In middle-aged and older adults, five minutes of daily breath training improves exercise tolerance
Despite the numerous proven benefits of exercise, many middle-aged and older people find it difficult to meet recommended levels of physical activity.
According to new research, high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) has the potential to help this demographic make the shift to a healthy lifestyle. The research will be shown this week at the annual meeting of the American Physiological Society, Experimental Biology 2022, which is taking place this week.
Despite the fact that exercise lowers the risk of chronic illness as people age, a 2016 study indicated that 28% of Americans aged 50 and up are physically inactive.
“The development of novel types of physical exercise that improve adherence and physical function is critical to lowering the risk of chronic diseases as people age.”
In midlife and older people, high-resistance IMST may be one such method to encourage adherence and improve several aspects of health, “Kaitlin Freeberg, MS, the lead researcher, adds.”
Inhaling through a handheld device known as a “manual breathing trainer” that provides resistance to the breath is used in IMST. The researchers divided 35 adults aged 50 and up into two groups: high-resistance and low-resistance controls.
Every day for 30 breaths (about five minutes), both groups used a manual breathing trainer for that time. For six weeks, both groups were able to keep up with the plan.
The high-resistance group improved by 12% in a treadmill time to fatigue test after six weeks, while the low-resistance control group showed no change.
In the study, changes in 18 metabolites, mostly ones that “play an important role in energy production and fatty acid metabolism,” were linked to better health in people who had a lot of resistance.
“These preliminary data point to 5 minutes of high-resistance exercise each day. “In [middle-aged and older] individuals, IMST is a promising, highly adherent style of physical training that develops exercise tolerance and alters metabolic pathways,” Freeberg penned the piece.
