Athletes
The pros you already watch are already doing this.
Walk through any pro locker room. Look at any close-up shot during a tennis match, NBA back-to-back, or Sunday NFL slate. You'll see nasal strips. Not because the athletes are battling head colds. Because nasal breathing is an oxygen-efficiency lever under load — and elite training staffs have known this for decades.
Tennis — Carlos Alcaraz
World #1, multi-Grand-Slam champion. Visibly worn during 2024–2025 Grand Slam matches. Alcaraz has publicly discussed using nasal strips during high-altitude training and in late-set conditions when oxygen efficiency becomes the deciding factor.
NFL — Patrick Mahomes
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, three-time Super Bowl champion. Spotted wearing nasal strips during cold-weather games. KC's strength staff has spoken openly about breathing protocols as part of recovery and pre-game preparation.
Soccer — Erling Haaland
Manchester City striker, Premier League golden boot winner. Frequent strip-wearer in Champions League matches. His trainer Per Bergsen-Christensen has cited breathing work as part of his conditioning approach.
Ultrarunning — Courtney Dauwalter
Western States 100 champion, UTMB champion, possibly the greatest ultrarunner of her generation. Has publicly credited nasal-only breathing during Zone 2 long efforts as foundational to her training base.
Beyond the names
Patrick McKeown's The Oxygen Advantage documents nasal breathing adoption across Olympic distance runners (Bekele, Farah), pro cyclists (multiple WorldTour teams), and US special operations forces. James Nestor's Breath covers freediving champions and pranayama practitioners with documented superhuman lung capacity.
This isn't a trend. It's a 70-year-old performance protocol — Soviet Olympic teams adopted Buteyko's research in the 1960s — that is finally getting mainstream attention in the West.
Want what they have?
Read the 8-week endurance breathing protocol on our blog. The book recommendations are in there too. The only tool the protocol assumes is a nasal strip.
Note on attribution: athlete adoption is sourced from publicly available match footage, press interviews, and trainer/coach interviews. Strapflow has no formal endorsement deals with the athletes named on this page; we're describing observed and reported behavior, not paid sponsorships.