Blood Flow Restriction at Carolina Sports Clinic

Blood flow restriction training (BFR) is the newest training technique for performance in injury recovery. BFR comes from research from the US Military in rehabbing injured veterans but has since been widely adapted throughout the professional sports world.

What Is Blood Flow Restriction?

Blood flow restriction involves using a tourniquet to restrict blood flow to the working muscles while performing exercises. At our facility, we use an FDA-approved tourniquet device that accurately measures the amount of blood flow restriction to ensure safety.

In order to build muscle strength and hypertrophy (increased muscle size) research has repeatedly shown that loads as high as 70-80% of one-repetition maximums must be lifted (in other words relatively heavy loads). With blood flow restriction training, research has show loads as low as 20-30% of on rep maxes can produces these strength & hypertrophy responses in much shorter time periods!

For the rehab world, this means that patients and athletes can build their strength and muscle size back quicker, without putting unnecessary stress on the healing tissues.

For performance, the low loads needed with BFR mean that athletes can strengthen muscles without having to overload their body with heavy weights. Because of the low loads, the amount of muscle breakdown is significantly less than traditional exercise, meaning that athletes won’t experience the same muscle soreness or impact on performance.

How Does BFR Work?

By enhancing and prolonging the exposure times to normal muscle byproducts of training (lactic acid, and hydrogen ions (H+)), there is subsequent increase in protein synthesis, high threshold motor unit recruitment, Vo2Max, Bone density, and tissue regeneration all while demonstrating no increase in mechanical damage.

 

What are the Effects of BFR?