Iron Edge is one of Australia’s most respected strength training brands. They stand out from the crowd by promoting hard core dead-serious training, no fads, no gimmicks and no shortcuts. They have been in the strength training game for over 12 years now and are very selective about the products they promote.
When it comes to Training Mask, here is what they have to say about it.
“This evil little training device is designed to work one of the least thought about or trained aspects of fitness and conditioning – breathing.”
Your respiratory capacity will pretty much dictate how well you can perform when you’re engaged in any kind of physical activity, particularly when doing longer, high intensity workouts. Yet, so few people, professional athletes included, focus on improving their respiratory system.
Your body’s ability to intake and use oxygen is one of the biggest contributors to energy production and fatigue management, so if you are not working on developing your lungs, your diaphragm, your intercostal muscles, you will not be able to perform at 100%.
“The idea is simple. Restricting air flow to the body forces you to engage your diaphragm and intercostal muscles responsible for inhalation and exhalation to a much greater extent.”
Being mostly a company which promotes strength training, Iron Edge immediately associated Training Mask with a sort of weight training, but for your whole respiratory system.
Everybody knows that all your skeletal muscles grow stronger when you lift heavy weights by adapting to that stimulus. That’s exactly what Training Mask does for your respiratory muscles (which are skeletal muscles as well).
The more resistance you add to your breathing the stronger they will become. You have 6 interchangeable Air Resistance Caps you can use to simulate that progressive overload type of training on your breathing.
“It feels like to gigantic hands trying to suffocate you as you get through your training program. If you can get passed that initial panic response of trying to rip it off, then you are doing it well.”
This is probably the first things everyone is experiencing when trying on the Training Mask. We highly recommend to start off with the easiest air resistance setting before jumping into more advanced types of training.
In fact, at first you can simply wear the Training Mask when you are not performing any exercise at all. Just breathe through it, see how it feels, get to know it and when you get comfortable with it start doing some light intensity activities such as stretching, walking or maybe light jogging.
Just start simple and work your way up. If you dive into it too fast you might feel like it is too much and bash it out without actually giving it a proper try out.
“If you don’t fall into a focused state you will really struggle. It’s almost like the Training Mask forces you to focus on breathing effectively, which is often the most neglected part of everyone’s training.”
Finally, the guys over at Iron Edge mentioned something that most people who have used the Training Mask for a while and have got comfortable with wearing it will tell you – it works on a mental level as well, not just on a physical level.
You know how you hear all these motivational speeches telling you that having the right mind set and being focused is all you need? Well, we strongly believe that to be true when it comes to training as well. The mind controls the muscles after all.
If you can become more focused, more determined and really concentrate on your training including your movements and your breathing you will definitely become a better athlete.
