Effects of Blood Flow Restriction Training on Various Physiological Factors among Different Population: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Purpose: Blood flow restriction (BFRT) is a recent rehabilitation modality in which a tourniquet is used toreduce arterial inflow and occlude venous outflow along with a set of exercise or resistance training. This studyhighlights various aspects and physiological factors which are affected by BFRT along with different exerciseregimens. Relevance: BFRT provides advantages over traditional resistance training (moderate-heavy) as itprovides muscular adaptations and increase in muscle cross sectional area despite relatively low external loads,producing less muscle damage and increasing frequency of training. Traditional resistance training usuallyused exercise loads of 70% of 1 repetition maximum (1RM) and it is known that stress on connective tissuescan be detrimental for elderly population and rehabilitative patients,but in BFRT only 20%-40% of 1RM instudies have shown consistently to increase muscle strength, hypertrophy and angiogenesis. It is very popularamong practitioners, researchers, physiotherapists and athletes to increase muscle mass, endurance, strength andfunctional performance or activity of daily living. Studies show that resistance exercises coupled with BFRT arediverse which include body weight exercises, lower body exercises, upper body exercises, in-water exercises,older populations or clinical cases. Participants: Total 15 articles were included and reviewed. Only full textarticles from past ten years were included in this review. Methods: A literature search was performed usingGoogle Scholar and PubMed using terms blood flow restriction, resistance exercise, 1 repetition maximum.