Blood Flow Restriction Exercise: Considerations Of ...

1. Clients or post-operative clients, high load and high strength workouts may not be medically suitable. Blood Circulation Constraint (BFR) training is a technique that combines low strength workout with blood flow occlusion that produces similar results to high strength training. It has been utilized in the gym setting for a long time but it is gaining appeal in clinical settings. Blood Circulation Limitation (BFR) Training [modify edit source] BFR training was at first developed in the 1960's in Japan and referred to as KAATSU training. It can be applied to either the upper or lower limb. The cuff is then inflated to a particular pressure with the goal of acquiring partial arterial and complete venous occlusion. Muscle hypertrophy is the increase in size of the muscle as well as an increase of the protein content within the fibres. Muscle stress and metabolic tension are the two main factors responsible for muscle hypertrophy. Mechanical Stress & Metabolic Stress [edit modify source] When a muscle is put under mechanical stress, the concentration of anabolic hormonal agent levels increase. The activation of myogenic stem cells and the elevated anabolic hormones result in protein metabolism and as such muscle hypertrophy can take place. Growth hormonal agent itself does not directly trigger muscle hypertrophy but it aids muscle healing and therefore potentially facilitates the muscle strengthening process. The build-up of lactate and hydrogen ions (eg in hypoxic training) further boosts the release of development hormone. Myostatin controls and inhibits cell development in muscle tissue. It requires to be essentially closed down for muscle hypertrophy to take place. Resistance training results in the compression of blood vessels within the muscles being trained. This causes an hypoxic environment due to a decrease in oxygen shipment to the muscle. This leads to a boost in anaerobic lactic metabolic process and the production of lactate. When there is blood pooling and a build-up of metabolites cell swelling occurs. This swelling within the cells causes an anabolic reaction and leads to muscle hypertrophy. The cell swelling may actually trigger mechanical stress which will then activate the myogenic stem cells as discussed above. The cuff is positioned proximally to the muscle being workout and low intensity workouts can then be performed. Because the outflow of blood is limited using the cuff capillary blood that has a low oxygen content collects and there is an increase in protons and lactic acid. The very same physiological adaptations to the muscle (eg release of hormonal agents, hypoxia and cell swelling) will take location during the BFR training and low strength workout as would happen with high strength workout. ( 1) Low strength BFR (LI-BFR) leads to an increase in the water material of the muscle cells (cell swelling). It also speeds up the recruitment of fast-twitch muscle fibres. It is also hypothesized that when the cuff is removed a hyperemia (excess of blood in the capillary) will form and this will cause more cell swelling. These boosts resembled gains obtained as an outcome of high-intensity exercise without BFR A research study comparing (1) high strength, (2) low intensity, (3) low and high intensity with BFR and (4) low strength with BFR.

2. While all 4 workout routines produced increases in torque, muscle activations and muscle endurance over a 6 week duration - the high strength (group 1) and BFR (groups 3 and 4) produced the biggest impact size and were similar to each other.