Author: Ed Le Cara, DC, PhD, MBA, ATC, CSCS
Board Certified in Rehabilitation
Board Certified in Chiropractic Sports Medicine
“Blood Flow Restriction” (BFR) training involves wrapping an elastic band or cuff around your limbs to partially block blood flow during a workout. The technique has been growing in popularity among bodybuilders in recent years. Proper education and effective application for efficacy and patient safety is the key.
The goal of BFR training is to increase the metabolic stress on your muscles without doing intense work that causes muscle breakdown. To accomplish the goal, one wraps a tourniquet-like cuff around the top of the arm and/or leg. The cuff is tight enough to block the veins returning blood from the muscles to the heart, but loose enough to allow fresh arterial blood into the muscles.
Under normal conditions, the metabolites produced in your muscles during hard exercise serve as cellular signals that trigger adaptations in your body – bigger muscles after resistance training, for example.
The most robust evidence for BFR training is in increasing strength and muscle mass using relatively light weights. A typical BFR protocol involves lifting between 20% – 40% of your one rep maximum (1RM), with one set of 30 repetitions followed by three sets of 15 repetitions each, with 30 to 60 seconds of rest between.
While the weight will still seem light, you’ll feel the localized burn in your muscles more acutely. With more training sessions, my patients start to tolerate the burn much better.
The main attraction of BFR is you stress the muscles without accumulating as much wear-and-tear as you would with normal training. For a serious athlete, adding a set of BFR lifts after you’ve already maxed out your normal workout could be a way of getting an extra training boost. Healthy individuals can substitute traditional strength training sessions as an, “active recovery day†or when equipment is not available to do heavy-load like during travel or vacations.
BFR training is a novel approach to increase active participation in patients without the need for large amounts of space or resistance equipment.
Look for upcoming articles on how I specifically use BFR with my patients to improve their functional capacity and recover from injuries.
About the Author:
Dr. Le Cara, a former Army Combat Medic, has worked as a strength and conditioning coach, athletic trainer, and chiropractor for over 20 years. He holds a PhD in Athletic Training from Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions. His original research on the structure and function of the lumbar multifidus muscle and how it relates to lower back pain was published in 2014. He has authored or co-authored numerous peer reviewed articles and dozens of non-peer reviewed articles. Ed holds an MBA in Transglobal Education from St. Mary’s College of California. In addition to being the director of education for Smart Tools and teaching internationally, he treats patients every day with manual therapy and fitness training.