Abstract
BackgroundBlood flow restriction (BFR) training is becoming a popular form of exercise. Walking exercise in combination with pressurized wide-rigid (WR) cuffs elicits higher cardiac workload and a vascular dysfunction due presumably to reperfusion injury to the endothelium. In contrast, narrow-elastic (NE) BFR bands may elicit different hemodynamic effects. Therefore, we compared the acute cardiovascular responses to two distinct forms of BFR training during light-intensity exercise.Methods and Results15 young healthy participants (M = 9, F = 6) performed five bouts of 2-min walking intervals at 0.9 m/s with a 1-min rest and deflation period with either WR, NE, or no bands placed on upper thighs. Cuff pressure was inflated to 160 mmHg in WR cuffs and 300 mmHg in NE bands while no cuffs were used for the control. Increases in heart rate and arterial blood pressure were greater (p < 0.05) in the WR than the NE and control conditions. Double product increased to a greater extent in the WR than in the NE and control conditions. Increases in perceived exertion and blood lactate concentration were greater (p < 0.05) in the WR compared with the NE and control conditions (p < 0.05), while no differences emerged between the NE and control conditions. There were no changes in arterial stiffness or brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) after all three trials.ConclusionUse of WR BFR cuffs resulted in a marked increase in blood pressure and myocardial oxygen demand compared with NE BFR bands, suggesting that NE bands present a safer alternative for at-risk populations to perform BFR exercise.Clinical Trial RegistrationThis study was registered in the Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03540147).
Highlights
Over the past two decades, blood flow restriction (BFR) training has increased in popularity among athletes, researchers, and physical therapists (Pope et al, 2013)
The use of NE bands did not elicit increased hemodynamic responses compared to control, suggesting that NE BFR does not appear to pose additional risk to users than light-intensity walking without BFR
The main finding in the present study is that the use of WR BFR cuffs elicited markedly increased pressor responses and a heightened myocardial oxygen demand during lowintensity walking compared with the NE bands or control
Summary
Over the past two decades, blood flow restriction (BFR) training has increased in popularity among athletes, researchers, and physical therapists (Pope et al, 2013). Concern has been raised over the use of BFR in atrisk populations (e.g., hypertensive, obese, atherosclerotic) due to the potential for deep vein thrombosis, rhabdomyolysis, pulmonary emboli (Nakajima et al, 2006; Yasuda et al, 2017), and other serious complications associated with occluding arterial flow and performing skeletal muscle contractions One such complication could be an augmentation of the exercise pressor reflex, which is exaggerated in certain atrisk populations (Manisty and Francis, 2007), and is normally elicited during exercise by the stimulation of group III and IV afferents (local mechano- and metaboreceptors), resulting in a sympathetically mediated elevation in blood pressure and heart rate. We compared the acute cardiovascular responses to two distinct forms of BFR training during light-intensity exercise
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