As a wind instrument player you’ll know how important airflow is, how it affects tone and phrase length, and how your performance can suffer with lack of breathing preparation. Thankfully your breathing muscles can be trained to improve strength and stamina.
In a quasi-experimental trial, researchers examined the impact of a 12-week high-intensity, low-repetition inspiratory muscle training (HI-LRMT) programme on respiratory muscle strength among instrumental musicians. Participants used a POWERbreathe Plus IMT device to perform their training, with results showing significant improvements in maximal inspiratory pressure (PImax) and expiratory pressure (PEmax) over the 12-week training period, highlighting the importance of integrating POWERbreathe respiratory training into musicians’ routines.
Harness Your Breathing To Become A Better Performer
You learn to control your breath by using your diaphragm. Your diaphragm needs to be strong to help you control your breathing and your breathing muscles need to have the stamina to carry you through your performance.
Inspiratory Muscle Training
As a musician you need to take in a large amount of air in a very short time. POWERbreathe Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMT) trains you to do this.
When you breathe in through a POWERbreathe IMT device, all of the muscles of inspiration are activated, and for a musician, POWERbreathe IMT provides a unique stimulus to your inspiratory muscles.
POWERbreathe IMT targets the breathing muscles you use to inhale, primarily your diaphragm and intercostals, using resistance training. This ‘dumbbell for your diaphragm’ improves your breathing strength and stamina. A 12-week programme using POWERbreathe threshold Inspiratory muscle training, which involves short but intense breathing training, helped instrumental musicians strengthen their inspiratory and expiratory muscles.
Flow-Based Breathing Training
In addition to improving inspiratory strength and power with POWERbreathe IMT to generate pressure, improving control of your airflow with the Flow-Ball Ultra and Respiron will help you to improve tone and phrase length. These flow-based breathing trainers are designed to encourage a focused and steady breath.
Expiratory Muscle Training
Expiratory muscle strength helps you to produce vibration on a wind instrument, but it can be a limiting factor if you’re not able to generate enough expiratory pressure. In fact, a combination of reduced expiratory pressure and airflow can affect how loud you’re able to play, and at what pitch.
You can improve your expiratory muscle strength with POWERbreathe EMT. In fact, research shows that expiratory muscle strength training significantly increased expiratory pressure in high school band students after just 2-weeks.
Therefore as a wind instrument player, you should maximise your air input with POWERbreathe IMT and control your output with POWERbreathe EMT.