your observation? I wonder if using this product as an aid going to altitude 7,000ft and greater to race an event  like IMHO? http://www.expand-a-lung.com/?crtag=google1

ebe4zippy

Save yourself s@ome money. Find a friend who has had surgery recently and get the incentive spirometer they have from the hospital. Work on long slow deep inspirations. Build up slowly. The best thing you can do for altitude swimming is do it. Its freaky if you have not experienced it before. Well worth the time and money to know how you will react to the "thin air"

shawn702

@Ebe lol I all ready purchased it (last year). Altitude swimming is odd and as you put it freaky. I guess I will experiment with this.



Things I think I will test

How long I can hold my breath (test once a week)

I will do a swim TT of a 1000 yards once a month

How long I can swim underwater. Thinking once a month pre swim TT



Any testing suggestions would be greatfull 

trisumai

I haven't reviewed this topic in a while but I can tell you re: some pulmonary exercise physiology. For a normal human adult at VO2 max, we should have approximately 40% of ventilatory reserve meaning that we should never hit the point where our lungs limit us. So what does this device do, I believe their goal is to improve inspiratory/expiratory strength. I have not seen the article that is cited but know that inspiratory training has been shown to help patients with significant lung disease. Whether it helps for athletes and whether that data is clinically relevant are not clear. Personally, i don't think that this provides most normal athletes with any significant benefit. I am not clear how this helps at altitude either as the issue that happens here is that there is simply less oxygen in the air, however, our oxygen levels at this altitude are well within normal limits (in normal folks).