How Does Blood Flow Restriction Benefit Chiropractic Patients?

(Newswire.net — October 26, 2020) DARIEN, CT —

What is Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) and how does it benefit you?

In order to understand how BFR works, it’s important to understand how your circulatory system works. Your arteries are larger blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood away from your heart to your body. Your veins are blood vessels that carry mostly deoxygenated blood from the body back to the heart. The heart is the pump to keep this exchange between oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood going.

The goal of blood flow restriction training is to restrict venous return while still allowing arterial flow by strategically wrapping the topmost portion of your limbs. By restricting the veins and not the arteries, blood can keep pooling into a working muscle and it stays trapped there. It’s like filling a water balloon to max capacity. Be warned you will feel fatigued, even if you are in top shape. You do not want to overdo it. You would use 40-50% of your max capacity and do 30 reps and rest for 30 seconds then do 10-15 reps and rest for 30 seconds. You would do this for an additional 2 sets. It will not be easy but the results can be seen and felt immediately. Do not leave the restriction bands on when you are finished.

By bringing in all of that blood to the working muscles without letting it leave, a few key things happen. One, you get a crazy pump. Seriously, your muscles become engorged. The idea is that this leads to cellular swelling which shocks the muscles into new growth. I warn you it’s gonna burn like hell. Your muscles quickly become deprived of oxygen and can’t get rid of accumulating waste materials and this creates acidosis. Acidosis is a form of metabolic stress which is one of the three major mechanisms of muscle growth and should not be overlooked.

We have been using this for back pain cases and peripheral neuropathy cases. We have only just started to use BFR Blood Flow Restriction. Patients feel an immediate difference. It is a hard workout to say the least but by opening the veins up to get the lead out is a new concept. You may be wondering what this has to do with chiropractic care. I feel that it can have a dramatic impact on energizing muscles that support the axial skeleton. I will report back when we have more evidence as it relates to neuropathy after several months. If you have any questions give us a call 203-656-3636. I hope you found this to be informative.