Nasal Strips Are Back. Here's What They Can't Fix.

Mouth taping is having a moment. Nasal strips are visible again on NFL sidelines, on tennis players, on the marathon stars who quietly never stopped wearing them. James Nestor's bestseller Breath spent months on the New York Times bestseller list and pushed the science of nasal breathing into the wellness mainstream.¹ Box breathing made its way from Navy SEAL training, where retired Commander Mark Divine popularized it through SEALFIT, into office wellness programs and biohacker stacks.²

For elite endurance athletes, the breathing question is even louder. Running coaches and gait analysts have built entire YouTube channels around video breakdowns of marathon greats. The most famous is Eliud Kipchoge's sub-two hour run in Vienna in October 2019, the first marathon ever completed under that barrier. Coaches point to moments in the footage where Kipchoge appears to be breathing through his nose while his pacers are mouth-breathing.

Kipchoge himself disagrees. Asked about it directly on Dr. Rangan Chatterjee's Feel Better, Live More podcast, he said he breathes through his mouth, and that sustained nasal breathing isn't viable at marathon race pace.³ The interpretation gap is real. Coaches think he's doing one thing. He says he's doing another.

That disagreement is interesting, and it captures something true about the moment: elite athletes and the trainers who study them are paying more attention to the nose than they have in decades.

What none of them are paying attention to is what's going on inside the nose.

What the strip can't fix

Nasal strips work mechanically. They lift the outside of the nostrils (nasal wall), which widens the nasal valve, an area that restricts airflow. By physically opening up the valve, this helps to improve airflow by lowering resistance at the narrowest segment of the nasal airway. Wong and Johnson measured the effect in a controlled study using the airflow perturbation device: strips lowered nasal resistance by an average of 0.5 cm H2O/Lps, from an average of 5.5, so roughly a tenth of the total.⁴ That is the entire job, and it is a genuinely useful one. The strip simply does not change what's going on inside the nose.

The nose acts as the body’s primary air filter, so as a result, inside the nose, a layer of debris builds up every single day. The skin and hair inside the first two centimeters of each nostril (known as the anterior nares) function to remove particles in the air. Every breath drags pollen, dust, mold spores, smoke, pollution, and germs across the skin and hair in that region. The mucus traps it. Over the course of a day it dries into a layer of crusty debris (boogers) that sits right at the front of the airway, in every person who breathes, every single day.

For an elite athlete, this matters more than for most people:

1. They breathe more. At full effort a trained endurance athlete moves many times the volume of air they do at rest. Whatever is in the air, they are getting more of it.
2. They train in conditions that load the nose. Outdoor pollen-saturated mornings, hot dusty afternoons, gym HVAC, indoor courts with rubber dust, cold dry winter air, long-haul travel cabins at around 10 percent humidity.⁵ Every environment a pro athlete cycles through delivers a different particulate load to the same small piece of anatomy.
3. The strip optimizes the structural bottleneck, but buildup still restricts airflow. The nasal valve is one bottleneck. The intranasal debris sitting inside the nostrils is a second one, sitting right inside the nose, underneath the strip. Open the valve wider but you’re still moving air across crud.

The performance case for cleansing

In a 2025 pilot study presented at AAAAI San Diego, researchers measured what happens when the anterior nares are actively cleaned in young athletes. The cohort was small (nine collegiate and high-school baseball players, ages 17 to 19) but the rhinomanometry data was direct:

• 47% reduction in nasal resistance at five minutes after a single cleansing session
• 25% increase in airflow at five minutes
• The effect partially rebounded by ten minutes, but the cohort maintained an overall 12% improvement in resistance from baseline⁶

The study is a pilot, not a phase III trial. The sample is small. But the directional finding is clear: the front of the nose is restricting more airflow than most athletes realize, and removing the buildup of mucus and other particles measurably improves airflow.

Pair that with what Yasuda and colleagues demonstrated in 1997: nasal breathing during submaximal exercise produces significantly higher exhaled nitric oxide than oral breathing.⁷ The nitric oxide drives vasodilation, which improves oxygen delivery to working muscle. The nose is doing chemistry the mouth cannot replicate. Whether you can sustain nasal breathing under race-pace effort (as the coaches suggest is possible) or only at lower intensities (as Kipchoge says of his own racing), the same anatomy is at work. Keeping the nose clean and open supports a healthy nasal environment and has potential to improve airflow in athletes and others.⁸

What everyone in the breathing conversation is still missing

Whether you wear a strip or tape your mouth or train pranayama drills before workouts, the skin and hair inside your nostrils deserve attention. If you mouth-tape but your nose is partially blocked by the buildup of debris in your nose, you’re forcing air to travel through a restricted area. If you wear a nasal strip but never clean what is underneath, the strip's effect is limited. If you train hard, breathe deliberately, and never clean the inside of your nose, you’re filtering air through a dirty filter, and not fully optimizing airflow.

The fix is an innovative approach: not complicated, fast and convenient. Under 30 seconds per nostril, morning and evening. A nasal cleansing kit that uses a soft anatomically designed wand and physician formulated gel to clean and moisturize the essential pathway to performance. Improving nasal care just like brushing your teeth improves oral care.

The 2028 Olympics makes this a timely topic for athletes

The 2028 Olympics are just on the horizon, bringing elite athletes from around the world to Los Angeles. A beautiful venue, but one known for poor air quality, prone to fires, smog and often difficult for those with respiratory issues.

Every athlete on every roster preparing for the 2028 Olympics is running breathing protocols that look, at the elite level, very similar to what marathon trainers have been studying for the past decade. Some will use nasal strips, mouth tape, or breathwork drills. But how many of them will be clued into the new art of nasal care to help optimize airflow?

The first squad that does will breathe slightly better than the squad next to them. Whether that translates to one more late-game sprint or one more second of recovery between attacking phases is exactly the kind of detail modern sports science measures, and exactly the kind of detail trainers will quietly adopt long before anyone announces it publicly.

Practical: how to actually do it

For most athletes a simple protocol does the trick.

• Use the nasal kit as directed: it takes under 30 seconds per nostril, morning and evening.
• Add a cleanse before high-load training if air quality is poor (pollen-heavy mornings, wildfire smoke, dusty indoor courts).
• Add a cleanse before, during and after long-haul travel. Aircraft cabin air sits at around 10 percent humidity for hours, so the nose is vulnerable while travelling.
• Pair with whatever is already working. Mouth taping, box breathing, nasal strips during competition. None of these conflict with cleansing. The cleansing is the foundation that supports them all.

This is the thinking behind NasoClenz, the world’s first nasal cleansing kit with a wand-and-gel applicator designed specifically by doctors to optimize nasal care. Gentle enough for daily cleansing and dramatically different from existing rinses and irrigation tools on the market. NasoClenz will arrive in early 2027. Performance athletes arrive at the finish line first. Get first access by following us and registering for a chance to get your free kit.

The breathing conversation will keep getting louder between now and then. The squads that figure this out first will have a head start. Let that be you.

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Sources

1. Nestor J. Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. Riverhead, 2020. mrjamesnestor.com/breath-book.
2. Divine M. Box breathing / SEALFIT methodology. Popularized through SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind training programs from the early 2010s. Time Magazine coverage.
3. Chatterjee R, Kipchoge E. Feel Better, Live More podcast. Kipchoge discusses nasal versus mouth breathing during marathons; re-aired as a guest episode on The Rich Roll Podcast Episode 1350, January 23, 2025. Kipchoge: “I breathe through my mouth. From the start to the finish... You cannot breathe in your nose with that speed.”
4. Wong LS, Johnson AT. “Decrease of resistance to air flow with nasal strips as measured with the airflow perturbation device.” BioMedical Engineering OnLine 3, 38 (2004). PMID 15500689 / PMC529298. The paper reports strips “lowered nasal resistance by an average of 0.5 cm H20/Lps from an average nasal resistance of 5.5 cm H20/Lps”.
5. Walkinshaw DS. “A Brief Introduction to Passenger Aircraft Cabin Indoor Air Quality.” ASHRAE Journal, 2020. States cabin air is “normally less than 20% and typically 10% after about 15 minutes as the flight progresses”. ASHRAE Journal archive.
6. Davidson KP, Matheny K, Carter K, Tseng E, Lebovic GS. “Impact of a Novel Nasal Cleansing System on Nasal Resistance & Airflow in Young Athletes.” AAAAI/WAO Joint Congress, San Diego, March 1, 2025 (Poster #477). Study handout.
7. Yasuda Y, Itoh T, Miyamura M, Nishino H. “Comparison of exhaled nitric oxide and cardiorespiratory indices between nasal and oral breathing during submaximal exercise in humans.” Japanese Journal of Physiology, 1997. PMID 9504133.
8. Ciprandi G, Gelardi M. “Open and clean: the healthy nose.” Acta Bio-Medica: Atenei Parmensis, 2019;90(1):4-6. PMID 30715029 / PMC6502079.

Note: Reference 6 is a NasoClenz-sponsored pilot study (n=9) presented at a clinical conference and has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Findings should be interpreted as preliminary.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do elite endurance athletes actually breathe through their nose?

It's contested. Coaches and gait analysts have built entire training methodologies around the observation that marathon greats appear to be nasal breathing during certain phases of a race. Some athletes themselves, including Eliud Kipchoge in his appearance on Dr. Rangan Chatterjee's Feel Better, Live More podcast, have pushed back, saying they breathe through their mouth at race pace.³ The truth is likely somewhere in between, with nasal breathing dominant at lower intensities and mouth breathing taking over as effort approaches maximum.

Do nasal strips actually improve athletic performance?

The evidence on raw VO₂ max gains is mixed, but it is consistently positive for perceived breathing effort, recovery between intervals, and athletes' willingness to sustain nasal breathing under load. The strip's value is mechanical: it widens the nasal valve and reduces airflow resistance. Wong and Johnson's 2004 measurement using the airflow perturbation device found strips lowered resistance by 0.5 cm H2O/Lps from an average of 5.5.⁴ The strip doesn't change what's inside the nose, only the structural bottleneck at the valve.

Can nasal cleansing add to the benefits of a nasal strip?

The strip is a mechanical aid that opens the airway from the outside. Nasal hygiene is a cleansing practice that removes buildup from inside the nostrils. They address different problems and are complementary to each other, both helping to optimize nasal airflow. Most athletes who use strips never do active anterior nares cleansing, so they are optimizing one half of the equation and leaving the other untouched.

How often should athletes clean their nose?

For most people, including athletes, cleaning your nose twice a day is a great habit to get into: morning and evening. Athletes with high environmental exposure (outdoor pollen-season training, wildfire-affected regions, dusty indoor courts, frequent flying, exposure to large crowds) will likely see benefits from an additional cleansing before training.

Does NasoClenz replace saline rinses or neti pots?

No. Saline irrigation flushes the deeper areas of the nasal passages. That is a different anatomical target. NasoClenz is a cleansing kit that gently removes particles and debris from the skin and hair inside the nostrils. It also moisturizes as it cleans. The two practices (nasal cleansing and sinus rinses) complement each other.

Is nasal cleansing a recognized clinical practice?

Nasal cleansing using a specially designed wand and gel is an innovative way to help clear debris from the nostrils. There are a limited number of pilot studies that have been presented at peer reviewed conferences (AAAAI and COSM in 2023-2025). The idea is fundamentally intuitive and has been an area of potential benefit that has been largely overlooked previously.