The Surprising Connections Between Pain and Strength
Nothing sidelines you faster than an injury. Suddenly your active life goes offline, replaced by pain, uncertainty, and potential loss of strength and training time.
What if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could continue to build strength while healing, so that you can get back to sport fast?
Even better: what if you could prevent that debilitating injury in the first place?
A New Standard for Rehab
At WellSport, we offer an innovative, forward-thinking solution that does exactly that. It’s called Blood Flow Restriction training, or BFR, and it’s rapidly becoming the gold standard of rehab.
Here’s how BFR works: after a thorough clinical assessment, we wrap a specialized tourniquet cuff around your upper arm or leg. Before beginning any movement, the cuff is inflated to a pressure that reduces blood flow both into and out of that limb. Then, you get to training.
What happens while you’re moving that limb? The reduced blood flow translates into much less oxygen to the muscle you’re targeting, and that increases metabolic stress. This also results in a release of hormones that can aid in recovery and healing. The result? Increased muscle hypertrophy and strength, but at a greatly reduced intensity.
Simply put, Blood Flow Restriction training allows athletes to build serious strength without the heavy load.
A Better Way to Rehab
For knee or elbow pain, ACL tears, tendinitis, and other common training injuries, blood flow restriction helps injured athletes get stronger and heal faster. Because of the lower intensity required for the same muscle load, it allows rehab and training to begin much sooner after an injury, with fewer reps needed.
When you don’t have to wait as long to start your rehab after an injury, you can be back in the gym or on the playing field a whole lot faster.
BFR gets big results, and those results are getting big attention. Forbes says BFR is “on the verge of becoming the next big thing in fitness.” Outside Magazine reports that “this technique might just revolutionize physical therapy.”
This isn’t brand-new technology. The military has been utilizing BFR as a tool to help wounded soldiers regain strength since the early 2000s. In the time since, researchers from top institutions have undertaken multiple studies confirming the effectiveness of BFR for building muscle strength and healing damaged muscles. And more recently, athletes and trainers have learned of the amazing benefits. After a serious knee injury, pro basketball player Dwight Howard used BFR to train while allowing his cartilage to heal, and says it got him back on the court much more quickly and with less pain.
BFR Can Help Even When You’re Not Hurt
While blood flow restriction training is gaining fame in rehab circles, research has reported increases in muscle size, strength, and endurance, even for those who aren’t injured. Data shows that these gains are similar to those from high intensity exercise training.
What that means for you? Great results, without pushing to your max.
WellSport is Your Local, Expert BFR Resource
It’s important that BFR training is supervised by a qualified practitioner, such as our experts at WellSport. We assess the pressure and timing that’s best for your situation and physical condition. This means your muscles, nerves, and joints stay protected and healthy.
If you’re looking for a new way to train or rehab safely and effectively, BFR is a great solution. Reach out to the team at WellSport today and let’s get started!