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The most profound and effective type of strength training I know of is called blood flow restriction (BFR) training. It was invented in 1966 in Japan, and introduced in the U.S. in 2010.

BFR involves exercising your muscles using no or very light weights while partially slowing arterial inflow and modifying venous outflow in either both proximal arms or legs using thin elastic pneumatic (inflatable) KAATSU bands.14

By modifying the venous blood flow, you create a relatively hypoxic (low oxygen) environment in the exercising muscle, which in turn triggers a number of physiological benefits. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about BFR training is because it has the ability to prevent and widely treat sarcopenia (skeletal muscle loss) like no other type of training.

Importantly, it allows you to use very light weights, which makes it suitable for the elderly and those who are already frail or recovering from an injury. And, since you’re using very light weights, you don’t damage the muscle and therefore don’t need to recover as long.

While most elderly cannot engage in high-intensity exercise or heavy weightlifting, even extraordinarily fit individuals in their 60s, 70s and 80s who can do conventional training will be limited in terms of the benefits they can achieve, thanks to decreased microcirculation. This is because your microcirculation tends to decrease with age.

With age, your capillary growth diminishes, and capillary blood flow is essential to supply blood to your muscle stem cells, specifically the fast twitch Type II muscle fiber stem cells. If they don’t have enough blood flow — even though they’re getting the signal from the conventional strength training — they’re not going to grow and you’re not going to get muscle hypertrophy and strength.

BFR, because of the local hypoxia created, stimulates hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha and, secondarily, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which acts as “fertilizer” for your blood vessels. VEGF allows your stem cells to function the way they were designed to when they were younger.

The hypoxia also triggers vascular endothelial growth factor, which enhances the capillarization of the muscle and likely the veins in the arteries as well. Building muscle and improving blood vessel function are related, which is why BFR offers such powerful stimulus for reversing sarcopenia.

In short, BFR has a systemic or crossover training effect. While you’re only restricting blood flow to your extremities, once you release the bands, the metabolic variables created by the hypoxia flow into your blood — lactate and VEGF being two of them — thereby spreading this “metabolic magic” throughout your entire system.

You can learn more about KAATSU by viewing the video below. You can get most of the benefits by purchasing inexpensive bands like this on Amazon. If you are hardcore like me, you can go all out and get the best that many professional athletes use. For a limited time, you can get 10% off the KAATSU band by using this link: www.kaatsu.com/go/NVIC