BFR Radio

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

 

Wrestling training with BFR – how to improve physical & technical capacity of wrestlers

Hi everyone. And welcome back to this episode of BFR radio. Hope your own training is going well. Thank you for all of your questions about blood flow restriction. And if you do have any burning questions of your own, please DM me through my social channels, which is @chrisgaviglio or my website contact us page, which is www.sportsrehab.com.au.

A reminder that I have an introduction to BFR presentation on the play education platform. That's P L AE. This is a fantastic initiative by PLAE. And the goal is actually to extend my one hour to my full BFR workshop on this online platform. So stay tuned for that. And I'll definitely let you know. There's also a lot of other fantastic presentations and courses on this platform so make sure you check it out. Click here: https://plaeacademy.com

 

Today's episode is going to be the last episode in relation to this upper body short mini series in BFR. And recently I've been focusing on how BFR can be used effectively in different upper body scenarios. 

In particular, we looked at the muscular benefits with low load BFR bench, press and practical bicep curls. The third episode highlighted the benefits of using BFR for wrist fractures and the fourth, and the penultimate episode showed that we can improve grip, strength and size using something very simple as hand squeezing type exercises.

Hence, I thought it was a really great segue to today's episode, which is more of a practical sporting example, and really the title says it all:

Effect of exercise program with blood flow restriction on upper limb vasculature and performance in wrestlers.

Ghoraba, M., Ghazy, M., & El Tomey, M. (2017).

IJSSA, 2, 298-327.

 

In the study I mentioned a technique called a Gut Wrench. Here is the link to a good video explaining it if you're interested:

Click here to see Gut Wrench technique video

I really like this study with respect to the practical applications of BFR to a sport. There's actually a few other sports specific studies starting to appear in literature, which really highlights the positive application of BFR.

In closing, if there's a topic of interest you'd like me to cover in this short mini series please let me know, as I'm really interested in knowing what interests you. Thanks again for listening.

Hope you've enjoyed it.

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

And if you haven't got a set of your own BFR cuffs, please visit my website, which is www.sportsrehab.com.au, where you can purchase the Sports Rehab Tourniquet.

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

Lastly, if you're enjoying the podcast, please give it a rating on iTunes. Thanks for listening and remember to keep the pump.

BFR Handgrip training - improve your grip strength & forearm size.

Welcome back to this episode of BFR Radio, hope you're doing well. Remember if you have any questions about BFR, please DM me through my social channels, which is @chrisgaviglio on Instagram or Twitter, or alternatively through my website, contact us, or actually it's just me page, which is sportsrehab.com.au. I've been actually receiving a few messages, so thanks for reaching out and I'll definitely be incorporating them into the podcast over the coming episodes. If you're looking for some good BFR learning opportunities, I've teamed up with PLAE who are known for  really top quality sports flooring.  They have an education arm as well and I've produced an introduction to BFR presentation.  This is an hour long presentation, which has some learning opportunities or learning questions along the way. So you can actually test your understanding of BFR and actual goal is to put my full BFR workshop on this online learning platform. So stay tuned for that.

Click here for the PLAE website and access my course: https://plaeacademy.com

 

There are lots of other great courses that are available to you from some of the top S&C coaches, all around the world so make sure you check them out.

And also talking about just general BFR information, I also appear on another podcast with a fellow health specialist. Her name is Zora, and she actually goes by the Instagram handle @hackmyage. And overall she interviews lots of fantastic guests looking at ways to, I guess, Biohack their own health.  This can range from anything, from exercise to nutrition, to breathing, cold water immersion, and so forth.

Click here to check out her website & other great information: Click to find out more about Zora

Click here to link to my podcast with Zora on BFR: Podcast with Zora

So moving on to today's article we're going to look at hand grip strength. And in particular, it's called:

Effects of handgrip training with venous restriction on brachial artery vasodilation

Credeur, D. P., Hollis, B. C., & Welsch, M. A. (2010).

Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 42(7), 1296.

And this serves as a really good segue for my next episode, where it'll actually be the last in the mini series on BFR upper body. And it's actually going to look at how you can use BFR in upper body training to help athletes where improved grip or grappling ability is really important.

And if you do know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it. I really do appreciate all your interactions.  And if you haven't got your own set of BFR cuffs, please visit my website, which is sportsrehab.com.au.

And I can also help you with your own training so once again, contact me through my website or my socials.  

If you enjoy the podcast, I'd appreciate if you give it a rating, on iTunes.

Thanks for listening, see at the next episode. And remember to keep the pump.

Using BFR to rehab from a foot (navicular) fracture - Your Questions Answered.

Thanks again for joining me on this month's episode and the last three episodes we've delved into the upper body BFR mini series. In particular, we looked at article reviews with respect to muscular benefits of BFR Bench Press, and bicep curls.

And the last episode we looked at how it could be used to improve recovery from a hand fracture or more so improving pain and function with the addition of BFR to a normal rehab program for a hand fracture. 

And for today's episode, like they say, variety's the spice of life. So we're going to take a small break from the mini-series and we're actually going to go into your questions answered. And although this wasn't a specific, your questions answered, I do get a lot of questions from people out there, like yourself who have actually got their own question.

And afterwards I sat down and I wrote some notes and I thought I'd actually formulate it into this episode you've got here. The question I have today is from an athletics Sprint's coach, and he has an athlete who has a foot fracture of the navicular bone. Now this  can be quite a serious injury if not looked after properly.

His question was around how we could use BFR within his rehab and return to run program. With respect to this injury, I'm going to be talking about the affected limb and that's going to be the foot that has the fracture.

 

This is a really practical episode with lots of different uses for BFR in this scenario. I hope you enjoy it.  

 

If you know of someone who has a similar kind of injury and you would benefit from listening to this episode, please share it.

If you are actually going through the same injury and you want some guidance on how you could be using in your own training, I could actually help you with that as well. So please contact me via my website or DM me through my socials on Twitter or Instagram, which is @chrisgaviglio.

Also there's loads of information on my website, which is www.sportsrehab.com.au. And I also have a YouTube channel, which has SportsRehabAus. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week, when we're going to get back into the upper body mini series. Good luck with your training and remember to keep the pump.

 

Chris

Using BFR for hand fracture rehab - a rehab tool to enhance your therapy.

Welcome back to this episode of BFR radio,hope you're doing well and enjoying this upper body series.

Just a friendly reminder about my sports rehab tourniquet BFR cuffs is that I've got new valves. I've actually had them for a few months now and everyone's loving them and looked the concept's pretty simple.

There's two valves which connect together and they help inflate the cuff.  It's a little bit nicer. The connections are a lot firmer. Everyone that is using the new valves on the cuffs are loving it. So if you have the older style connection, which was a simple tube into an twist valve, you can actually upgrade your cuffs. All you have to do is head to my website, which is sports rehab.com. I've got a little video with it as well at which it's really simple and quick to change them over and I guarantee you'll love the new upgrade.

 

Onto this episode, this is the third article review in the upper body series. Today we move away from the muscular benefits of BFR and look at the benefits with respect to bone fractures. Episode seven of BFR Radio actually reviewed an article that looked at the role of BFR and the rationale for improving bone reformation. In animal studies the use of BFR has been shown to improve fracture, healing time and there's actually a few human case studies as well. So see, episode 10, if you're a little bit more interested in this concept. Getting straight into the article, it's called:

Blood flow restriction therapy after closed treatment of distal radius fractures.

Cancio, J. M., Sgromolo, N. M., & Rhee, P. C. (2019).  Journal of wrist surgery, 8(4), 288.s," 

 

If you know of someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it.  Alternatively, if you're going through this same rehab and interesting in purchasing your own set of BFR cuffs, please visit my website, which is www.sportsrehab.com.au

And also once again, do you enjoy the 60 seconds snippets? If so, make sure you let me know, give it a comment, give it a thumbs up. Thanks for listening. And remember to keep the pump.