Description: Blood flow restriction training is more than a low-load strategy for building muscle. This course explores the physiological mechanisms that make BFR effective and demonstrates how those principles can guide its application across the rehabilitation continuum. Participants will examine the roles of reduced oxygen availability, metabolic stress, fatigue, motor-unit recruitment, anabolic signaling, and muscle protein breakdown while distinguishing between hypertrophy and the mitigation of disuse atrophy. The course expands beyond muscle to examine the current evidence surrounding BFR’s effects on strength, pain, tendon, bone, ligament, and cartilage, while clearly differentiating established benefits from emerging or unsupported claims. Active and passive BFR applications are discussed alongside practical considerations for pressure, exercise load, effort, volume, rest, patient tolerance, and time under occlusion. Rather than relying exclusively on a fixed repetition scheme, participants will learn to approach BFR through a mechanism-based framework that matches the intervention and dose to the desired physiological adaptation.

Objectives: Explain the physiological mechanisms of BFR training and how reduced oxygen availability, metabolic stress, fatigue, and motor-unit recruitment contribute to muscular adaptation at low external loads Differentiate hypertrophy from atrophy mitigation, including the roles of anabolic signaling, myostatin, and muscle protein breakdown, and identify when active or passive BFR may be appropriate Evaluate the evidence for BFR training’s effects on muscle strength, pain, tendon, bone, ligament, and cartilage, while distinguishing established benefits from emerging claims Apply BFR using an individualized, mechanism-informed approach, considering limb occlusion pressure, exercise load, effort, volume, rest intervals, time under occlusion, and patient tolerance rather than relying exclusively on a fixed repetition scheme

Presenter(s): Matthew Horgan

Status: Active

Activity Difficulty Level: Essential

Domains:

• Therapeutic Intervention

Format: Virtual Asynchronous - On Demand

Dual Credentials and JA: Physical Therapy Professionals

Start Date & Time: 10/01/2026 01:51 PM CDT

Cost: $0.00

Capacity: 1

CEUs: 1