Blood-Flow-Restriction Training: Validity of Pulse Oximetry to Assess Arterial Occlusion Pressure

Setting the optimal cuff pressure is a crucial part of prescribing blood-flow-restriction training. It is currently recommended to use percentages of each individual's arterial occlusion pressure, which is most accurately determined by Doppler ultrasound (DU). However, the practicality of this gold-standard method in daily training routine is limited due to high costs. An alternative solution is pulse oximetry (PO). The main purpose of this study was to evaluate validity between PO and DU measurements and to investigate whether sex has a potential influence on these variables.

A total of 94 subjects were enrolled in the study. Participants were positioned in a supine position, and a 12-cm-wide cuff was applied in a counterbalanced order at the most proximal portion of the right upper and lower limbs. The cuff pressure was successively increased until pulse was no longer detected by DU and PO.

There were no significant differences between the DU and PO methods when measuring arterial occlusion pressure at the upper limb (P = .308). However, both methods showed considerable disagreement for the lower limbs (P = .001), which was evident in both men (P = .028) and women (P = .008). No sex differences were detected.

PO is reasonably accurate to determine arterial occlusion pressure of the upper limbs. For lower limbs, PO does not seem to be a valid instrument when assessing the optimal cuff pressure for blood-flow-restriction interventions compared with DU.