Occlusion Training

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I remember a few years ago there was some buzz about training arms with a tourniquet type thing. I guess the idea was to starve the muscles of oxygen and also let the byproducts (lactic acid and hormones ect)build up and stimulate growth.
I know this is part of the reasoning behind the constant tension fans.

Anyway my question is: Did you try it?
Is anyone still doing this?
I’m guessing it wasn’t very successful because i havent heard anything about it, why didnt it work? was it just too dangerous and uncomfortable with minimal benefits?

Anyway thought it might be interesting to discuss, feel free to chat about other strange training styles this forum has been a bit quiet.

2

It’s called Kaatsu training. There have been a few studies on it. It seems dangerous and unnecessary to me.

4

Guessing its supposed benefits (true or not) are simply hugely outweighed by the risks.

5

Don’t do it.

6

[quote]Short Hoss wrote:
Don’t do it.[/quote]
I wasn’t planning on it, I was just hoping there was some people on here that were crazy enough to try it back when it was the latest thing and could share their experience.

BB, I’m sure that you wouldn’t need a speacial type of band to do it, thats probably part of the reason you don’t here much about it, its hard to make money selling an overpriced band. But I can imagine people thinking that your shooting up in the gym lol, i’m sure you would get some strange looks.

7

I bet your veins would pop out like crazy doing this, might actually make you more vascular too

8

[quote]Doyle wrote:
I bet your veins would pop out like crazy doing this, might actually make you more vascular too[/quote]

So would alcohol (and I love my bourbon).

10

Damn, can’t believe I’m the first to mention that Layne Norton uses occlusion training.

I’d highly recommend his video ‘Unleashed’ – he goes into detail about the advantage of occlusion training, he uses it while deloading to stress a muscle using less weight. And has footage of how he uses it for quad extensions.

11

Probably not any better than those electric waist shockers.

12

[quote]daraz wrote:
Probably not any better than those electric waist shockers.[/quote]

If natural pro-bodybuilders are using this method, it certainly holds a degree of merit.

13

@ BBB thanks for posting man, I think this style of training prob has a lot of potential for strength endurance activities like. I’m not sure whether any additional hypertrophy would be contractile protiens or supporting structure but I don’t really see why it would be more the latter, you are essentially just trying to keep growth stimulating factors at the targeted site longer than normal.
Doyle

14

[quote]Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:
Damn, can’t believe I’m the first to mention that Layne Norton uses occlusion training.

I’d highly recommend his video ‘Unleashed’ – he goes into detail about the advantage of occlusion training, he uses it while deloading to stress a muscle using less weight. And has footage of how he uses it for quad extensions.[/quote]
Thanks man, this is what I was interested in, people who are actually still doing this stuff and attribute gains to it. Seems like a valid use of the technique, can’t imagine doing it for legs!

15

my shake weight gets the job done just fine.

17

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
I exerimented with it for the first time tonight.

Used a pair of bungee cords, triple-looped around my upper arms.

First exercise was guillotine press. Felt really strong and cranked out about 4 more reps with about 20% heavier than normal weight. Decided to do 4 sets with the bands on. Every set was significantly more productive than normal. Felt like there was a ‘cold hard mind muscle connection’ to the pecs and upper arms. ‘Menthol arms’ is the best way I can describe it. Not in a cold, dead way, but in a smooth, cool, ‘present’ kind of way.

Took the bands off and did some decline DB press. No noticeable change from a normal band-free state. so no stronger, weaker, ‘numb-er’, warmer or colder arms at this point.

However, later on we did train arms. I put the bands on and again… significantly stronger. An extra plate (on the cable stack, not an oly plate, lol) AND an extra 4 reps over standard. ‘Menthol arms’ again, but with a great work capacity - though I could feel that there would be a short time span before the positive training effect turned nasty. So I did a superset of 4 exercises with the bands on, took them off and experienced continued extra work capacity in the arms for another 4 supersets.

Then we went onto chest flyes and my arms felt really ‘nice’. Warm, pumped and just ‘aware’, like there was continued mind-muscle connection, even though i wasn’t training them directly at this point.

Overall impresion: stronger, better short-term work capacity, better mind muscle connection, better pump - once the bands were removed.

Methodology: short, intense bursts of resistance exercise, for max 10 minutes at a time, twice per session.

Will be repeating tomorrow morning for walking lunges tacked onto my cardio/plyo session. Just to get a feel for lower limb KAATSU training before I do a proper leg session.

I believe the literature says to only do this once per week, but that is for a full hour session of KAATSU. I’m only doing 2 x 10 minute blocks per weights workout, so I think I can utilise greater frequency than the literature recommends. We’ll see.

BBB[/quote]

Wow, I wasn’t expecting such a rave review! and from a respectable guy on the forum. Now I want to try it. I need to do a bit of reading to catch up on the protacoles though, admittedly I didn’t really know much about it (or bother to search) before starting this thread. I was just hopeing for an interesting discussion.

Increased strength was NOT what I expected, do you think this was more a placebo or some mechanical advantage of the bands?

I wonder though if it wouldn’t be of more benefit on the later sets once the muscles have allready done work.