Can Sucking on a Straw Replace Jogging?

Working out five minutes a day, without lifting a weight or jogging a step, may be able to reduce your heart attack risk, improve your thinking, and boost your sports performance, suggests preliminary research from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"It's basically strength training for the muscles you breathe in with," explains Daniel Craighead, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Physiology, who is leading a clinical trial of inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST), which involves breathing in vigorously through a hand-held device that provides resistance. Imagine sucking hard through a straw that sucks back.

In the 1980s, patients with lung diseases performed a daily 30-minute, low-resistance regimen to wean...