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Sport Performance Enhancement Program

Halotherapy performed in an artificial Salt Cave for Sports Performance Enhancement Addressing pulmonary limitations to performance in sports.

When you're an athlete, as you know every advantage counts. Halotherapy for Sports Performance Enhancement can help you get that edge over the competition.

The primary goal of every athlete is to achieve their absolute maximum potential. One of the most important determinants of whether this is possible to improve their breathing pattern.

Poor breathing patterns will:

  • Limit oxygen exchange
  • Reduce stamina and performance
  • Increase the production of lactic acid and subsequently leave the athlete with residual muscle soreness
  • Increase dehydration
  • Increase the occurrence of cramps
  • Greatly lengthen recovery time
  • Elevate the heart rate
  • Increase anxiety
  • Decrease concentration
  • Increase the likelihood of injury in training and competition
  • Decrease energy levels
  • Contribute to poor sleep patterns

 

The aim of Halo / Salt Therapy in Sports Program is to normalize the breathing pattern. When the body is working within its physiologically normal parameters it can work at an increased level of performance. Stamina and endurance are maximized and all of the above are reversed. Athletes find that once they have corrected their breathing pattern, they can achieve better performance with less breath. This means athletes would have more air in reserve and hence have increased as well as have optimal performance. When you want to win, you have to get that edge.

There are known respiratory conditions and pulmonary limitations among athletes:

  • Air flow obstruction leading to performance reduction
  • Increased bronchial responsiveness
  • Exposure to airborne allergens and other unwanted inhaled particles
  • Respiratory illnesses and conditions such as asthma, allergy, airway inflammation

 

Solution

Dry saline aerosol inhalation, or known as Halotherapy successfully addresses the needs of athletes.

Dry saline aerosol inhalation treatment is clinically proven:

  • To clear mucus from the airways thus removing airflow obstruction
  • To enhance mucociliary clearance mechanism in both asthmatic and healthy subjects
  • To balance airway-surface liquid
  • To provide anti-inflammatory and bactericidal effects
  • To reduce bronchial hyperresponsiveness
  • To improve lung function
  • To help clear unwanted inhaled particles from lungs
  • As a drug-free treatment for asthma, bronchitis, CF and sinusitis

Thus, integrating Halotherapy with other nonpharmacologic therapies can lead to better lung function and improved performance as well as both prevention and treatment of respiratory conditions among athletes.

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Why athletes have a need for lung function improvement?

Athletes who participate in environments in which there may be environmental pollutants are at increased risk for the development of EIB (Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction). Chlorine compounds in swimming pools and chemicals related to ice-resurfacing machinery in ice rinks may put certain populations of athletes at additional risk. Particulate matter and gases such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, which are abundant in indoor ice arenas, and chlorine from swimming pools may act as allergic "triggers" and may exacerbate bronchospasm in athletes who are predisposed to EIB. Helenius and Haahtela showed a 96-fold greater risk of asthma in atopic swimmers when compared to nonatopic control subjects when atopy and swimming were included in multivariate statistical analysis. Leuppi et al found a 35% incidence of airway hyperresponsiveness in a group of ice-hockey players. In addition, figure skaters have been shown to have a high incidence of EIB.


Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction

Although athletes who compete in high-ventilation or endurance sports are more likely to experiences symptoms of EIB than those who participate in low-ventilation sports, EIB can occur in any setting. It is especially prevalent in endurance events such as cross-country skiing, swimming, and long-distance running in which ventilation is increased for long periods of time during training and competition, allowing for relatively more evaporative water loss and subsequent airway narrowing. There is also increased prevalence of EIB in winter sports athletes, which is thought to be due in part to the increased cooling of airways and the relative increase in reactive hyperemia in the pulmonary vasculature. It is important for athletes, coaches, and trainers supervising athletes in these "higher risk" sports to be aware of the increased incidence of EIB in these populations of athletes.

The prevalence rates of bronchospasm related to exercise in athletes range from 11 to 50%, and up to 90% of subjects with asthma will have EIB. Wilber at al found that 18 to 26% of Olympic winter sport athletes and 50% of cross-country skiers were found to have EIB. Of the 50 elite summer athletes studied, with and without asthma, Holzer et al found 50% to have EIB. Mannix et al studied 124 elite figure skaters and tested them on an ice rink during their figure-skating routines. Thirty-five percent had a significant postexercise drop in their FEV1. The US Olympic Committee reported an 11.2% prevalence of EIB in all athletes who competed in the 1984 summer Olympics, according to the article "Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction in Athletes"1 Elite male athletes, especially competitive swimmers, have an increased risk of wheezing, coughing, and other respiratory symptoms as well as increased risk of asthma, according to Danish researchers who studied 62 athletes. Thomas Lund, MD, from Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, said more than a third of the athletes studied had respiratory symptoms and 21% had asthma.


Disadvantages of Pharmacologic Therapy

The most common therapeutic recommendation for minimizing or preventing symptoms in athletes who have EIB is the prophylactic use of short-acting bronchodilators (ie, ß2-receptor agonists) such as albuterol shortly before exercise. ß2-agonists are considered to be the most effective therapy for the prevention of symptoms of EIB in asthmatic patients. Treatment with two puffs of a short-acting ß2-receptor agonists shortly before (15 minutes) exercise will provide peak bronchodilation in 15 to 60 minutes and protection from EIB for at least 3 hours in most patients. However, the overuse of ß2-agonists has been shown to result in tachyphylaxis and to worsen symptoms of EIB and asthma.


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