Can You Do Inspiratory Muscle Training (IMST) Breathing Exercise Without a Device?
- Dmitri Konash
- Aug 29, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: May 29
What is IMST blood pressure? Does Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) lowers blood pressure? How Does IMST Breathing Exercise Without a Device Work? Best Apps For IMST Breathing
Slow breathing exercises have been known for years to help lower high blood pressure [1]. You can try a 4-7-8 breathing to lower blood pressure yourself and observe its positive impact by checking this video. The new breathing technique called Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) has been recently shown to produce superior results in lowering blood pressure as compared to 4-7-8 breathing, 48 breathing or box breathing exercises.
What are Inspiratory Muscle Training and IMST breathing?
A study from researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder, which was published in the Journal of American Heart Association [2], demonstrates a new simple breathing exercise to lower blood pressure.
All it takes is just 30 deep breaths to lower blood pressure, boost vascular health, and potentially reduce your chances of developing serious cardiovascular disease.
It is a highly convenient and easy-to-perform method that could improve the health of millions of people with high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems. The method is called Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST), a form of training specifically created to exercise the diaphragm and other breathing muscles, using a device that provides resistance when someone inhales through it [3].
How does inspiratory muscle training work?
Originally developed in the 1980s for those who suffer from respiratory issues, IMST technique requires you to inhale really hard on a device that provides resistance.
According to the researchers, IMST was usually prescribed to people to do for a half-hour a day "at low resistance." In the current research it has been used like a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) — quicker, higher resistance repetitions.
How does breathing become an active process?
Usually, any person at rest is breathing passively, provided he has normal respiratory muscle activity. By using IMST devices, breathing becomes an active process. This means there is the energy needed to carry out the breathing against the resistance provided by the device. The resistance tones and strengthens the muscles used in the breathing process.
What muscles are trained in this exercise?
The muscles of breathing are trained in IMST, which include:
The diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle separating the chest from the abdomen
External Intercostals of the ribcage
Abdominal Muscles
How does IMST impact blood pressure?
Patients with COPD and asthma have used IMST to aid in breathing. Many types of research have also been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these exercises in lowering blood pressure. It has been found that these exercises positively affected heart health and gradually reduced systolic pressure. Researchers propose that IMST increases the vasodilator nitric oxide NO in the body.1 This lowers the blood pressure by decreasing the resistance to blood flow.
How have they tested IMST to make sure that it works?
The researchers assembled 36 healthy volunteers between the ages of 50 and 79 with healthy blood pressure numbers. Half the group were randomly assigned to do high-resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training, using devices that make it significantly harder to inhale through, giving the breathing muscles a higher-intensity workout.
The other half of the group also did IMST for 1.5 months, but were effectively given a placebo: a sham treatment that used low-resistance versions of the device.
IMST to Lower Blood Pressure: It is just as good for you as walking
At the end of the study, those who did the more intense form of breathing exercise had a 9-point drop in their systolic blood pressure—"a reduction which generally exceeds that achieved by walking 30 minutes a day five days a week," say the study authors. "That decline is also equal to the effects of some blood pressure-lowering drug regimens." "This improvement in Systolic Blood Pressure is clinically meaningful because it is associated with a 30 percent to 40 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease," the researchers explain.
The other important comment from the research: "even six weeks after they quit doing IMST, they maintained most of that improvement."
This research is particularly relevant for post-menopausal women
The study highlights that previous scientific research has found that postmenopausal women—don't "reap as much benefit from aerobic exercise programs as men do when it comes to vascular endothelial function," which refers to the inner lining of your blood vessels. With Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training, they do. "If aerobic exercise won't improve this key measure of cardiovascular health for postmenopausal women, they need another lifestyle intervention that will," researches noted in the release. "This could be it."
Why IMST is an "Enjoyable Treatment"
Researchers found that the technique seems easy to actually commit to: 95% of participants in the study completed everything that was required from their 5-minute exercise sessions.
This is an important finding, given an adult's level of adherence to doing the generally recommended 30 minutes of physical activity per day is estimated to be under 5%. It may be as effective as breathing apps to lower blood pressure.
Inspiratory muscle training for athletes?
The study notes that previously done research connects IMST to sports performance. Building up endurance of respiratory muscles means that you get less fatigued while exercising for extended periods of time. This is mainly a current hypothesis which requires further research.
How to do IMST breathing without a device?
First, you have to resist the airflow through your nostrils by constricting your nose with your thumb and index finger while keeping your mouth closed. Resist the inhalation of air but do exhalation freely. It should be very difficult to inhale. Next, sit back, relax with your spine erect and take six deep breaths in one minute.
Continue to do this for 5 minutes. This would make 30 deep breaths in total. You can repeat this 5-minute exercise as much as you want and when needed.
The breathing exercise would not only help your respiratory muscles but also make you feel more relaxed and calmer. You will feel reduced stress as well. In addition, doing this a few times a day will significantly improve your health and reduce cardiovascular complications.
You should be able to take just about ¼ of the air as compared to your regular deep inhale and you should feel your diaphragm rising.
Does inspiratory muscle training without device really work?
I have not conducted a formal research on this but every time I was doing this exercise over two weeks it DID result in reducing my Systolic blood pressure by 5-9 points. Check out the video which explains the technique in detail and includes a 5 Min follow along exercise. As of April 2025 this video accumulated over 60K views and this demonstrates high level of interest in this topic,
How mobile apps can help with IMST breathing exercise?
Once you tried IMST breathing without device by following our YouTube video, you may consider exploring mobile apps which could deliver a similar experience off-line. Here are the main reasons why breathing apps are becoming very popular these days for users looking for a convenient way to use breathing exercises to lower blood pressure:
- Breathing apps allow to enjoy breathing exercises with connecting to internet
- They have a selection of breathing exercises to choose from in one place
- Best apps offer opportunity to customize breathing patterns to suit individual needs
Best IMST Breathing Apps To Lower Blood Pressure
As of April 2025 I found only few apps and devices on the market which include IMST breathing exercise.
PowerBreathe is one of the IMST breathing devices which hep to perform IMST breathing exercise. As expected for this kind of complex device it comes with a steep price tag.
This IMST device comes with different levels of resistance that can be easily calibrated.
As we explained above you do not necessarily require a device to perform IMST breathing. For great user experience and also for much lower cost you can achieve the same results in lowering blood pressure by using our blood pressure app BreathNow.
BreathNow is a blood pressure app and heart rate monitor in one. It offers users not only a convenient way to log and track their blood pressure and pulse, but also a set of exercises which help to lower anxiety, pulse and high blood pressure without medications. It includes the most popular breathing exercises like 4-7-8 breathing, box breathing and of course IMST breathing without device to lower blood pressure. Please try this app for free on the Apple Appstore and let us know in the comments how it worked for you.
Update April 2025. We made IMST and other breathing exercise for high blood pressure available on Apple Watch. This means that BreathNow has become also a blood pressure app for Apple Watch. Please give it a try and let us know what you think.
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