Breath Right Nasal Strips have been around for a few years now. From time to time we even see them on professional athletes. They open up the nasal passage slightly – in other words they make getting air down towards the lungs a little easier. In fact, if you grip with the tips of your index finger and thumb on the bony parts of your nose and squeeze up and together slightly you can feel the passage way open up a bit.
Problem is when it comes to endurance performance getting air in your nose is not a limiting factor to performance.
To make an analogy: imagine a three lane highway in peak time that narrows into one lane. By making the first part of the highway four, not three, lanes is not going to make a difference to the limiting step.
In the case of VO2 max, the limiting step is generally accepted to be the delivery of the oxygen to the muscles. This is why popular methods to increase endurance performance focus on this aspect (for example increased ability of blood to carry oxygen that comes with blood doping and altitude training).
In short: Don’t waste your time and money on these. If you have snoring or nasal issues and this is the reason you are not performing well then it is a whole different story…
