What is Blood Flow Restriction Training?
1) Becoming more skilled
Becoming more skilled is easy…. we just practice over and over. However, skill is also relative. Being highly skilled at picking a pen up of the ground has very little carry over to picking up a 40 kilo bag of pool salt!
3) Signals from the brain to the muscles
Increasing the potential number of signals sent to the muscles performing a particular moving is called neurological adaptation.
More signals = the muscles working harder.
Whilst doing lots of low intensity movement can increase the efficecy of these signals to a small degree, making the target muscles work hard (and therefore encouraging a lot of signals to be sent) is far more effective.
SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN
The message here is that to get significantly stronger we need to be exercising using heavy loads (relative to that person) at a high intensity to increase skill, get bigger muscles and increase the number of signals being sent to the muscles.
HOWEVER…..
As physiotherapists many of our patients are unable to use heavy loads. There can be many reasons, maybe they are in high levels of pain, have post operative lifting restrictions or the thought of lifting something heavy may feel scary or daunting after an injury.
ENTER BLOOD FLOW RESTRICTION TRAINING
SO HOW DOES IT WORK?
WHAT IS THE PHYSIOTHERAPY EVIDENCE?
Studies have shown;
Prevents disuse muscle wasting in those unable to exercise
After ACL reconstruction BFR training produces superior quadricep and hamstring strength levels when compared with normal rehab
Can give significant pain relieving effects when compared with traditional exercise.
Shows promise as a potential treatment tool for those with chronic pain
Shows promise in encouraging positive remodelling of bone and tendon
Safe across the entire population range, with significant strength and hypertrophy benefits found in the elderly population
Whilst the number of specific physiotherapy studies are relatively small, as mentioned there are now 1000s of exercise science based studies on BFR training. We can use these studies to inform our practice to decide whether blood flow restriction training is appropriate for you!
If you would like to know more about blood flow restriction training, or if you would like to book a physiotherapy appointment, contact our team today.