How to come back from COPD and enjoy life to the fullest again

By James Wills
October 27, 2021

While the Airofit breathing trainer might assist with respiratory issues, Airofit is not a medical device nor made for treating illness.

“At one point I was hospitalized for 14 days and needed of pure oxygen due to the fact that my lungs no longer were working. I was horrified.

To train my lungs and seeing and feeling the effect this has had on me, has given me a new sense of hope that this awful disease previously had deprived me of.”

This article is about how Airofit can have a positive impact on people outside the world of sports. Professional athletes can really benefit from respiratory muscle training, improving their performance by increasing their vital capacity. But they are not the only ones. For many people suffering from lung diseases, training their breathing can give them life-changing improvements and invaluable results. The following story is about one of Airofit’s users who has successfully improved their life just by regularly training their breathing.

THE PROFILE:

Name: PK (anonymized)
Age: 71
Occupation: Bookkeeper (retired)
Tobacco Use: 3-5 cigarettes a day
Diagnosis: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

PK retired from working as a bookkeeper in late 2010 and 5 years later she was diagnosed with COPD. The illness quickly began to limit her daily physical activities. In 2019, she found herself unable to walk for more than 10 minutes, not even 5 minutes to vacuum, and gardening was too unbearable – all because she became out of breath quickly. What was supposed to be her golden retirement turned into a state of disability.

During the same year, PK and her husband came across a physiotherapist who recommended Airofit PRO on Danish National TV. As they had been on the lookout for other solutions aside from PK’s medications, her husband then encouraged her to give Airofit PRO a try. After consistently using it for one year, PK has made outstanding results that change her retirement days for the better.

The training

As the Airofit system carries various training programs, and like many other users, PK was able to build her own training plan according to her needs and goals. Due to her weakened respiratory muscles and low VLC (Vital Lung Capacity), she started off with two training sessions per day, once in the morning and then again in the evening, with 1-minute sessions on the “beginner” level. Quickly, she began to feel that she was able to push herself a bit further. She then increased her routine to 15 minutes per day, also in the morning and evening. Below you will see which Airofit training sessions she has been using and the number of minutes she has done.

Her favourite session is the Elevation and as of today, she has trained a total of 5,459 minutes in the past 12 months. PK has treated training with Airofit as any other habit, at no point was she trying to push herself physically, instead, she focused on training consistently. The number of minutes she has put in actually made her the most active user of Airofit PRO as of October 2020.

The results

Accessible Vital Lung Capacity (AVLC)

At Airofit, we focus on measuring the person’s lung function on a given day. The accessible vital lung capacity measures the maximal volume of air that one’s lungs can inhale/exhale in one breath. It is recommended to take the lung tests at the same time of day and before any main meals. What is important here is to be consistent with the way the lung tests are performed.

The graph below shows PK’s change in calculated vital lung capacity over the past 52 weeks.

The results displayed above of P.K.’s vital lung capacity progression over the past 52 weeks speaks for itself. From the start, P.K. had on average 1.67 liters of air accessible in her lungs and today she has increased that to 2.64 liters.

This means she has increased her vital lung capacity by a stunning 58%.

Conclusion

This article is an example of a user who trains their breathing without athletic purposes and yet made life-changing improvements. The measurements have clearly shown that after a year of training, she has been able to increase her vital lung capacity, and inspiratory and expiratory muscle strength. But the fascinating part is not merely about the numbers.

A big portion of it comes from how much easier PK’s daily life is now. PK claimed to have experienced a great change in her physical activities, as of October 2020 she can walk for 30minutes and do vacuum cleaning for an hour. Furthermore, she described in her own words what training with Airofit has done for her:

”At one point I was hospitalized for 14 days and was in need of pure oxygen due to the fact that my lungs no longer were working. I was horrified.

When I was discharged from the hospital I was given two types of inhalation medicines. I still use these today but I haven’t increased the dose and in fact, I strongly believe that because I physically am in a completely different place than I was before, I feel confident that I should be able to lay off the medicine.

I wanted to do my part in avoiding COPD coming even worse, and simultaneously I did not want to be totally dependent on the medicine. My quality of life has improved as I now am able to take an active part in my grandchildren’s lives and hopefully I will be able to continue to do so for many years to come.

To train my lungs and see and feel the effect this has done for me, has given me a new sense of hope that this awful disease previously had deprived me of. Therefore I can strongly recommend others to purchase an Airofit and stay fit!”

The data from PK is just a small example out of the many thousands others who have used Airofit consistently over a longer period of time. This has proven to us that we can all achieve big and that it is never too late to make improvements in our lives.