The impact of blood flow restricted electrical stimulations on recovery from muscle damage

Both electrical stimulations (E-STIM) and blood flow restriction (BFR) have been shown to treat symptoms of exercise-induced muscle damage, but little is known about their combined effects which was the purpose of this study.

Individuals completed one set of eccentric elbow flexion exercises to induce muscle damage. Forty-eight hours later, E-STIM was applied using an interferential current administered to both arms for 20 min; however, only one arm completed the E-STIM protocol while also undergoing repeated bouts of BFR (full occlusion for 2 min separated by a 1-min rest intervals). Discomfort and isometric strength were assessed immediately before the damaging exercise, immediately before the treatments, and 0, 10, and 30 min posttreatment.

A total of 22 individuals (11 females) completed the study. There were no interactions with respect to discomfort (BF₁₀  = 0.008) or isometric strength (BF₁₀  = 0.009) indicating that the addition of BFR did not alter the effectiveness of E-STIM. There was a main effect of time indicating that the damaging exercise was successful at depressing torque (pre: 284 N, post: 199 N; BF₁₀  = 2.70e9) and inducing discomfort (pre: 0 au, post: 6.4 au; BF₁₀  = 3.21e17). While isometric strength did not recover with the E-STIM treatments, discomfort was reduced at each the immediate post (5.3 au; BF₁₀  = 56 294) 10-min post (5.0 au; BF₁₀  = 46 163), and 30-min post (4.9 au; BF₁₀  = 707 600) time points.

E-STIM may be useful for treating discomfort, but does not appear capable of recovering strength associated with muscle damage. The efficacy of E-STIM would not appear to be enhanced if performed under BFR.