Exercise with blood flow restriction may improve lower extremity strength for athletes
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Key takeaways:
- Exercise with lower extremity blood flow restriction may improve strength-related outcomes in athletes.
- Most studies favored exercise with blood flow restriction vs. exercise alone.
Results from a systematic review and meta-analysis showed exercise with blood flow restriction may improve lower extremity strength-related outcomes, such as overall strength, muscle size, endurance and sport-specific outcomes.
“The use of lower extremity blood flow restriction during an athlete’s training protocol is an important tool for strength improvement, muscle hypertrophy and improvements in sports-specific metrics,” Luke V. Tollefson, BS, clinical research assistant at Twin Cities Orthopedics, told Healio. “Specifically, we found that low load/intensity training [blood flow restriction] BFR was similar or better than high load/intensity training without BFR, highlighting that adding in a low load/intensity training with BFR protocol into an athlete’s training may help reduce in-season training load and injury, while maintaining strength.”
Tollefson, Robert F. LaPrade, MD, PhD, and colleagues used PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of 20 studies related to lower extremity BFR in athletes. The 20 studies included a total of 546 athletes (mean age, 22.7 years). Tollefson and colleagues noted 17.4% of participants (n = 95) were female athletes.
According to the study, Tollefson and colleagues assessed outcomes such as training protocols, type of exercise, duration and frequency of exercise, cuff type, cuff size, cuff pressure, muscles targeted, strength improvement, endurance improvement, muscle growth and sport-specific metrics.
Overall, 19 of 20 studies reported significant strength improvements for athletes who performed exercise with BFR. Eleven of these 19 studies reported greater strength improvements for athletes who performed exercise with BFR vs. a control group without BFR.
Among 14 studies that reported muscle growth, 10 studies found BFR was associated with muscle growth of at least one metric regarding muscle size. Exercise with BFR was also associated with improvements in sport-specific metrics, as reported by 10 studies, and improvements in endurance, as reported by four studies.
Tollefson and colleagues found similar outcomes when comparing low-load exercise with BFR vs. high-load exercise with BFR.
“A tailored postoperative rehabilitation program that includes low load/intensity training with BFR could facilitate earlier strength gains when true high load/intensity are not yet recommended in the earlier phases of recovery and could reduce overloading the knee in the later rehabilitation phases to prevent injuries and flare-ups, which could delay return to sport,” LaPrade, a complex orthopedic knee and sports medicine surgeon at Twin Cities Orthopedics, told Healio.
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