Blood Flow Restriction Resistance Exercise – December 13, 2019

 

Nutritional Endocrinology Practitioner Training (NEPT)
Clinical Pearl

December 13, 2019

Blood Flow Restriction Resistance Exercise

Have you heard of blood flow resistance (BFR) exercise? Sounds either kinky or dangerous, right? I first learned about this in a conversation with Dr. Joe Mercola when I sat near him at lunch at a mastermind meeting. He was raving about the results, especially in elderly or frail people who can’t do heavy weights.

To date, there have been over 200 research studies to prove this training methodology as an effective way to gain muscle, get lean and tone.

Here’s one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6581774/

If you Google scholar search on BFR training, you will find lots of research on the topic.

BFR bands are a supplemental weightlifting tool that you can add to your existing routine that will allow you to lift less, but gain more muscle. BFR involves restricting venous blood flow from the muscle group that you are focusing on. The intent is to allow the venous blood to “pool” in the region of the body you’re training (i.e. upper or lower limbs). By doing this, the body will naturally trigger several hormone responses that cause an anabolic push to the large fast twitch muscles. Because they are the largest muscle group, they are the most likely to gain mass and tone quickly.

I bought a set of bands but haven’t started using them because they didn’t come with instructions. They are very inexpensive on Amazon. As I was cleaning out my inbox, I found that I’d been sent a 47-page instruction manual as a PDF.

I recommend you do a little research, try them on yourself and add to your toolbox of easy exercise strategies to teach clients. Here are the ones I bought: