Blood Flow Training Essay

We can all agree that the overall goal of weight training is to promote hypertrophy in the muscles that we are training. This point is especially true for athletes or individuals that have suffered a mechanical injury and are just having their cast removed. When you have a limb or muscle group immobilized you start to develop disuse atrophy in those specific muscles that have been immobilized. The problem with lifting heavy weights, whether you are an athlete trying to get stronger or a patient trying to build your strength back up, is that you put an immense amount of stress on your limbs and joints. Blood flow restriction training is a method that has been proven to help individuals get the results that they are looking for while sparing
A common cause of disuse atrophy is having a cast put on to immobilize a part of the body. Having a muscle group immobilized prevents an individual from being able to use that muscle causing it to weaken and possibly begin to shrink depending on the amount of time the muscles are not being used. An athlete might develop disuse atrophy recovering from an injury like a torn ACL. In both of these scenarios the muscle are significantly weakened after the recovery period. Blood flow restriction training is a form of therapy that can be used in both of these
By doing this only a very light load is needed to accomplish the strength gains that are desired when lifting heavy weight loads. Arterial blood flow to the muscle is 80% occluded and venous blood flow is 100% occluded so that there is more blood and lactic acid around the muscle than normal. The influx of blood and lactic acid causes the cells in the muscle to increase in size which can cause a metabolic stress on the cells, which in turn, increases the cell’s production of protein and stimulates an individual’s growth hormone (Boston Sports Medicine