Blood flow restriction (BFR) cuffs are a fantastic piece of technology that maximise rehabilitation goals.
BFR cuffs are a tight cuff that apply pressure to either the arms or legs whilst working out. An injured limb can be exercised with light weights but still get the same muscle building and strength benefits from lifting heavy weights. What a bonus!
In addition, it can help reduce pain in the injured limb, and improve endurance.
How does it work?
When recovering from an injury, BFR cuffs can enable your body to get stronger again, increasing the muscle size that can sometimes be lost during the injury period.
In an uninjured person, lifting moderate to heavy weights (resistance exercise) is the best way to gain strength and increase muscle size. When injured or recovering from surgery, the ability to lift heavy weights may be limited by pain, swelling and even feeling a little apprehensive.
When using BFR cuffs you only need to lift under 30% of the weight you would typically need to use.
The BFR cuff is applied to either the top of both legs, or both arms depending on the injury site. The cuffs we have are wireless and connect to a smartphone or tablet. With some clever technology built into the equipment, we are then able to calibrate a personalised pressure for each client, based on person-to-person unique physiology. When we’re ready to workout, the cuffs are inflated and away we go. The pressure built up in the limbs creates a signal to the body to increase muscle building after the workout.
Who can it help?
BFR training is suitable for anyone that needs to strengthen the muscles around a particular joint, but their ability to do so is currently limited by pain.
Some examples of people we currently help in the clinic.
Pre and post operative joint surgery such as:
Total hip and knee replacement
ACL and meniscal surgery
Rotator cuff surgery
Achilles rupture and repair
Osteoarthritis:
Knee
Hip
Shoulder
Tendinopathy:
Rotator cuff strain
Patellar tendinopathy
Achilles tendinopathy
Tennis and golfer's elbow
The team at Raglan Physio have even been using BFR cuffs in their personal training due to the ability to enhance endurance performance with as little as a 20 min walk!
Conclusion
We know that exercise is fantastic for so many of our aches and pains. Blood flow restriction training is a wonderful tool to help injured people get fit and strong again.