Your diaphragm is a powerful and important muscle with a big impact on your health and well-being. It's responsible for drawing critical oxygen into your lungs when flexed and it even helps with digestion.

Without a strong, flexible, and efficient diaphragm, you can experience brain fog, shortness of breath, and fatigue.

But what can you do to actually increase the strength, flexibility, and efficiency of your diaphragm? Well that's where breathing trainers come in!

In this article we will explore what these devices are, what they do, and whether they produce the benefits they claim.

What are breathing trainers?

A breathing trainer is a simple device that restricts airflow to your lungs. You hold it to your mouth and try to pull air through it into your lungs. It requires forceful sucking to draw in a full breath, causing the diaphragm to strain more than it normally would. Some devices even provide resistance on the out breath, providing a workout to different muscles.

Think of it as a dumbbells for your diaphragm.

Usually these devices are made of plastic and have multiple levels of difficulty that you can choose between on the same device. Each level is made more difficult by ever smaller holes to breath through.

Note: Breathing trainers might also be called lung resistance trainers or respiratory muscle training (RMT).

How do you use a breathing trainer?

First, a few safety tips to using breathing trainers:

1. You should always use breathing trainers while sitting down in a safe space. If you accidently strain yourself too much and aren't drawing in enough oxygen, you may pass out.
2. Don't strain yourself so much that you actually pass out! If you're starting to feel dizzy or are getting tunnel vision, stop immediately. Wait a few minutes, adjust the resistance level down, and try again.
3. Start on the easiest level and work your way up.

Sound good?

Okay, with that established, here is how you properly use a breathing trainer:

1. Sit comfortably with you spine strait up, shoulders rolled back, and your head not hunched forward.
2. Fully breath out.
3. Bring the device to your mouth with the desired level of resistance already selected.
4. Properly attach your mouth to the device and start to draw a breath in.
5. [IMPORTANT] While breathing in, focus on belly breathing. Your shoulders should not move up; rather, your belly will extend out. This is the proper way to breath and will draw focus to the diaphragm muscles.
6. Pull in a truly full breath so that you're stretching out your diaphragm. Of course, don't pull in so much that it causes sharp pain.
7. Hold your breath for 4 seconds.
8. If your breathing trainer provides resistance on the out breath as well, start to breath out with a focus on the abs and drawing your belly button to your spine. Try to be explosive with your out breath.
9. Once fully out of breath, draw back in and repeat.
10. Try to do five reps (a rep being a full breath in and out) and three sets, with one minute of focused breathing in-between sets. However, don't keep going if you are feeling dizzy or are getting tunnel vision!

Tip: Your inbreath should last about 5 seconds when pulling at 80% of your max. If you're drawing in a full breath of air in much less than that, increase the resistance.

Do breathing trainers work? What are the benefits?

The short answer is yes, there are a number of real benefits to using breathing trainers.

Namely, breathing trainers have been shown to:

• Cause diaphragm hypertrophy (strengthening of the diaphragm muscles)
• Induce muscle fiber type switching
• Improve neural control of the respiratory muscles
• Increase respiratory muscle efficiency
• Reduce blood needed by respiratory muscles (allowing for more blood flow to other muscles)
• Decrease perceived breathlessness and exertion

All of these benefits should be of particular interest to endurance athletes who rely on an efficient cardiovascular system for peak performance.

Of course, there are a number of potential knock-on benefits that the items listed above could have on the rest of the body. However, it is important to note that nothing beyond these bulleted items have been validated in scientific studies. If someone is claiming miraculous benefits from breathing trainers, you should run the other way.

How do you choose the right breathing trainer?

There are a few things you should consider when trying to choose the right breathing trainer for you: adjustability, size, chemicals, and price.

Adjustability - You want to find a breathing trainer with at least 6 levels of difficulty. If you want to really dial in the difficulty though, there are some with many more. Also, try to find one that provides resistance on the out breath as well.

Size - Ideally, you want to choose one that can easily fit in your pocket or purse. Having one that is very easy to keep near by will increase the likelihood that you remember to use it throughout the day.

Chemicals - Read reviews and look for complaints of chemically smells and off-gassing with the breathing trainer. You'll want to avoid these in order to protect your lungs.

Price - At the end of the day, these are relatively simple devices that shouldn't have to cost you more than $60. You can even find half decent ones for $30, even if they don't have as much adjustability.

My Final Notes

Building a strong, flexible, and efficient diaphragm is possible with the right breathing trainer.

In my view, however, breathing trainers are more important for a much simpler reason: They draw attention to your breath.

In a society that doesn't require as much physical labor, most people breathe very shallowly throughout the day. This can lower your metabolic rate, decrease brain activity, and can lead to greater anxiety.

So, anything that draws your attention breath and makes you breathe deeper is a good thing in my view.