Flexi-bar

Hi,

This week I want to talk a little bit about another vibration related training modality - Flexi-bar. I actually know the distributors of this product and the guy from all the videos, Steve Schiemer. Before we get on to the product, I would like to say that Steve is a really great guy and knows what he is talking about.


Flexi-bar is an interesting device and the theory behind it is sound. I tried one for a few weeks and found it to be challenging but also interesting. Maybe this is where it's real benefit lies, making training varied and fun. Some of my colleagues at London South Bank University, Drs Jo Bowtell and Katya Mileva did some testing and found that there were differences in muscle recruitment with Flexi-bar but the investigations were not deep enough to allow real conclusions to be drawn. It looked like Flexi-bar was doing something.

I haven't seen the athletic version yet, but I think for core stability training it could be an excellent addition to a training programme. I know Wayne Rooney's girlfriend Coleen McLoughlin has been seen using one plus I know a few sports teams use them especially in Germany.

Hope this helps

Best wishes

youbreathe vibration breathing training and Taekwondo

Hi,

This week I want to report on some youbreathe users who have had some great success. Jaguar Taekwondo are using youbreathe as part of their training regimes and as a recovery tool during competition. They report have faster recovery profiles and greater endurance during fights.

We decided to go along and watch their latest competition which was held at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre on Sunday 8th July. They had 7 fighters competing in total and they finished with 2 golds, 1 silver and 3 bronzes, which could have been higher if not for injury.

I always feel immensely proud when I see youbreathe users doing well. I am not saying that their success is down to youbreathe but that youbreathe has played even a small part in their success. This is immensely gratifying for me.

Watching these athletes was also incredible. Then speed, stamina and skill they demonstrated was exceptional. They are coached by Dr Dave Cook who is a biomechanist, and he has done a great job with his athletes.

Cystic Fibrosis

Tomorrow I have a meeting with a cystic fibrosis clinician who wants to use youbreathe for his patients. We have known for a long time now that as well as breathing improvements, we can also utilise youbreathe for clearing mucus in cystic fibrosis, asthma, cancer plus other diseases. This is why we created youbreathe, to solve problems like this, and I hope youbreathe can be available to everyone who needs it. After all youbreathe is for everyone who breathes!

Human Growth Hormone continued

Hi,

I am going to continue to talk a little more about human growth hormone responses, but this week I want to talk a little more about breathing. When we designed youbreathe we did so with neuromuscular and hormonal responses in mind. We knew that growth hormone responded very strongly to vibration with exercise, and we knew there were effects of breathing on growth hormone responses. We always had in mind to see if youbreathe would cause growth hormone responses as the theory predicted.

We have some prelim results and it certainly looks promising. We have a couple of elite sprinters and some strength and conditioning coaches trying programmes out with youbreathe use for strength, sprint and power training. All feedback so far has been very positive.

We have several programmes developed so far but we need to continue the research to see which gives the best responses. In the next couple of weeks I will provide here a beta version for you to try in your own training regime. It makes training harder but the potential benefits will be well worth it.

We hope to be able to apply this to many clinical situations were atrophy is a problem and also maybe to obesity.

See you next time

Human Growth Hormone

Hi,

I am going to get back onto my normal thread this week by talking more generally about vibration training. I would like to talk about hormonal responses to vibration training, specifically human growth hormone. Generally there are very conflicting responses to vibration training largely because of the variation in the methods used and protocols followed. But in growth hormone responses the situation seems a lot more clear. Vibration definitely affects growth hormone responses! There still does seem to be some variability in these responses depending upon the muscle chosen to be vibrated, some muscles such as the soleus (which is a more slow type muscle) can cause a depression in growth hormone release.

One point which does seem to clarify this whole situation is that vibration combined with strength training stimulates human growth hormone release more than either vibration or strength training alone. For a long time now I have never thought of vibration training as a replacement for conventional training, but as an adjunct to other forms of training. This info about human growth hormone release seems to support that view, which is bad news for the lazy amongst us.

Also in the treatment of many clinical conditions treatment of artificial growth hormone is prescribed, with signficant side effects, but encouraging the body to produce it's own growth hormone seems a much more sensible and safe idea.

These are the reasons we developed out vibration training solutions such as youbreathe and vibrex which superimpose the vibrations on to traditional exercise. And the results we get are excellent.

OK, I promised you a download for training yourself to perform abdominal breathing, and it is done and tested now.

Please click this link for the training manual.

http://www.youbreathe.com/general/pdf/abdominal%20breathing%20user%20manual.pdf

Thanks

More hyperventilation problems

Hi,

I would like to continue this week on the same theme as last week.

This problem of breathing too much because of chest breathing is intriguing me. I have continued trawling the literature and it seems that this problem can be a cause of many other cardiovascular and respiratory disorders such as asthma, variant angina, coronary spasm and sudden death plus other problems such as migraine and spastic colon. These many problems seem to occur as a result of the blood becoming alkaline which leads to constriction of airways and blood vessels.

As I talked about last week, by retraining the breathing to be abdominal instead of chest breathing, the breathing can be slowed whilst still fully oxygenating the blood and avoiding the blood becoming alkaline. This seems to have a protective effect for many of the problems mentioned above and more.

For these reasons I think long term use of youbreathe for slowing the breathing could be so important for maintenance of optimal health long term. For this reason I am in the process of producing an abdominal breathing user manual with exercises for retraining the breathing pattern. I will post that here and on the youbreathe website when it is finished.

Have a great week.

youbreathe and back pain

Hi,

This week I want to talk a little about using youbreathe and it's potential effects on back pain. Seems like a strange connection to make, but there could actually be a strong benefit of regular youbreathe use on treating back pain.

Let me explain. One chronic problem that can lead to very diverse negative symptoms is chronic hyperventilation (breathing to much and too quickly). Most people actually breathe too much and this has been explained as a probable cause of many diseases such as some cases of asthma and various cardiovascular diseases. Now when you hyperventilate your blood carbon dioxide level goes down which leads to a removal of the neural drive to the breathing muscles. So if the drive to the diaphragm is lower it means the diaphragm is in a more relaxed state. The diaphragm also has a role to play in core stability and stabilising the mid to lower spine, so this means that a more relaxed diaphragm gives less support to the lower back, possibly risking injury.

Additionally, chest breathing and not using the diaphragm means that you are not going to oxygenate the blood very well, and also the blood will become more alkaline, meaning oxygen transport is compromised.

This has certainly been my experience. I have suffered from back pain since I was in my mid teens but since developing youbreathe and using it regularly my back pain has cleared up. I still do my stretching as a flexible back is also very important for injury prevention and health. For more info on youbreathe please visit www.youbreathe.com

There are too many potential symptoms for me to cover in this blog, but the exciting part is that using youbreathe with it's vibration can enable people to relearn abdominal breathing quickly and permanently.

For more info on back pain please visit these sites:

NHS - Back Pain

Back pain general information

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke - Back Pain

Back pain tutorial - prevention

Please visit the abdominal breathing section of the downloads page on the youbreathe website : http://www.youbreathe.com/

Hope this is all clear.

Have a great week.

What is youbreathe?

Hi,



Some feedback I have had about this blog from friends is people reading this might not know what youbreathe is. So this week I will explain a little more about youbreathe but without trying to make this into a sales pitch.



youbreathe is a hand-held device that applies the principles of vibration to the breathing muscles. There are currently several respiratory muscle training products on the market but non of them utilise vibration. So youbreathe allows people to train their breathing muscles without any discomfort or great effort. We have submitted some results recently showing that using this device for a little as 10 breaths can increase breathing performance by up to 15%. Obviously when you train long term the benefits are much greater than this. So breathing in and out of youbreathe for around 5 mins a day, 5 days a week can have amazing effects on performance.



Another colleague who is a national strength and conditioning association coach has been using youbreathe and found that when he goes for a run he gets into the zone so quickly since using youbreathe. Again this is great for me to hear that something I invented can actually help someone. For more info please see www.youbreathe.com.



OK, I hope this clears up what youbreathe is.



I am going to start working on some youbreathe exercises that are combined with eastern philosophy and some visualisation exercises, as training the body and mind is far superior to training just the body.



Ok have a great week, see you next post.



Bye