BFR Radio

Testosterone & BFR - how to maximise your hormonal response.

Welcome back to BFR Radio.

Thanks for your patience in between episodes – I’ve just realized its been a couple of months since the last episode. In short, I’ve devoted pretty much most of my spare time and energy to the launch of my new website and rebranding. In case, you’re unaware, I’ve rebranded to TheBFR.co. My goal with TheBFR.co (or The BFR company) is to have a one-stop shop for all things BFR. So I still have my BFR cuffs – they are still branded as the sports rehab tourniquet but slowly over time (or once I renew my stock), they will be rebrand with my new logo. So make sure you check out my website - click here.

There are a few new exciting additions to the website including online BFR training and rehab programs and an online BFR course for those who want to learn more about how to apply BFR to their athletes/clients.

 

The last few episodes focused on hormones & BFR. The first 2 episodes looked at Growth Hormone & Insulin – Growth Factor 1 (or IGF-1). Not only do these hormones have a performance benefit, but they also are critical for proper development and function of many major organ systems. Today’s episode will focus on one a the more well-known hormones and that is Tesosterone

 

The majority of this information comes from a paper called:

Acute and Chronic Testosterone Response to Blood Flow Restricted Exercise and appeared in the journal of Hormone & Metabolic Research

The primary author is Jeremy Loenneke who is one of the more prolific authors in the world of BFR. I will also add to the discussion with a few interesting papers including a case study that I have done with an elite athlete that I  used to coach.

before I go, a couple of favours from me to you:

If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it. And, if you’re enjoying the podcast please give it a rating on iTunes

Thanks for listening, see you in a couple of weeks and remember to keep the pump.

 

Chris

Hormones & BFR - Insulin Growth Factor 1. What is it? Why is it important and how BFR can help.

Welcome back to BFR Radio and this short mini-series on hormones & BFR.

In particular one of the mechanisms as to how & why BFR works is the increase in acute anabolic hormones. Since we talk about, I thought I’d go into a little more detail about each hormone, why it is important and the types of BFR sessions that are associated with increases in these anabolic hormones.

The general flow of these episodes is to summarise the importance of these hormones, mechanisms behind how it gets activated and how BFR can be used to activate these useful hormones.

The last episode looked at Growth Hormone and today's episode we look at Insulin Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1). Although the more known action of IGF-1 is to stimulate protein synthesis (muscle growth), it is both GH & IGF-1 that is proposed to act in concert to stimulate protein synthesis.

There are other important functions of IGF-1 signalling and in particular, they are both critical for proper development and function of many major organ systems.  There is very strong evidence for neuroprotective effects of IGF-1 in different situations, including aging.

As I delved deeper into why IGF-1 is important to us, I started to realise that it was more about increasing muscle size but rather the positive effects as we age. In particular the role that it plays in cognitive function, learning and memory tasks.

So although we typically see BFR as a way to increase muscle mass and strength, for ageing populations incorporating BFR into physical activity has implications that go beyond this. I go through a couple of studies and in particular one involves a 91-year old gentleman with sarcopenia. Its a simple study, but the outcomes are pretty amazing.

I bring in quite a few papers for this episode and probably a few too many to mention.

The papers from the studies though are:

Endocrine responses to upper-and lower-limb resistance exercises with blood flow restriction. 

Madarame et al. (2010). Acta Physiologica Hungarica

Strength training with blood flow restriction–a novel therapeutic approach for older adults with sarcopenia? A case report. 

Lopes et al.   (2019) Clinical interventions in aging

 

If this review of hormones and BFR training, has sparked your own interest in starting an exercise regime, get in touch with me through my website or socials (@chrisgaviglio). The sports rehab tourniquet brand of BFR cuffs can also be purchase from my website and you can find it at sportsrehab.com.au

And lastly, before I go, a couple of favours from me to you:

If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it. And, if you’re enjoying the podcast please give it a rating on iTunes

Thanks for listening, see you in a couple of weeks  and remember to keep the pump.

Chris 

Growth Hormone & BFR - what is it, what it means for you & how BFR can benefit you.

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to BFR Radio’s first podcast for 2022. 

Hope you all had a good festive season and recharged for 2022. I’m excited for this year and in particular I am working hard to put together my accreditation course on-line and also provide BFR on-line training programs (along with general strength & fitness programs). This means if you’ve been thinking about learning more about BFR in a structured manner or you want to improve your training, I can help provide this for you. Just contact me through my socials or the contact us page on my website (www.sportsrehab.com.au).

 The next series of articles will focus on the hormonal benefits of BFR. A lot of the articles I review, look at training intervention studies (ie. You train with BFR cuffs and it usually results in a positive response). These studies are great to highlight the practical  side of BFR and the benefits of adding it to your training.

Some of the positive responses that we see with BFR training are due to increases in anabolic hormones within the body and in particular increases in anabolic hormones is one of the main mechanisms of BFR. A lot of these anabolic hormones may be familiar to you – Growth hormone, Testosterone, IGF.

Therefore the concept behind the next few episodes is to look at some of these different anabolic hormones.  In particular I am going to highlight the basics of each hormone and its benefits from a health viewpoint. From there I will bring in BFR.  To prevent you all from getting bored, I will try to pick out the best bits. So if these episodes sparks your interest, please research more in detail

Growth hormone is our first hormone. To bring this episode together I’ve referred to numerous general articles and reviews on growth hormones and then moved onto more BFR specific studies.

The specific articles are too many to mention here but 2 of the main reviews on Growth Hormone are: 

• Godfrey, R. J., Madgwick, Z., & Whyte, G. P. (2003). The exercise-induced growth hormone response in athletes. Sports medicine, 33(8), 599-613.
• Sonksen, P. H. (2001). Hormones and Sport-Insulin, growth hormone and sport. Journal of Endocrinology, 170(1), 13-26.

Before I go, a couple of favours from me to you:

If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it. And Also, if you’re enjoying the podcast please give it a rating on iTunes

Thanks for listening, see you in a couple of weeks  and remember to keep the pump.

 

Chris

BFR use in youth athletes - interview with S&C Coach Nathan Norris

Hi everyone, 

My last episode answered as few questions around using Blood Flow Restriction in younger age groups and youth athletes. I pieced together a few concepts and papers to give some positive evidence around using it in this age group. After the podcast a fellow S&C coach, Nathan Norris reached out about his use with the athletes that he trains. 

Therefore I thought I'd get him on the podcast to tell his experiences. This is a really practically based podcast with lots of great examples and I'm sure you'll get a lot out of it. 

A little bit about Nathan: 

He has been a S&C Coach for 10+ years working with elite, professional, semi-professional and junior athletes. Currently the Lead S&C Coach at Burnley College, Lancashire, North West England. Leading a team of S&C Coaches to delivered the S&C Programme at the College. The programme includes working with 16-21 year old student athletes who compete regionally, nationally, and internationally. As well as running the S&C Programmes for Burnley Bobcats Swimming Club, Blackburn Harriers & Athletics Club, and Manchester Giants Basketball Juniors (U15 & U16 squads). Along with working with professional footballers (soccer) in the area.

If you want to get a hold of him:

Intagram: @welshnath_coach

Email: n.norris@burnley.ac.uk

This will be my last podcast for the year. I'm taking a short break of the Christmas period and looking forward to an exciting 2022. I have a few projects in the pipeline so stay tuned for that. 

Thanks for your support this year and remember to keep the pump.

Chris

BFR use in young athletes and the youth -Your Questions Answered

Hi everyone and welcome back to BFR Radio. Thanks for joining in and hope that your training is going well.

 

Before I head into today’s article review, a quick reminder that if you’re looking for practical ideas on how to implement BFR into your own training check out my Instagram (@chrisgaviglio) or my Youtube channel which is SportsRehabAus. If you follow me on social media, I’ve also been trialling a few different things. The first one is 60second snippets of the best bits of the podcast as well as Instagram text image posts – which do you prefer? Also if you’re enjoying the podcast, please give it a rating on iTunes.

 

Its also been a while since my last episode and I thank you for your patience. I’ve had a few presentations recently and one was for the ASCA. This year was an online style conference and my presentation I spoke about how I periodise strength training utilising a myriad of different concepts. In particular it was a case study of one of the decathletes that I coached for the Tokyo Olympics. I’ve also had a work change as well so navigating that has taken some of my time. One of the positives is that I am spending more time putting together some other S&C and BFR concepts that I’ve been wanting to do for a while. In particular I am providing an online S&C service which means that if you’ve been thinking about improving your training, I can help provide this for you. Just contact me through my socials or the contact us on my website. I also have some big plans for BFR specifically so stay tuned for that.

 

The last few episodes was a short series of papers which reviewed different sports specific training with BFR and highlighted potential direct benefits to sports performance. For me it shows that BFR can be used for more than just strength training and stationary cardiovascular-based training.

 

To change it up, it’s time for a “Your questions answered” segment. Interestingly I got 3 independent emails on a very similar subject within the last month. In particular it is on the subject of using BFR with youth athletes. Hopefully not too controversial, but I thought I’d tackle this subject.

To give some context behind the questions the first question was from a physiotherapist who is  involved in the training of elite Artistic gymnasts aged between 10-26. Common injuries include growth-related injuries such as osgoods and, tendinopathy injuries especially the Achilles Tendon as well as boney stress injuries (foot, shin, and back). And in previous podcasts I’d alluded to BFR being a great tool for tendon pain as well as recovering from bone stress injuries and such could BFR be used in this specific population.

 

The second question was from another physiotherapist who works with dancers and in particular young dancers and pretty much similar. They want to know the youngest age I’d use BFR training with? And are there any contraindications for use in those under 18years?

So how to best answer this question? Unfortunately there isn’t any position statement with respect to BFR and Youth. There is very little out there but I will piece this together to give you a balanced answer and perhaps rather my opinion. No use sense sitting on the fence right??

 

To answer this question, I am going to break this into 3 parts. Firstly I want to briefly discuss the idea of strength training in youth in general (that is without BFR). Secondly, I will highlight a few studies in younger age groups and then finish up with my own view and personal experiences.

I hope you enjoy this one. I feel I have given a balanced view with respect to this concept and before I go I want to emphasis a few points if you decide that BFR may be useful with the youth athletes that you train:

• Like all training interventions you need to be clear why you are using it.
• This type of training needs strict supervision, and at this age in particular.
• At a young age who are fit, healthy and performing general training, I would not prescribe it. I think there are so many other skills and physical activities that you need them to be exploring before worrying about BFR.
• However if they are have specific injuries or issues that need addressing it may be a useful intervention.

The paper’s that I briefly mention are:

Effects of practical blood flow restriction training on adolescent lower-body strength. 

(15-18year old girls) Luebbers, P. E., Witte, E. V., Oshel, J. Q., & Butler, M. S. (2019).  The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 33(10), 2674-2683.

Effect of eight-week aerobic training with blood flow restriction on lipid profiles and body composition in obese adolescent boys.

(13-16year old boys) MOHAMMADI, S., Rajabi, H., Motamedi, P., Khaledi, N., & Abdollahi, M. (2019). 

Response of Myostatin to Resistance Exercise with and without Blood Flow Restriction in Immature Male Athletes. 

(10-14year old boy gymnasts) Shabkhiz, F., Choobineh, S., Ghafarioun Isfahani, A., & Yari, M. (2017).  Sport Physiology & Management Investigations, 9(3), 9-19. 

A pediatric case with an unstabilized neck treated with skeletal muscle electrical stimulation and KAATSU training®. 

(2yrs-4months boy ) Iwashita, H. (2015).  International Journal of KAATSU Training Research, 11(1), 7-12.

 

The Australian Strength & Conditioning Association (ASCA) position stand on youth strength training link: Resistance Training for Youth - Position Stand

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s used BFR in these age groups. I think it could be a good extension to this podcast. Contact me through my website (sportsrehab.com.au) or DM me through my Instagram or Twitter @chrisgaviglio.

Before I go, A couple of favours from me to you. If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it. And if you’re interested in purchasing your own set of BFR cuffs please visit my website which is www.sportsrehab.com.au

I can also help you with your training so contact me via my website or DM me through my socials which is @chrisgaviglio.

Thanks for listening and remember to keep the pump.

How low intensity BFR cycling can improve leg strength, size & fitness.

Welcome back to this episode of BFR radio, hope you're doing well.

I hope you've been enjoying these articles. I've incorporated BFR into more of a specific sports training focus. For me, this is refreshing to talk about as literature typically just focuses on BFR resistance training or just stationary cardio exercise.

 If we refer back to the start of this mini series, I was inspired by the Tokyo 2021 Olympic and Paralympic games, and really thought at the time that it was relevant. The first article that focused on football training, and I felt that it fitted well within the sport of football for my Northern hemisphere friends or soccer for my Southern hemisphere friends. Article two focused on running, and then article three looked at how passive BFR used prior to high intensity swimming efforts can positively influence performance.

Now today's article we're back on the land and hopping on our bikes. The article I'm reviewing is called:

Effects of low-intensity cycle training with restricted leg blood flow on thigh muscle volume and VO2max in young men.

Abe, T., Fujita, S., Nakajima, T., Sakamaki, M., Ozaki, H., Ogasawara, R., ... & Ishii, N. (2010).  Journal of sports science & medicine, 9(3), 452.

 

If you have used BFR and cycling for your own use and seen positive results, drop me a line and let me know. It'd be really great to hear your story. And a couple of favors from me to you. If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it. Also if you're enjoying the podcast, please give it a rating on iTunes.

If you're interested in purchasing your own set of BFR cuffs, please visit my website, which is sportsrehab.com.au. I can also help you with your training, so contact me via my website or DME through my socials, which is @chrisgaviglio. Thanks for listening. See you next time and remember to keep the pump.

Using passive BFR to improve swimming performance in elite swimmers

 Hi everyone and welcome back to BFR radio. Thanks for joining in. Hope your training or your coaching's going well. Before I head into today's article review a quick reminder that if you're looking for practical ideas on how to implement BFR into your own training, check out my Instagram, which is @chrisgaviglio, or my YouTube channel,  which is SportsRehabAus.  I've also been added in 60 seconds snippets, and that's been particularly with my Twitter and my Instagram, I'd actually love to hear if you're enjoying the best bits of the podcast. Also, if you have any burning questions, come and join me for your questions answered. This is where you get to ask a question or two and I'll answer it and everyone gets to learn. So if you do have a question, please contact me and we can have a chat. If you're not keen to come onto the podcast, that's fine. I'll fashion the question into my own chat and I'll  just put something together as well.

In today's episode we're going to get off the land and we're looking at the use of BFR to improve swimming performance. Something that I'm not good at, but the article anyway is called,

Remote preconditioning improves maximal performance in highly trained athletes. 

Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 43(7), 1280-1286.

Jean-St-Michel, E., Manlhiot, C., Li, J., Tropak, M., Michelsen, M. M., Schmidt, M. R., ... & Redington, A. N. (2011).

 

This paper in particular focuses on the effect that ischemic preconditioning can have on the swimming performance. There are a few papers that I've actually reviewed on ischemic preconditioning and my podcast with Sam Hally looked at ischemic preconditioning. And he also spoke about a few great papers that he authored as part of his thesis. And the application of ischemic preconditioning is passive. And although the goal of this mini-series was to focus on BFR and sports specific training, this is still a really great paper to go through in respect to specific sports performance.

 

If you enjoy the podcast, please give it a rating on ITunes And if you're interested in purchasing your own set of BFR cuffs, please visit my website, which again is sportsrehab.com.au. And I can also help you with your training so contact me via my website or through my socials, which is @chrisgaviglio.

Once again. Thanks for listening. Appreciate your time remember to keep the pump. 

BFR Running - improve your training session response and performance

Welcome back to this episode of BFR radio.

And this is episode number two in a short mini series on the use of BFR in relation to sports performance or sports performance outcomes. And if you remember, in the previous episode, I said that the Olympics inspired me on this short little mini series here.

At the time  I was actually in Cairns with the Australian track and field team. Within that team, I work with three athletes, Riley Day who ran a massive PB in the women's 200m. And the two decathletes Cedric Dubler and also Ash Maloney. Now, Ash Maloney won a bronze medal, which is, best ever result for an Australian in an Olympics for the decathlon. And also Cedric Dubler who there was some really great images of him encouraging Ash on  to ensure that Ash got home in the correct time or close enough to his other competitors to ensure that he secured that bronze medal. 

But what is even more significant, which was amazing and I alluded to something potentially pretty special in the previous episode was that I'm not sure if anyone knew, but about two and a half to three weeks prior to the start of the competition, Cedric tore his hamstring, a grade two medial hamstring and there was actually a little bit of tendon involvement as well. Now, typically when we rehab a hamstring, it's four to six weeks and more so six weeks plus when we're talking about track and field athletes, because of the velocities that they've got a sprint at.

Now what he was able to do was actually got back to 95% of his maximum speed within 11 days. That's right. Within 11 days. And also within two weeks or so, he actually started the competition and he actually competed comparatively to his personal best.

How did we do it? Aside from good rest, having good physiotherapists, good nutrition, and just being able to focus on training and recovery, I absolutely used BFR to its fullest extent in relation to this rehab. There's been a lot of articles that I've reviewed around improvement in anabolic hormones, improvement in stem cell proliferation, improvement in muscle repair, decreasing in pain improvement in recovery. And I used it three to four times a day. Whether it was activating the correct musculature prior to strength or  running sessions, whether it was to be used in between sessions to help with recovery, whether we used it with upper body, when he couldn't train his lower body in that really initial acute phase, I really maximized all the activation of the different pathways that potentially could have helped. And I really can't explain it how we did it any quicker. Some say that medial hamstrings potentially you can run quicker on them than, other hamstring injuries. But this guy competed at an elite level at Olympics in just over two weeks. So it was really amazing. And perhaps if you want to hear this a little bit more, I'll put this into a podcast so please do let me know. So that was really exciting for me.  So well done to Cedric for believing in the process and perhaps believing in that a lot of work needs to be done and that it can be done within two weeks. 

Back to the mini-series, today's episode is something that most of us can do and it's called, "The effect of muscle blood flow restriction during running training on measures of aerobic capacity and run time to exhaustion". The primary author is Carl Peyton and comes out of the Institute of technology, Napier in New Zealand.

 

Hope you enjoy this one.

 

Before I go, a couple of favors from me to you. If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it.  

If you're enjoying the podcast, please give it a rating on iTunes.

And if you're interested in purchasing your own set of BFR cuffs, please visit my website, which is sportsrehab.com.au.

And I can also help you with your training. So contact me via my website or DME through my socials, which is @chrisgaviglio.  

Thanks for listening, see you next episode, and remember to keep the pump.

Using BFR in Futsal small sided games to improve game specific fitness

 Welcome back to this episode of BFR radio.

As I'm recording this episode, it actually coincides with the start of the 2020, or should I say 2021 Tokyo Olympic summer games. I'm actually currently sitting in my hotel room in Cairns far, north Queensland, helping out with the Australian track and field team in particular, I work with three athletes, one sprinter, female, 200 meter runner  Riley Day and also 2 decathletes, Ashley Moloney and Cedric Dubler.

And there'll be competing very soon. So keeping an eye out for them.  With respect to these athletes, I mainly do their strength programs, but I'm also the shot put and discus coach for the two decathletes, it's actually been a really exciting few weeks seeing the athletes finalize their preparation.

And as it's the Olympics, I thought it would be fitting that this mini series would look at how to use BFR in sporting movements  or for the benefit or performance of sporting outcomes. I thought that was fitted well with the theme of the Olympics, and it might give a sports coach and idea for their own athletes on how they can incorporate it for the benefit of sporting perform.

Now, also remember that they are contra-indications for BFR use and this needs to be taken in the correct context. For example, if your athletes have a low training age, you need to firstly, ensure that they're covering the big rocks with respect to training and recovery, and you actually might have more benefit in getting the simple things correct before even contemplating doing blood flow restriction.

 Onto the article  and the one that I'm going to review today is called,

Occlusion training during specific futsal training improves aspects of physiological and physical performance.

Journal of sports science & medicine, 19(2), 374.

Amani-Shalamzari, S., Sarikhani, A., Paton, C., Rajabi, H., Bayati, M., Nikolaidis, P. T., & Knechtle, B. (2020).  

 Although, futsal is not in the Olympics, soccer for my southern hemisphere friends, or  football for my European friends is. Therefore I thought that the concept in the training of, and the movements performed are quite similar.

This is a great practical use of BFR in a sporting movement. Hope you enjoy it.

Before you head off and listen to the podcast, a couple of favours from me to you.

If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it.

And also, if you're enjoying the podcast, please give it a rating on iTunes.

If you're interested in purchasing your own set of BFR cuffs, I've got my own brand called the Sports Rehab Tourniquet And you can get this by visiting my website, which is www.sportsrehab.com.au.

I could also help you with your training so contact me via my website or DM me through my socials, which is @chrisgaviglio Instagram and also Twitter. For video training ideas also check out my YouTube channel SportsRehabAus.

 

Thanks for listening and remember to keep the pump. 

Using BFR to improve recovery & rehab from shoulder & ankle surgery - Your Questions Answered

Welcome back to BFR radio. Thanks for joining in. Today's episode is Your Questions Answered and I've really been enjoying this so if you, have a burning question about BFR and how you're going to use it in your own setting or scenario get ahold of me and we'll set up a call on the internet and I'll be able to actually tailor this to exactly what you need and hopefully demystify everything about BFR and put a real practical spin on it.

Before I get into today's episode, remember if you're looking for BFR cuffs, you can actually get it from my website, which is www.sportsrehab.com.au  and I have tons of content on my Instagram, which is @chrisgaviglio  and also on my YouTube channel, which is SportsRehabAus.  Today's episode is a gentleman called Declan Dinnen and he plays for the Bond University Premier rugby team based on the Gold Coast.

 Now, two things he's going on. One is his shoulder. He's had major surgery on his right shoulder and he's about three months post and he's having struggling a little bit with some range of movement.

And the second thing is that he has got a Haglund's deformity. In his ankle on both legs and he is shortly going to go into surgery. As you will find out in my conversation with Declan, he really struggles to move and to do anything that's dynamic.

Today's podcast is really practical and I cover a lot of information which I am sure you'll get a lot out of it. As I get to the end of the conversation, we then talk a little more so stayed tuned all of the way until the end. 

Hope you enjoy this podcast. If you know of someone who will benefit from the episode please share it and if you enjoy it please give it a rating on iTunes.   

Thanks for listening and remember to keep the pump.

 

Chris