Athletic Benefits of Blood Flow Restriction

Building muscle may be your priority if you’re an athlete, especially at a competitive level. Rather than turning to nonprescription anabolic steroids and other drugs purported to help you increase muscle mass, there are more natural solutions you can try. One of those is blood flow restriction (BFR).

Elation Physical Therapy proudly offers BFR as one of many services you can get to increase your athleticism. At our offices in Houston and Pearland, Texas, physical therapists Roy Rivera, Jr., PT, PhD, DPT, MCHES and Jonathan Koborsi, PT, DPT, and the rest of our team provide BFR therapy to:

• Restore your muscle after surgery 
• Help you recover after being bedridden
• Increase muscle strength for athletes and active individuals

If you’re athletic and considering BFR therapy, our team is here to help you explore its benefits specifically, for high-performance athletes. Here’s why you should consider BFR therapy to increase your sports performance:

Building strength and size

As someone who is physically active, one of many possible goals of your workouts is probably to build strength. BFR therapy helps you do so faster than you would through a typical workout routine. While the exact reasons why BFR therapy increases strength are still under investigation, the therapy is known to help people build their muscle mass. 

During BFR therapy at Elation Physical Therapy, you wear pressurized bands around your limbs as you engage in low-intensity, muscle-building exercises. These exercises are probably not unlike those you use at the gym during training but use lighter weights than you typically choose. 

The pressurized bands prevent adequate blood flow to the limbs they’re around. During the workouts, you alternate between periods of restricting your blood flow with these bands and periods where you rest and allow the blood to flow freely. 

Ultimately, these processes in BFR help your muscles produce energy without oxygen, which simulates the results of high-intensity training so you can reap the benefits (e.g., stronger muscle fibers) without engaging in such intensive or long-term workouts. This happens because your muscles must work harder when they’re oxygen deprived, which increases protein synthesis inside your muscles to repair them and help them grow.

When to consider the therapy

BFR therapy can benefit you if you’re an athlete looking to increase your strength and endurance by training your muscles in a novel way. It’s particularly beneficial if you’ve sustained an injury inside or outside your sport and, therefore, cannot work out the injured area at the intensity you usually would. 

BFR therapy allows you to engage in exercises that are easier to complete with your injury while still gaining the benefits of your typical higher-intensity workouts. Our team is happy to work with you if you have an injury or are simply an athlete who isn’t seeing the anticipated muscle strength increase or growth from your workouts for any other reason. 

If you lead an active lifestyle and are interested in finding out if and how blood flow restriction can increase your athleticism, don’t hesitate to call Elation Physical Therapy or schedule a visit online immediately.