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Originally Posted by stevekern

This occlusion training can be pretty rough on the kidneys! https://www.ergo-log.com/blood-flow-r...s-muscles.html

I'm not a doctor but I got to think this man had to have some underlying condition or other factors that caused this. I think its a little extreme to say this type of training causes this due to one case. I find it hard to believe that the level and duration of training this man did was the sole cause of this condition. Me and guns were done within minutes and I find it hard to believe there was enough waste or broken down muscle tissue to cause damage to the kidneys as long as we were adequately hydrated.

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Originally Posted by gusto77

I'm not a doctor but I got to think this man had to have some underlying condition or other factors that caused this. I think its a little extreme to say this type of training causes this due to one case. I find it hard to believe that the level and duration of training this man did was the sole cause of this condition. Me and guns were done within minutes and I find it hard to believe there was enough waste or broken down muscle tissue to cause damage to the kidneys as long as we were adequately hydrated.

You may be right I only posted this for informational purposes. Remember our kidneys are already under a lot of stress!-)

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Originally Posted by stevekern

You may be right I only posted this for informational purposes. Remember our kidneys are already under a lot of stress!-)

i am not to overly concerned with the kidney issue since we dont really hit it that hard or often. max on occlusion for me is 8 sets in about 10 mins give or take and it is done max 2x a wk at the most. i will post up a research link to its safety and effectiveness as well when i get some down time

Tweettoday:

back/calves
10 min treadmill warmup
med ng low cable rows 85x20/2 100x20(warmups) 120x20 140x20 160x20
sm bent rows 135x8(feeler set) 185x8 225x8 275x8 275x8 (lost a bit of explosiveness on the last rep of the last 2 sets)
db pullovers 50x10 60x10 70x10
rack pulls(mid shin) 225x5 275x5 315x5(warmups) 365x3 405x3 435x3
rack pulls (just below knee) 455x3 475x3 500x3
toe press ts 190x15ts 230x12ts 270x10ts
bw standing calf raise ts x17ts x14ts x11ts
tibia raise ts50x61 ts50x37 ts50x21

done for the day. awesome freaking day today. neck is still a smidge tender but it had no effect on my training today. moved some heavy weight that felt really good and the pump was silly. probably had another 90lbs or so on the rack pulls but didnt want to risk my neck getting more aggervated so i held back a little bit to be safe. i am overall happy with the day and my back thickness and density is def showing big time i think. def going to be showing some huge improvements from last year for damn sure.


meal 1
16oz top round steak w/a1
2 pop tarts
meal 2
protein cakes w/ pb
intra workout meal
2 and a half scoops intra md w/ gallon water
meal 3
16oz sirloin steak
8oz sweet potatoe w/brown sugar and cinnamon
2 tb; spn coconut oil
meal 4
16oz ground turkey meatloaf
2 cups basmatti rice
meal 5
16oz chicken (food processed w/ketchup)
2tbl spn coconut oil

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Originally Posted by stevekern

You may be right I only posted this for informational purposes. Remember our kidneys are already under a lot of stress!-)

Blood Occlusion Training
1
Practical Occlusion Training
By: Jeremy P Loenneke, Southeast Missouri State University
Published
:
May 2009
Introduction
Restricting blood flow to a muscle
, and
exercising; does
n’t
that sound ridiculous? I
used to think so, until I came across occlusion training. Occlusion training is a fairly new
mode of exercise that allows one to train at very low intensities and receive the benefit of
high intensity exercise.
Intensities as l
ow as 20% 1RM have been shown to result in
increased muscle mass when performed with modera
te blood flow restriction with no
increase in markers for muscle damage
(Loenneke & Pujol, in press)
.
How can this benefit bodybuilders?
As we all know, it’s hard
to train at high
intensities (>85% 1RM) day in and day out. Those conditions drain you
both physically and
mentally. Occlusion training
allow
s
you to give
not only
your joints a break
from the
heavy
loading
, but also
your mind.
Mechanisms
What does
restricting blood flow do that translates into bigger muscles? There are a
variety of proposed mechanisms, but a few seem to be the most prominent. The three
mechanisms below appear to act together to produce an environment that is favorable to
muscle gr
owth with low intensity occlusion training.
1.
Fiber Type Recruitment (Fast twitch fiber recruitment)
2.
Accumulation of Metabolites
(lactic acid

acid
ic
environment

GH
secretion)
Blood Occlusion Training
2
3.
mTOR pathway activation (protein synthesis)
Fiber Type Recruitment
During low i
ntensity exercise, slow twitch fibers (oxidative) are primarily recruited as
they are able to adequately handle the workload. This isn’t advantageous to bodybuilders
because, fast twitch fibers (glycolytic) have the greatest potential for growth.
When on
e
moderately restricts blood
-
flow, it limits the amount of oxygen available to the slow twitch
(oxidative) fibers thus causing a rapid recruitment of fast twitch (glycolytic) fibers to handle
the workload. Thus with occlusion, fast twitch fibers are able
to be trained with a low
-
intensity workload.
EMG (electromyography) studies were completed to confirm that there
is an increase in motor unit firing with occlusion. The EMG data also revealed no difference
between low intensity occlusion training and hig
h intensity exercise
(Moritani, Michael
-
Sherman, Shibata, Matsumoto, & Shinohara, 1992; Takarada, Tsuruta, & Ishii , 2004)
. This
means that despite the light weight, the firing rate mimics that of heavy resistance training.
Metabolic Accumulation
Occlusion training with low intensities has shown increases in lactate and growth
hormone (GH). The increase in GH has actually been shown to be even higher than that
seen with heavy resistance training. One study in athletes showed a 290x increase in G
H
over baseline
(Takarada, Nakamura, Aruga, Onda, Miyazaki, & Ishii, 2000)
.
Lactate
increasing is linked to GH, in that an increase in lactate makes the environment within the
muscle
more
acidic. Remember, there is an inverse relationship between lactate
and pH, so
as lactate increases, pH decreases. There is evidence to indicate that a low pH stimulates
the pathway that plays an important role in the secretion of GH
(Gosselink, et al., 1998)
.
mTOR Pathway
The mTOR pathway has
also
been shown to be ac
tivated with low intensity occlusion
training
(Fujita, et al., 2007)
. This pathway is responsible for protein synthesis.
Phosphorylation of S6k1 was increased by three
-
fold following occlusion training and
Blood Occlusion Training
3
remained elevated at
3 hours post exercise. Th
is increase in protein synthesis means the
body is primed for muscle growth.
Fast twitch fiber recruitment, metabolic accumulation, and mTOR activation are three
of the most prominent mechanisms involved in the muscle building effects seen with
occlusion t
raining. There are others that likely play some role, but the aforementioned are
likely the most
prominent
. Other potential mechanisms include increases in Heat Shock
proteins, NOS
-
1, and decreased expression of myostatin.
Occlusion Device
So you know
the benefits, you know the m
echanisms, but how would a bodybuilder
occlude a muscle? The research uses something called a KAATSU apparatus. This is an
expensive machine that many of us don’t have lying around. My lab has been working on a
practical way
to do this by testing the effects of elastic knee wraps.
We have
postulated
that
tying
elastic knee wraps around the legs
will
induce a stimulus similar to that of using
expensive equipment.
Our
latest study was to examine a protocol that could be utili
zed by
the greatest number of people. Having blood flow restricted is very uncomfortable, so our
lab has directed efforts to find ways to increase the comfort to pain ratio. We investigated
the lactate response to low
-
intensity exercise with blood flow
being restored after each set.
Our preliminary data has shown that when flow is restored to normal it does not induce
a
significant rise in lactate over control.
This tells me that when blood flow is restored after
each set, it doesn’t allow for the inte
nsity of the exercise to change enough to see a rapid
recruitment of additional fibers.
So when prescribing occlusion training, it seems essential
to keep the occlusion on throughout the exercise, to allow for the necessary intramuscular
environmental cha
nges to occur leading to muscular growth.
Since it is only preliminary
research, future efforts will/are being done to find out more.
Blood Occlusion Training
4
Occlusion for the upper body can also occur by using elbow wraps for the upper arm
and wrist wraps for the forearms. Ag
ain, you would wrap it proximal to the muscle you
wish to train. If you are hitting biceps that day, elbow wrap the very top of your upper arm,
and for forearms you would occlude the upper portion of your lower arm (elbow area).
In
the next section, I’ll
discuss how to receive occlusion benefits for the upper body.
Exercise Rx
for UPPER/LOWER
As I’ve stated before, our lab did not see a significant difference in lactate between
groups,
when blood flow was restored in between sets. Thus, I
would recommend leaving
the elastic knee wraps on throughout until the 4 sets have been completed.
This stimulus
will likely
allow for the increased recruitment of Type 2 fibers, which would result in a
significant increase in lactate.
Occlusion benefit
s for the lower body have been very
promising, in that every study has shown significant increases in muscle mass over the
control.
As far as occlusion for the upper body, an interesting paper from Madarame et al.
(2008)
has shown that one can receive benefits of occlusion for the upper body by occluding
the lower body. This cross
-
over effect is likely attributed to the large increase in hormones
due to the larger muscles of the leg musculature. The large
r quadriceps wi
ll
increase
hormones more so than the small
er
biceps.
Madarame showed that when occlusion of the
legs followed a light upperbody exercise, it resulted in significant hypertrophy.
Although indirect occlusion for the upper body is effective, as stated pr
eviously, it is
possible to also directly occlude the upper body by using elbow and wrist wraps. Obviously,
this would directly effect the biceps, triceps, and forearms. So what about the other
muscles of the upper body? There is research out of Fujita’
s laboratory in Japan that
suggests that one can hypertrophy the chest, by occluding the upper portion of the arm.
The idea is that during the bench press, the triceps would fatigue fast, resulting in a higher
recruitment of the chest to pick up the load.
One would also suspect that the same could be
Blood Occlusion Training
5
done for the back, by occluding the arm in the same spot (very top of the arm).
Theoretically, during a lat pull down, occluding the biceps would cause a higher recruitment
of fibers from the back.
One of
the most interesting studies was conducted by A
be et al.
(2006). They have
found that walking at very low speeds
on a treadmill
results in bigger muscles too.
Muscular growth occurred at a speed of about 2 mph.
B
elow is an exercise prescription f
or
both
the legs and upper body. I have also included a small section on cardio
recommendations.
To use the
tables
you will need to know how to figure percentages of
your one repetition maximum.
Minimum Intensity Equation=
Your One Repetition Maximum
X
0.
2
Maximum Intensity Equation=
Your one Repetition Maximum
X
0.5
For example, if you’re 1RM on the BB Squat is 405 pounds, here’s how you would
figure your intensity.
405 x 0.2= 81 pounds would be the minimum weight you would work with
.
405 x 0.5=202.5
pounds would be the maximum weight you would work with.
Table 1.
Lower body Recommendations
Lower Body Exercise
Sets/Reps
Rest
Intensity
BB Squat
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Leg Press
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Leg
Extension
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Leg Curl
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Hack Squat
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Romanian Deadlifts
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Calve Raises
4/30
-
15
-
15
-
15
30 seconds
-
1 minute
20
-
50% 1RM
Blood Occlusion Training
6
Upper body occlusion is basically performing an exercise for the body part you wish to grow
at
a
low intensity (50% 1RM) followed by occluding the legs.
Training at 50% 1RM is low
enough intensity that you ar
en’t causing a major stress to the joints, but it appears
sufficient enough to activate the hormonal receptors
(Madarame, Neya, Ochi, Nakazato,
Sato, & Ishii, 2008)
.
So
let’s
say your max bench is 400 pounds, you would use 200
pounds with normal bloodflow for 3 sets of 10, followed by occlusion with the leg extension
and leg curl.
Occluding the large musculature of the legs will result in a huge increase in
hormones. Hormone
s are transported in the blood and blood goes everywhere in the body.
So, the hormone release from the lower body will be transporte
d to the hormone receptors
activated with the upper body exercise.
Obviously you could do it for many different
exercises,
but listed below are just a few to give you an example.
Table 2.
Upper body Recommendations
Upper Body Exercise
Sets/Reps
Rest
Intensity
BB Bench Press
*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50% 1RM
BB Military*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50% 1RM
BB Curl*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50%
1RM
BB Row*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50% 1RM
Lat Pulldown*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50% 1RM
DB Tricep Extensions*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50% 1RM
Dips*
3/10
1
-
2 minutes
50% 1RM
*
indicates that when you have finished the exercise, you wrap your legs and perform 3 sets
of leg extension and/or 3 sets of leg curls.
The intensity of the leg extension/leg curl is set
at 3 sets of 30% 1RM on leg extension/leg cu
rl. Reps are set at
30
-
15
-
15 with 30 seconds
to 1 minute rest between each set. Here’s an example of how it would look for the bench.
1.
Bench Press your 3 sets at 50% 1RM
Blood Occlusion Training
7
2.
Wrap your legs for 3 sets of 30
-
15
-
15 at 30% 1RM on leg extension with 30
seconds
-
1 minute rest
3.
Take the
wraps off and wait for ~5 minutes to restore bloodflow
4.
Wrap your legs again for 3 sets of 30
-
15
-
15 at 30% 1RM on leg curl with 30
seconds
-
1 minute rest.
5.
Take off wraps
As
stated earlier, there is evidence to indicate that walking at low speeds occluded
,
re
sults in skeletal muscle hypertrophy.
Abe et al.
(2006)
had subjects walk on a treadmill
at ~2mph for 5 sets of 2 minute intervals with 1 minute rest between intervals. They did
this twice a day and after 6 weeks
the subjects who had been walking occlud
ed gained
a
significant amount of muscle over
those in the
control
who were walking with normal
bloodflow
. So how can you receive this benefit
at your gym? If you want to train
your
upper leg, wrap the very top portion of your thigh. However, if you wan
t to train calves,
wrap the knee wraps around your knees, as you would for squatting. Instead
of completely
resting
between intervals, I recommend lowe
ring the intensity and just moving
slower than
you were for your actual working interval. For example,
with the elliptical
,
let’s
say you are
sticking with LEVEL 10 for your resistance during the intervals, lower it to LEVEL 4 or 5 for
your rest interval.
Remember, you shouldn’t be in an all out sprint during the working
interval, light to moderate seems t
o be the most effective environment for the benefits of
occluded cardio.
Conclusions
In conclusion, this paper has discussed the mechanisms by which occlusion works
and even more important, how a bodybuilder can occlude a muscle to receive the benefits
of training heavy with light
er
weight.
Outlined in
this
text are different exercise prescriptions
for the lower body, upper body, and even cardio recommendations.
Blood Occlusion Training
8
Some Key Points
•
I would
recommend that one not occlude a muscle for more than 30 minutes
a
t a time
This is purely a safety concern. One must understand the difference
between acute and chronic effects. Acute blood flow restriction is a
definite positive, but chronically cutting off blood flow would likely
result in actual tissue death.
•
Ne
ver use occlusion with anything above 50% 1RM
As bodybuilders, we
often
fall into the trap of more is better. If a
person would use occlusion with heavy lifting; 1) they are defeating
the point of occlusion training; 2) it doesn’t appear to have a
synergi
stic effect anyway
(Laurentino, et al., 2008)
; and 3) I believe
this could cause potential harm to the body.
•
Wrap the knee wraps tight, but not crazy tight (We want moderate occlusion,
not full occlusion)
This goes back to the phrase, moderate blood
-
flow restriction, NOT
COMPLETE. We only need a moderate change to receive benefit.
•
If you have any indications of impaired endothelial function (Diabetics
included), DO NOT OCCLUDE
If a person already has an impaired vascular system, I would urge
them not to try occlusion as it could be very dangerous to there well
-
being.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Monica Kearney, Austin Thrower, and Dr. Joe Pujol for their
help and
continued support in the research of practical occlusion.
Brief
Author
Biography
Jeremy Loenneke is a Graduate Student at Southeast Missouri State University in the
Nutrition, Exercise Science program where his main focus is Vascular Occlusion Training.
He also is a competitive natural bodybuilder in the OCB.
Jeremy can be reached at
jploenneke1s@semo.edu
Blood Occlusion Training
9
Works Cited
Abe, T., Kearns, C., & Sato, Y. (2006). Muscle size and strength are increased following
walk training with restricted venous blood flow from the leg mus
cle, Kaatsu
-
walk
training.
J Appl Physiol
, 100
, 1460
-
1466.
Fujita, S., Abe, T., Drummond, M., Cadenas, J., Dreyer, H., Sato, Y., et al. (2007). Blood
flow restriction during low
-
intensity resistance exercise increases S6K1
phosphorylation and muscle protein synthesis.
J. Appl. Physiol.
, 103
, 903
-
910.
Gosselink, K. L., Grindeland, R. E., Roy, R. R., Zhong, H., Bigbee, A. J., Grossman, E. J., et
al. (1998). Skeletal muscle afferent regulation of bioassayable growth hormone in
the rat pituitary.
J. Appl. Physiol
, 84
(4), 1425
-
1430.
Laurentino, G., Ugrino
witsch, C., Aihara, A., Fernandes, A., Parcell, A., Ricard, M., et al.
(2008). Effects of strength training and vascular occlusion.
International Journal of
Sports Medicine
, 8
, 664
-
667.
Loenneke, J., & Pujol, T. (in press). The use of occlusion training t
o produce muscle
hypertrophy.
Journal of Strength and Conditioning
.
Madarame, H., Neya, M., Ochi, E., Nakazato, K., Sato, Y., & Ishii, N. (2008). Cross
-
transfer
effects of resistance training with blood flow restriction.
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc.
, 40
(2),
258
-
263.
Moritani, T., Michael
-
Sherman, W., Shibata, M., Matsumoto, T., & Shinohara, M. (1992).
Oxygen availability and motor unit activity in humans.
Eur J Appl Physiol
, 64
, 552
-
556.
Takarada, Y., Nakamura, Y., Aruga, S., Onda, T., Miyazaki, S., & Ishii,
N. (2000). Rapid
increase in plasma growth hormone after low
-
intensity resistance exercise with
vascular occlusion.
J Appl Physiol
, 88
, 61
-
65.
Blood Occlusion Training
10
Takarada, Y., Tsuruta, T., & Ishii, N. (2004). Cooperative effects of exercise and occlusive
stimuli on muscula
r function in low
-
intensity resistance exercise with moderate
vascular occlusion.
Jap J of Physiol
, 54
, 585
-
592.

Tweet

Originally Posted by gusto77

I'm not a doctor but I got to think this man had to have some underlying condition or other factors that caused this. I think its a little extreme to say this type of training causes this due to one case. I find it hard to believe that the level and duration of training this man did was the sole cause of this condition. Me and guns were done within minutes and I find it hard to believe there was enough waste or broken down muscle tissue to cause damage to the kidneys as long as we were adequately hydrated.

You make a valid point.