64: Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) Training with Dr. Jeremy Loenneke

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) training… this technique, which hit the scene in the 1990's, restricts blood flow to our limbs while exercising. It has some interesting and promising applications, particularly for people rehabilitating from certain injuries such as tendonitis. Dr. Loenneke provides a brief historical overview, the latest findings and insights as to how BFR training can be applied. Enjoy!

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64 Inform_Loenneke 2_Dec 10 Transcript

Arlene [00:00:01] The Inform Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman and co-host Mike Rogers is a presentation of Inform Fitness Studios, a small family of personal training facilities specializing in safe, efficient, high intensity strength training. On our bi monthly podcast, Adam and Mike discuss the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and the urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We'll cover exercise, protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more. On this episode, Adam welcomes back Dr. Jeremy Loenneke, assistant professor at Ole Miss. They're going to discuss a most interesting exercise protocol... BFR, Blood Flow Restriction training.

Jeremy [00:01:15] It could be useful for really anyone who can benefit from exercise, which is probably a lot of people. But it comes down to is it something that they want to do? Is it's something they want to do all the time. Whatever you can think of applying normal exercise, you could do the same thing with blood flow restriction.

Adam [00:01:32] Today we have with us Dr. Jeremy Loenneke. He is the assistant professor at the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss. Dr. Loenneke graduated with a Phd in exercise physiology from the University of Oklahoma. He had previously earned his master's degree in nutrition and exercise science from Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Loenneke is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine, and the American physiological society. He also serves as a peer reviewer for several journals, including The Sports Medicine, AJE, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise and the Journal of Applied Physiology. Hi Jeremy, welcome back to the show.

Jeremy [00:02:10] Thanks for having me back.

Adam [00:02:11] Another interesting thing that your group works on is blood flow restriction training. And I've been hearing a lot about this recently. I've had clients come in asking about it and I've done some cursory research on blood flow restriction training. And it makes sense to me and I'm so glad that I met you that you're doing this kind of work. So I'm basically a novice with this technique. And I'm curious whether I should be incorporating it with some of my clients, if any of them, let's start at the beginning. What is blood flow restriction training?

Jeremy [00:02:44] Yeah. And this is a topic that's really becoming popular, especially in the clinical setting in the United States. It took a while to get here and the clinical world that now it's arrived.

Adam [00:02:54] Yeah, didn't it start in Japan, I think.

Jeremy [00:02:57] Yeah. People have been placing cuffs on limbs for a long time. But how we currently use it with respect to blood flow restriction and muscle seemingly originated in Japan. The first published paper on it was in 1998, at least how we use it. So it's been around for a good while. But just to answer your question, what it is, we're essentially applying a cuff or a wrap to the proximal portion of a limb that we're gonna train and we inflate it to a pressure that reduces blood flow into the limb.

Adam [00:03:29] So when you say cuff, you're talking a blood pressure type of cuff.

Jeremy [00:03:32] Yeah, something very similar to that. So we inflate it to a pressure that makes sure that blood flow is going in, but it's not completely cut off. And when we combine that with low load exercise, we're able to see changes, at least with muscle growth similar to that of high load exercise. We're also able to see changes in strength and function. A lot of time, that's a little bit that the strength combines a little bit less than high load exercise. But again, that goes to what we've talked about the previous episode of principal specificity. But it does seem like it has some benefits there and the mechanisms behind it are probably very similar to that of traditional high load exercise. It's just probably way making that muscle work a lot harder than it normally would with that low load.

Adam [00:04:13] But why is this interesting to do? I mean, do you see it having applications once you if you haven't figured out already? You know, a good application for this or why we should be doing it?

Jeremy [00:04:23] Yeah, I think a lot of the applications, it's certainly going to be with elderly people or in a clinical setting. And that's where a lot of the research is starting to move now. It's not to say that it can't work for regular people. It certainly does. That's the population that my lab primarily studies. But I think it has the biggest benefit in those who may not be able to train with a heavyweight and maybe it's a kind of a form of exercise that can get them back to doing normal activities. So I think that it does have a lot of utility. But I think there's a lot of training modalities that have a lot of utility. And I think that this may just be another option for individuals and particularly enticing option for those who are in a clinical setting where they maybe they have an injured limb and they just cannot maintain high levels of stress on that limb, because there is some preliminary data in clinical populations that shows that it's doing some good things.

Adam [00:05:20] So in other words you're basically mimicking, by cutting off the blood flow partially, of course, it's like almost like putting a tourniquet out on an arm or a leg. You're cutting off the blood flow. And because you you're cutting off blood flow, you can't do as much work. You can't lift as heavy weight. You're not getting enough of the oxidative. You're not getting oxygen delivered, as much oxygen delivered. So you're not going to get as much metabolic action going on in the mitochondria. Therefore, you have to use less weight in order to do any kind of exercise because you have less blood. So it's mimicking what would happen if you had full circulation with heavier weights, that's the basic idea behind it?

Jeremy [00:06:07] Yeah, I think that when we reduced blood flow into a muscle, one of the things that it does is it's reducing blood flow, going into the muscle, but it's also preventing...