Western countries are struggling under a mountain of supersized personal blubber with people increasingly unwilling to suffer the discomfort that aerobic exercise entails.
Just breathing becomes seriously traumatic when you first start to exercise (many people never experience any other from of difficulty when exerting themselves, eg muscle pain, because their breathing difficulties keep their activity in check -and then they stop).
Today’s invention is a system which can reduce breathing distress and thus prolong exercise.
Running carrying an oxygen cylinder is an unattractive option. So imagine a light facemask with simple flapvalves at both inlet and outlet. A battery-powered fan, like that in a hairdryer, blasts air continuously onto the outside of the mask (when activated). The airflow from the fan impinges on the inlet valve which opens when the wearer breathes in -providng him/her with an extra jet of oxygen in the same way as an automtive supercharger works.
When the wearer breathes out, the inlet valve is shut and the outlet valve forced open. With the inlet closed, its air flow is directed, via a kind of U-bend, across the outlet valve -forming a region of sharply decreased pressure and thus sucking more of the wearer’s exhalation from the lungs.
This might be valuable for either the very unfit or eg soldiers on a battlefield working at the limit of their physical abilities.
