Speaker 2: Welcome to BFR Tuesday. My name is Ed Le Cara I host these to answer any questions regarding blood flow restriction training, and also, help people be aware of some other resources that we have. So that way you can, incorporate training with the BFR cuffs either into your personal or with your clients and patients. So if you have any questions, in the upper corner of this screen, there's a chat section. You can just type it in like I'll type in hello. And, you can ask any questions that you like. Hi, I'm from Colorado Springs, west from New Jersey.  Hello everybody. Thanks so much for joining me on this February 1st. Emma, do I like the be strong bands Hey Carrie. so the be strong bands are interesting there. you have to inflate them yourself and you can't find limb occlusion pressure with them there. and let me grab a cuff so I can explain. 

Speaker 2: So when you look at, when you look at a BFR cuff, this in here is a bladder. And so the bladder, when it inflates creates the pressure, and if you have a nice continuous bladder, that pressure will put so much pressure in a good way to fully occlude the arterian vein in the limb. And by doing that briefly, you can determine what an individual's limb occlusion pressure is, or the least amount of pressure necessary in order to fully occlude both the artery and the vein or LOP is what we call it. When you can't get lop, which you can't get with, be strong bands. The, you're using what's called an arbitrary pressure for the cuffs. So you're just guessing at what pressure is necessary. And when we guess the pressure, we're guessing whether it's going to be effective training or not. So my opinion, my personal opinion is, and I've owned a pair of them, is that they're not effective in causing enough occlusion to get the maximum benefit that you can get when you're doing BFR. And you'll see, even on Instagram that they're using cuffs on upper limbs and lower limbs, they're doing very high intensity exercise, the true BFR exercise. You can't do that because the occlusion is enough. 

Speaker 2: Katsu is a little bit different, katsu, the, the they're very narrow. So the, the width of the cuff. So this is, this is the width. Okay. And what the literature suggests is that it should be at least five centimeters in width, anything less than five centimeters in order to get full occlusion requires a lot of pressure. Remember, back to physics, physics, talks about, pressure is increased when the surface area decreases so less, less substance on the limb is going to require more pressure in order to occlude. And so, I'm not a fan. I mean, I, I think that, really based on the literature we needed at each of the cuffs need to be at least a five centimeters wide, they need to have be a continuous, a continuous, bladder. And when you look at some of the studies comparing, like a Delphi system with the katsu system is that they couldn't find them occlusion pressure because there were so the, the, the, the katsu bands were so narrow that you, you couldn't inflate it enough to find limb occlusion pressure. 

Speaker 2: So again, you're guessing at what your pressures are. So not a big fan. I think you need to have the ability to establish your own, limb occlusion pressure for number 1, for safety. Cause you want to make sure you're using the right pressure. You're not using too much pressure and you're not putting so much stress on the tissue underneath, like the arteries and veins and the nerves and the, and the actual tissue in the skin to cause damage. And number 2 is you want it effective. You don't want to do BFR training and it doesn't get you anywhere. So you need to have enough pressure to make sure that it's effective. So, Emma, a good brand is, and, obviously I have ties to, the smart cuff system. That's what these are, I'm their director of education. So I am biased. 

Speaker 2: I want everybody to know that it's, I helped develop these over the last six years. And if you notice from us, we have now we're on our third generation, which means that we're constantly changing to number 1, meet the, research. What the, what is the research saying is the effective and, safest way to implement BFR. But number 2 is we're listening to our customers and we're adapting, as time goes on and we'll have the gen four cuffs out probably in the next year and a half or so. And they're going to, it's going to be another again, another upgrade, another, development. So, these other costs have not changed. They're the same. and I don't think that they're sticking with, the literature they're kind of sticking with what they originally developed. And now that so many people are using BFR. 

Speaker 2: we have a better idea of what works, what doesn't work, what's comfortable, what's not comfortable and, how we can be safe and effective. Yes, this is an aura ring. primarily track it, my sleep and my readiness, but I was also using it. we in my clinic here in Dallas, we do a lot of, work with, COVID patients. And it's a good predictor if, if I was exposed, if I was contracting, COVID. So I was watching this in conjunction with, antigen testing and, other things to make sure that I wasn't exposing anybody else. but primarily I use it for sleep because sleep is my sleep is my nemesis. All right. Awesome questions and discussion. Carrie asks, I have a patient who gets sweaty and light-headed when doing hamstring curl prone at 60% LOP, suggestions?  Yeah, so 60% LP shouldn't be too high. The weight might be a little bit too high. You can do them standing as well. but make sure that they ate before, they came to a session with you. Because sometimes I'll even put people into like an isometric and, they'll get lightheaded and, and they're just, I always ask them if they eat, she eats 60 minutes before. Okay. So maybe drop the load. how many sessions has she done with you?

Speaker 2: Six sessions. All right. She's still getting used to it or he, I'm not sure. So drop the load a little bit and, or, and, or drop the load and go, I'm isolated, go left leg, right leg. It'll take a little bit longer of a time that wouldn't be great, but, it just happens to be a, a position that she's not crazy about. And then are you using a LOP 60% Is that measured, lying or is that measured standing? She's about, oh, you're measuring at lying. Okay. That's good. yeah, you could use auto-regulate that might be a little easier on them. If you have the pro version, Emma. Yeah. A discount on smart cuff. The education discount is, so education count is at 10 that's on the consumer version and it's add 10 pro on the pro systems, either pro or pro elite. 

Speaker 2: Carrie asks. Do you prefer standing or supine when measuring LOP?  it depends on what exercise position you're putting them in. So if they're going to be, if they are going to be doing lying exercises, I would do it supine. If they're going to do standing exercises, I would do it standing. you're just going to know that the standings and maybe about 30% higher than a line. All right. Awesome questions. Thanks so much for the engagement. Any other questions before I get back to patient care? All right. Thank you so much. I will see you guys next week. Have a blessed week. Bye for now.