Researchers from the University of Guelph’s Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences are testing a new technique to enhance athletic performance. The technique is called external blood flow manipulation, and it works by reducing blood flow to a muscle by applying a device similar to a blood pressure cuff or tourniquet. This causes blood to accumulate below the location of the cuff, which has been shown in previous research to prevent loss in muscle strength and size.
Dr. Jamie Burr from the University of Guelph heads one of only two groups in the world currently testing this process.
“To be honest, there’s a lot of things about it we don’t understand right now,” Burr says, “but on the surface, what we know is that if we train a muscle under blood flow restricted conditions, we get a huge response compared to what we would expect normally.”
He explains that the purpose of restricting blood flow is not to cut it off entirely. “You want to stop the blood from leaving the muscle, but not from coming in, so it’s not 100 per cent let’s just cut off the blood, you want to do this at a specific level.”
Burr’s method applies electrical impulses along with blood flow restriction to achieve a muscle contraction, which achieves some of the same health benefits of exercise.
“For me to make you look like a bodybuilder using electro-stimulation, […] the intensity of the stimulus is far too great. People won’t or can’t put up with it,” he explains. “If light intensity works when you lift, and we can only do a light intensity of this [treatment], and we suddenly combine these two things, we may be able to make them more effective.”
This technique, a kind of “passive exercise,” has applications for a variety of individuals. It could be applied to rehabilitation for bedridden patients by helping to reduce their recovery times and improve quality of life.
Burr uses the example of a broken bone. “One of the things we could do is prevent that atrophy. It might just be when you get the cast off that we put this on and we start getting you ready for rehab, or theoretically we might be able to start inserting electrodes into a cast,” he says. “So we’d put these [electrodes] on, build a cast around it, and then when you’re ready, we can start to turn it on.”
“The other thing is, we know whether it be a broken bone or a myocardial infarction, the quicker you can get somebody back to moving, the much better their outcome will be,” he explains. Burr’s research can help the body to simulate the muscle processes of movement and experience the benefits of exercise without the associated risks of falling and further injury. External blood flow manipulation may also have potential uses in treating chronic diseases like diabetes, according to Burr.
“Assuming it’s Type 2, which is lifestyle related, we know that they are fairly sedentary,” he explains. “You’re not moving to begin with, so you probably don’t like exercise. One of the things that happens is that the muscles actually change, so […] because they haven’t moved in a long time, their muscles will fatigue more quickly because of the way their fibres are.”
For people who lead inactive lifestyles that contribute to health problems, creating the habit of regular exercise and activity can be challenging because of these changes in their muscles. Burr anticipates that external blood flow manipulation can help to get these patients up to a level at which real exercise becomes more manageable. He said that evidence has shown that altering muscle and exercise-mediated hormones could help to regulate blood sugar levels.
“When we start restricting blood flow and stimulating muscles, you take up glucose a lot quicker,” Burr says. “We could help diabetics in that way too; so [we can] get them ready for exercise, we can grow their muscles, which will take up more glucose and on a more acute level, that’s where I see [applications] in the chronic disease world.”
Of the chronic disease and rehabilitation applications, Burr says, “Those are all pretty low-dose things, but those are the people [for whom] I think it could have a huge impact, because they’ll benefit the most from even a small amount.”
As the Director of the Human Health and Performance Lab at the University of Guelph, Burr also works with elite athletes, including Olympians. “We’ve done a little bit of [research] where we’ve looked at how people recover better. We know that we can alter blood flow not just when we cut it off, but when you let it go it comes back better, so we can kind of flush things and get nutrients where we want them,” he says.
One of the challenges of Burr’s research is that results are gathered over time.
“There are so many questions and so few answers right now, and so we’re kind of picking away at it bit by bit,” he explains.
Another consideration when working with elite athletes is the experimental nature of the treatment.
“When you’re working with elite athletes, some of these guys have been training their entire lives,” he says. “Obviously the last thing I want to do is try something experimental and screw them up. So we’re very cautious about how we approach that.”
Burr’s research on the impacts of blood flow restriction and electro-stimulation is attracting attention from around the world, and is still relatively new.
“The first thing I should say is don’t go out and just try blood flow restriction by yourself. It’s a safety concern. Not that I think it’s overly dangerous but done wrong, it has potential. I guess what I want people to know is that this is sort of a neat innovative thing, we’re really on the cusp of something new, which is exciting,” concluded Burr.