Train your lungs like you train everything else
- Inspiratory muscle training (IMT) to strengthen the diaphragm and delay breathlessness under load.
- Cardiovascular endurance programs tailored to your sport and goals.
- Return-to-training breathing retraining after illness, injury or surgery.
- Exercise-induced breathlessness: working out whether it is asthma, a breathing pattern issue, fitness or a combination, and treating it.
Whether you're a runner, a footballer, a swimmer or just want to keep up in your gym class, we build a program around your sport.
What inspiratory muscle training actually does
Your diaphragm and the muscles around your ribs work hard during exercise, and they draw oxygen and blood flow to do it. As they fatigue, more of what you have goes towards simply keeping you breathing — and less to the legs, arms and heart doing the work. Inspiratory muscle training strengthens those breathing muscles so they fatigue later, which leaves more of your capacity where you want it.
Research consistently reports that IMT increases respiratory muscle strength, measured as maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP), and can increase diaphragm thickness — so athletes breathe more efficiently during high-intensity work (Shei et al., 2018). More efficient breathing costs less energy, which can help delay fatigue.
It takes a few minutes a day with a small hand-held device and very little equipment. Crucially, it sits inside your existing program: no extra sessions, no extra load on your legs.
What the research says
Across 29 studies, athletes typically completed around 60 resisted breaths a day over 4–8 weeks, usually split into two short sessions, 3–5 times a week (Hartz, 2018). That's a small enough commitment to fit around a real training schedule.
Intensity matters. Most successful programs train at 50–80% of MIP, and we prescribe 60–70% — high enough to overload the muscle, low enough that you can hold proper diaphragmatic technique and actually stick with it. Training too hard with poor technique wastes the session.
There's also evidence that IMT works better when you do it while you train rather than sitting still. Celik et al. (2025) found athletes doing resisted breathing while walking at 60–80% of maximum heart rate achieved a 20.9% increase in diaphragm thickness and a 20.58% increase in MIP — larger gains than IMT performed at rest. Training the breathing muscles under conditions that resemble competition appears to matter.
How the program works
- Assess. We measure your baseline MIP — how strongly you can breathe in. That number sets your starting resistance, so you're training at a real intensity rather than a guess, and it gives us something objective to re-test against later.
- Train. A short daily routine built into your existing sessions, and where it suits you, performed during aerobic work rather than at rest. We teach the technique properly, because a device used poorly does very little.
- Review. We re-test your MIP, check your technique hasn't drifted and lift the resistance as you get stronger, so the program keeps progressing instead of plateauing.
Why athletes work with us
- Physiotherapists who train too. Our team has many years of experience with active people and a genuine background in endurance sport, including marathon running, so we understand what a training block actually looks like.
- Individually tailored, not off the shelf. Every program starts from your own MIP test, not a generic device setting.
- We come to you. Train at our Hazelwood Park clinic, or we can run the whole thing on-site at your club.
- Outcome-focused. We re-test and adjust as you improve — and we'll tell you honestly if the numbers aren't moving.
For sporting clubs and coaches
We work with clubs as well as individual athletes. On-site, we can educate your coaches and players, demonstrate correct use of the equipment, run baseline MIP assessments for the squad and set up individual programs, so IMT slots into your existing schedule with minimal disruption.
If you coach or manage a club and want to know whether this is worth your athletes' time, ask about a free information session for your coaches and players. No obligation, and we'll be straight with you about what the evidence does and doesn't show.
Call (08) 8364 3706 or email respiratory_physio2@bigpond.com to arrange one.
References
Shei, R-J. et al. (2018), inspiratory muscle training and respiratory muscle strength in athletes. · Hartz, C. (2018), review of 29 inspiratory muscle training studies in athletes. · Celik, Z. et al. (2025), inspiratory muscle training combined with aerobic exercise.
IMT is a training aid, not a treatment for a medical condition, and individual results vary. If you get breathless in a way that seems out of proportion to your fitness, see your GP — and have a look at exercise-induced asthma and shortness of breath, which we assess as well.