JHR May 2009 - Blood Occlusion Training

[icehawk]

The idea that during the bench press, the triceps would fatigue fast, resulting in a higher recruitment of the chest to pick up the load.

I'm not sure if I agree with this statement. The reason being is that you could also fatigue the triceps with an isolation exercise before, but this would likely hinder your bench press performance. More specifically, your triceps would fail before your chest and you would have to stop the movement. Therefore, you would actually have a weaker recruitment of the chest since you couldn't reach as much muscular stress as you could with fresh triceps.

That being said, this was a really good read and I definitely want to get some elbow and knee wraps and try it myself!

[Venom]

I thought of that, too icehawk...I need to try it out...

[will-work4andro]

the idea is that you would likely use less resistance with the occlusive stimulus, thus occlusion would provide you with the "pre fatigue" without the mechanical stress on the joint.

[Venom]

have u tried it for chest or back, jer?

[will-work4andro]

Originally Posted by Venom

have u tried it for chest or back, jer?

no i haven't...not direct occlusion...i prefer the indirect method...the 50% then follow it with occluded legs...i feel the hormone response is much greater that way.

[Commander]

Andro,
did you see this?
http://www.musculardevelopment.com/c...w/1563/51/1/3/

[Ben2285]

Excellent Job Jer! Big fan of the article, I was looking for a thorough review like this!

I have always wondered this with occlusion though:

What about raising intensity? Surely adaptation will take place in response to occlusion training, but after the initial stressor wouldn't you need to continue to increase weight to keep seeing benefit? Basically just like the need of progressive overload in normal resistance training.

[will-work4andro]

Originally Posted by Ben2285

Excellent Job Jer! Big fan of the article, I was looking for a thorough review like this!

I have always wondered this with occlusion though:

What about raising intensity? Surely adaptation will take place in response to occlusion training, but after the initial stressor wouldn't you need to continue to increase weight to keep seeing benefit? Basically just like the need of progressive overload in normal resistance training.

if you stick with training with the percentages i think the progression would take care of its self. for instance, if you are training squat month#1 and your max is around 200...then when you would use occlusion with squat, you would be working with 60 pounds if you were using 30% 1RM...now lets say a couple months later your squat is up to 250...now you would use 75 pounds...so in a way you have progressed.

if you are referring to solely training with occlusion and progression, without the inclusion of heavy resistance training...then i think yes, you would slightly increase the weight overtime...much of the research into training progression is done with increasing the amount of pressure used, but using elastic knee wraps, it would be hard to gauge that...i would say, very slow, slight adjustments in weight over months...did that answer the question?

[Ben2285]

Originally Posted by will-work4andro

if you stick with training with the percentages i think the progression would take care of its self. for instance, if you are training squat month#1 and your max is around 200...then when you would use occlusion with squat, you would be working with 60 pounds if you were using 30% 1RM...now lets say a couple months later your squat is up to 250...now you would use 75 pounds...so in a way you have progressed.

if you are referring to solely training with occlusion and progression, without the inclusion of heavy resistance training...then i think yes, you would slightly increase the weight overtime...much of the research into training progression is done with increasing the amount of pressure used, but using elastic knee wraps, it would be hard to gauge that...i would say, very slow, slight adjustments in weight over months...did that answer the question?

Answered it and then some, thanks

[BlueFlameEyes]

Hey guys, long time no post... I'm confused by a couple things in this article/thread.

The occlusion training method is based on using 20-50% of your 1 rep max, for recommended sets of 30/15/15/15... This doesn't sound like very low intensity to me. What percentage of your max would you normally do high rep sets with? I don't work with max at all, but I couldn't imagine using anywhere close to half of your max for a set of 15 let alone 30 reps.

Also, with no apparent increase of DOMS, how does this increase muscle growth? A good healthy muscle pain is the main sign of tearing muscle fibers, which is the only way a muscle grows.

This sounds like mostly a good shock technique to overcome a plateau, rather than a regular method of training. Any thoughts?

-Andy