Ep 42. 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.