Blood Flow Restriction with Tyler

Article Table of Contents

• Hormonal response:
• How does the body respond to exercise stress?
• To Anki
• How to explain BFR to parents

old draft, publishing, needs polish.

Me: Sport climber, decade+, of and on a few different times over the years.

Educate myself, train as effectively and safely as I can. I’m 30, and wanna hit some significant climbing goals by 40, and a big part of that is getting stronger, safely, while not getting injured.

I’m also running a high-elevation marathon (Leadville Marathon) this summer, and would love to see if there’s any intersection of running and BFR.

I’m also on the road a lot, with limited access to “standard” training tools. I’ll travel with the Tension hangboard, and just got a block so I can work w/1-arm hangs, and its a bit smaller.

Attendees:

• Nate just moved to CO, climbing since 2013
• Johan 53, from Norway/Sweden, sport climber
• Brad (Butora), head coach in Atlanta or something.
• Brent, 5 years, boulderer.

Aerobic capacity improvements via BFR

Improved strength

Lower-extremity workouts, etc

Running: Conditioning Circuit, airdyne bike to failure

• Acute Cardiovascular and Hemodynamic Responses to Low Intensity Eccentric Resistance Exercise with Blood Flow Restriction
• How BFR works

What’s the goal of strength coach, rehab specialist

Improve facets of athleticism through general/specific exercise.

High motor unit recruitment at sub-maximal load.

• no need to go to 100% max load to get full recruitment. (yay)
• efficiently clear out metabolic waste

Hormonal response: #

HGH improves by a lot MTOR pathway Vascular something or another Testosterone improved

All without really high intensity.

How does the body respond to exercise stress? #

1. we “fatigue” muscles, and signals associated with “fatigue” induce local/systemic response that allow motor units to improve their ability to sustain the exercise
2. “fatigue” is felt when “homeostasis” in the working tissue is “disturbed”
3. the “disturbance” is caused by severe hypoxia and decrease in intracellular phosphate stores (ATP/PC - phospho-creatine)
4. Protein synthesis is upreguated in all active tissues.

Energy systems #

• Phosphagen, 10 seconds before expended - Anaerobic
• Glycolytic: energy system that BFR works, 20-60 seconds of use wikipedia Anaerobic
• Oxidative: aerobic, sustainable, aerobic

To Anki #

• Proximal/proximally, distal/distally
• angiogenic effect
• endothelial health
• HGH
• phosphate, intercellular phosphate stores
• ATP is required for muscle contraction AND relaxation

How to explain BFR to parents #

• Climbing is a strength and skill sport.
• To improve at climbing, you can become more skilled, and/or you can become “stronger”
• There’s some “standard” ways that people get “stronger”:
  • Neural adaptations
  • Physiological adaptations (muscle size and “efficiency”)
    • aerobic

    • anaerobic adaptation

    • you can force anaerobic adaptations by creating a mis-match in “fuel” availability

    Results of this mismatch:

    • hormonal response
    • general muscular strength adaptations
    • recovery adaptations, clear out metabolic waste quicker, so I can recover more efficiently.

Heavy loading w/BFR:

• 3x10 @ 70-90% 1RM
• 2-3 min rest between sets
• 5-6 exercises, 2-3 days/wk
• neural response first

BFRT

• 3x30 @ 20-50% 1rm
• 20-30 s rest between sets
• 4-5 exercises, 20-25 min
• 2-3 days/wk, or daily
• hypertrophic response first

Studies to read #

• Blood flow restriction training in clinical musculoskeletal rehabilitation: a systematic review and meta-analysis

• Tyler Nelson on The NuggetClimbing podcast, discussing blood flow restriction training.
• purchase bands online the bands are, regrettably, still insanely expensive. Probably the production price of everything could be tens of dollars, not hundreds.

notes from 2026 #

DIY/At-home hormone therapy #

I know lots of folks are talking about hormone therapy, testosterone. I feel like using BFR bands is a little like taking HGH and/or testosterone directly. But better than taking something directly, because the body is manufacturing everything. The body is full of complex chemical pathways, I’m generally reticent to modify it directly.

BFR work is perfect. I’ve been doing a ton of heavy lifting and heavy climbing lately, feeling stronger, but also feeling the strain in the connective tissues throughout my body.

Lots of tendon proprioceptive input from the isometric bar holds (which, at like 600 pounds, makes sense.)

Additional Reading #

• /isometric-bar-holds-part-2