BLOOD FLOW RESTRICTION TRAINING AT AGAVE PHYSICAL THERAPY

First encountered while working at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, earlier this year, Brett Qualls PT, DPT of Agave Physical Therapy explains an exciting new technique—Blood Flow Restriction training. Now offered at Agave Physical Therapy, Blood Flow Restriction training (otherwise known as BFR), is paired with exercise and helps to increase the effectiveness of workouts to help you grow more muscle. “This has been proven to help gain muscle mass for those rehabilitating after surgery, with generalized weakness in older adults, and even physically fit individuals who simply want to put on more muscle mass,” notes Qualls. The BFR system uses a special tourniquet, that once applied to your extremity will partially occlude blood flow into and out of the limb. The science behind this creates a situation where your body perceives that it is working very hard with significantly lighter weights being used for exercise. Essentially, BFR allows you to build more muscle lifting much lighter weights. “While exercise with BFR is exciting and has been helping our patients to see some great results, it should not be misconstrued as “easier” than regular exercise. Blood Flow Restriction makes small movements very difficult” says Qualls. Agave Physical Therapy is excited to bring this new modality to their clinic and are looking forward to helping even more patients in the upcoming year!