Most cyclist concentrate on improving our physical strength, core stability and endurance to becoming fitter, stronger, faster on the bike. We upgrade our bikes and kit looking for all those marginal gains that will, hopefully, improve our times, speed and enable us to ride further and longer than ever before.
However, there is, in my opinion, one area that the majority of us (myself included, until recently) overlook when it comes down to our training and that is training our respiratory system. Stronger breathing muscles enable cyclists/athletes to improve their performance in high intensity and endurance sports. Training your breathing muscles, prolongs the time until they fatigue, and thereby prolonging oxygen supply to muscles used during exercise. Prolonging the oxygen supply to your muscles will increase the time until your muscles start to burn from the extreme effort/stress your are putting them under. The anaerobic threshold kicks in when the intensity of exercise is highly increased, and the aerobic system can no longer keep up with the energy demand.
By training your respiratory muscles and increasing your respiratory strength you increase anaerobic tolerance we also increase our bodies’ resistance toward lactate and we will be able to perform at higher intensities for longer periods, decreasing muscle fatigue and lowering our recovery time.
I have recently purchased the AiroFit respiratory strength training system and have been using this for 10 minutes a day since early March 2020. Like most people I was a little apprehensive that this would have any benefit to my riding, times, recovery. AiroFit claim to make up to 15% improvement in your performance after 8 weeks of regular training. Now that is some improvement! I’d be happy with that! Over the last few years, as a rider in his late 40’s, and now just turned 50, I was finding that big efforts on the bike were taking longer to recover from (sometimes 2-3 days if I really pushed hard) I was very interested to see what, if any, benefits I would experience using the AiroFit respiratory strength training system.
Now, unfortunately, the arrival of my AiroFit coincided with the COVID19 lockdown here in Spain. Whilst not being able to go out riding I was able to continue with my respiratory strength training whilst in lockdown, which I did religiously, every day during the lockdown period. What, if anything, have I noticed now that I am back out riding
- On big efforts my breathing is more controlled than it was before and I definitely feel like I can push harder for longer
- My recovery rate from these hard efforts has been massively reduced.
- I can quickly get my breathing back under control whilst riding enabling me to push on and ride harder than before
- I have been breaking PB’s that I set up to 6 years ago
- Previously, with the gearing on my road bike I could pedal up to 66kph now I have hit 74kph pedalling top speed
- I sleep more deeply
- My asthma is nowhere near as bad as it usually is
- In now breathe more deeply than before both on and off the bike
My vital lung capacity has increased from 3.4 to 4.4litres. My maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressure has also increased significantly since I commenced the training.
This means the strength of the muscles around my lungs and therefore the volume of air I can inhale and expel with each breath has improved therefore increasing the oxygen supply to my muscles whilst training making my body more efficient during exercise.
As you can tell I am very happy with the results I have seen and have already recommended the AiroFit system to friends and clients. There are other systems on the market, I like the feedback you get from the AiroFit system. I am not on commission with AiroFit!
