Interview with Dr Paul Sumners creator of Youbreathe and Lecturer at South Bank University, London, UK

I recently managed to track down the elusive Dr Paul Sumners in the heart of South West London, and arm wrestle him into an interview. After a considerable and gallant effort to resist, he agreed to tell me what he's been up to, and his future plans for his new invention, youbreathe.

CJ Swaby: First off, I'd like to thank you Paul for taking time out of your hectic schedule to do this interview.

Paul Sumners: It is my pleasure Cj

CJ Swaby: For those who haven't read about youbreathe in fitness magazines or the press, and haven't seen it on television (where have you been?) in brief, can you tell us what youbreathe is all about?

Paul Sumners: youbreathe is a vibration based training device that works on the breathing system to positively influence all aspects of health and performance, it is not just about developing breathing fitness.

CJ Swaby: So how long has youbreathe been in the making? And what inspired you to create it?

Paul Sumners: I have been working on youbreathe for about 10 years now, from conception to research to product. I was working on stimulating the human nervous system and one of the stimuli we were using was vibration. We realised that if used properly vibration can elicit incredible responses from the body. This made us think about how we could apply vibration to firstly alleviate symptoms of disease and secondly could we help athletes and people taking part in general health and fitness programmes. The results have been great, and beyond what we could have hoped for.

CJ Swaby: I've been playing around with the youbreathe for a couple of months now, and have noticed a marked improvement in my recovery and performance in my recent Marathon Training. I read on your website: www.youbreathe.com that you've been testing its effects on strength training - now that REALLY interested me, tell us a bit about what you found and how the mechanism works?

Paul Sumners: [Laughs] everyone always asks me about the effects on strength as it just sounds so bizarre. Basically when you breathe through youbreathe this stimulates some reflexes which are not only specific to the breathing nerves, but also stimulates the nerves to other muscles of the body. So by breathing through youbreathe we can actually increase the strength of the leg muscles for example by about 10%. We are now in the process of including this in a strength training programme, and we are expecting big things. As a gym goer myself I sometimes get bored and disappointed with the apparent lack of progress after feeling like I have put so much effort and time in. We hope youbreathe can help with that.

CJ Swaby: As a Strength and Conditioning Trainer, and athlete myself, the implications are interesting, but what research has been done, and is it valid?

Paul Sumners: Lots of work as been done on the effects on respiratory performance and the effects of respiratory muscle performance on exercise performance. Regarding strength, there is lots of evidence to show the effects of stimulating the respiratory nerves on skeletal muscle control, and we will be publishing our results very soon. We also hope to be publishing our results on youbreathe and it's effects on growth hormone and cortisol, that stuff could be really interesting too.

CJ Swaby: Ok, ok! So for you, what has been the most satisfying moment on your journey since creating youbreathe, and getting it out there?

Paul Sumners: We are involved in research with cystic fibrosis patients and hoping to start work with cerebral palsy patients. This is where we feel like we are having the biggest effects and is the reason we designed youbreathe. But I also get lots of emails from asthma sufferers and people with other disorders who are really getting benefit from using youbreathe and that can be pretty satisfying too.

CJ Swaby: Have you got any other interesting gadgets in the pipeline? And what can we expect from the Exoscience Team for 2008 and beyond?

Paul Sumners: Yes we have loads of new products on the go. We have targeted muscle vibration equipment that puts the vibration at the exercising muscles which is just where it is needed, we hope to have that moving soon. Probably more short term we have a portable altitude simulator which is going to allow everyone to afford the benefits of altitude without the cost and hassle. These are pretty exciting times, and busy!

CJ Swaby: Paul, once again thank you, it's been a pleasure. Good luck with youbreathe and your future developments.

Paul Sumners: My pleasure Cj, thanks for asking me.