Is anyone familiar with occluded blood flow training? I have read articles toting the benefits. What are the dangers?
Thank you for answering my question! I have no intention of doing this type of training. A friend of mine is doing it and posted a picture of himself on facebook doing occluded bicep curls. It got a fairly large response and that made me nervous. It is my understanding that anytime you occlude blood flow, the risk of developing a clot increases and I certainly would hate to see my friend or his clients have anything bad happen. I just could not find a lot of research on the subject.
Ugh! In my opinion, here are two. Possibly inducing a dangerously high blood pressure. Creating possible clotting in a person with clotting issues.
I always consider risk v. reward in programming any exercise for my client. You may want to do extensive research into this methodology before using it, and most importantly, know your client!
Me two cents.
LaRue, CSCS
www.lecfitness.com
Hi Tammy,
I also had never heard of it until now but did just like Harris and read several articles.
Even the papers that praise its potential benefits advise caution in terms of length of training and amount of weight used. The paper that Harris links has the precaution at the bottom that recommends against this method in the case of an impaired vascular system. This is often an impairment that people may not be aware of.
If there is any benefit here, the risks seem to outweigh it by far. It is not surprising that this is linked to the bodybuilding community which is usually known for a greater risk tolerance in pursuit of the training edge.
Karin Singleton
www.meltnc.com
I wasn’t familiar with it until you mentioned it. From what I’ve read online it looks like this type of training doesn’t have much research behind it. Maybe someone else might have more data or knowledge and can give you a more thorough answer.
For what it’s worth I found an interesting article about occluded blood flow training (you might have already read it):
http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/ABCocclusionpaper.pdf
Best,
Harris