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BFR
Blood Flow Restriction Training
A new training technique that embraces the concept of working out “smarter, not harder” allows you to exercise at a lower intensity and still make progress.
The method is called blood flow restriction (BFR) training — and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
A special kind of tourniquet (elastic band) goes around your thigh or arm to reduce the blood flow out of that area. It tricks your body into thinking you’re working harder than you are.
The result? You can use less weight to build strength and muscle mass.
BFR training can be a great addition to your fitness routine, especially during an active recovery week or when you want to load less and build more. It’s also helpful for people who can’t lift enough weight to support muscle growth, like people with osteoporosis or those undergoing surgery.
How does restrictive blood flow training work?
The idea of “no pain, no gain” isn’t too far off from what science tells us about the process of muscle growth, or muscle hypertrophy. When you strength train you change the environment inside your muscles and this activates muscle hypertrophy.
Muscle growth happens through:
- Muscle trauma: To get bigger muscles, you have to stress them enough to injure the muscle fibers. The amount of weight or resistance required to do this depends on your fitness level. Once muscles are damaged, your body gets to work repairing and rebuilding them. That leads to larger and stronger muscles.
- Oxygen depletion: Your body needs more oxygen when lifting heavy weights. Because of this increased demand, there’s less available for your muscles. With less oxygen in your muscle tissues, your body creates lactic acid to stimulate muscle hypertrophy.
- Cellular swelling: Blood flow increases when you exercise. As more blood comes into your muscles, they swell. This kind of cellular swelling leads to muscle growth.
With BFR training, blood still comes into your muscles via your arteries. The use of the band, however, blocks it from leaving through your veins. This restriction of normal blood flow allows your muscles to experience swelling, fatigue and oxygen depletion more quickly.
It creates the same muscle environment that regular strength training does — but while using less weight and working at a lower intensity. Muscle hypertrophy takes place because your body has been tricked into thinking it’s working harder than it is.
Here’s another way to look at it: Your muscle reacts to a small load as if it’s much larger using BFR training. It recruits the fast-twitch muscle fibers that you normally only use for lifting a strenuous amount of weight or lifting weight quickly. Those kinds of muscle fibers bulk up more quickly.
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