I first heard of blood flow restriction, or occlusion training during my PT Course. My initial reaction was that I would never consider such a thing. It seems odd and frankly dangerous to put a tourniquet on my arms or legs and proceed to lift weights. As typically happens to me, the more I read about it and understood it, the less odd it seemed until today, due to a situation outside of my control, I found the occasion to give it a whirl.
A horrifically epic storm is churning in the Atlantic wreaking untold misery upon the people of the Bahamas. The forecast indicates a possibility that my adopted hometown of Charleston, SC might experience some wind in four or five days, so of course the local gym (and other establishments, but the gym impacts me most) has decided to close immediately. I was going to take the day off from training anyway, but the fact that I couldn’t go to the gym even if I wanted to left me despondent. I decided to venture into the small fitness room at the clubhouse/pool where I now reside to try to make a go of it.
I’m several weeks into an Upper/Lower split, which I typically don’t care for as the upper body requires so many different movements that I find the workouts too long, but by dividing up my desired weekly volume into 3 or more sessions each week, it’s been manageable. I would normally Squat today, but that’s not even remotely possible in this room:
For starters, I did a few sets of leg press on the ancient apparatus adjusting the seat to get as much range of motion as I could. Ideally, I would have liked to try the BFR with a leg extension, but that would require a leg extension. So instead, I did bodyweight Bulgarian Split squats. I really don’t know if I did it correctly, but I used my old knee wraps which were conveniently in the trunk of my car, wrapped them way up at the top of my thigh, (and having the room to myself, no one was flashed) and proceeded to bang out 20 reps in the first set and 18 in the second. It was definitely an odd sensation, but it wasn’t the sick pump I expected after reading about it, which since I honestly don’t like the pump, was a positive.
I strapped them on again for bodyweight calf raises and was able to get many, many reps that I hope at least some of which were productive. My understanding of the likely benefits for hypertrophy of BFR is that the occlusion creates peripheral fatigue with very light weights that otherwise would likely not occur. This peripheral fatigue then causes the recruitment of high threshold motor units and the many muscle fibers they control, forcing some mechanical tension upon them and giving them the impetus to grow, all without using heavy weights.
I’m glad I got the opportunity to try them, and I’m also glad I was able to make a lousy training situation better, but I can’t imagine I would do this very often, especially in a public gym. I’m doing my best to defeat the Spotlight Effect, but I think hiking my shorts up to wrap my legs just under my ass would probably get me lots of unwanted attention.
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