Muscle activation during horizontal leg press at different blood flow restriction pressures

The aim of this study was to compare muscle activation during leg press with or without blood flow restriction (BFR) at different percentages of pressure on the legs, for the low intensity and same volume of exercise. The sample was composed of sixteen sedentary young men (24 ± 2.0 years). These individuals were submitted to four randomized sessions of four series of 15 repetitions in the leg press with 40 % of one maximum repetition, with 30, 50 and 80 % of mmHg of the maximum occlusion (considered 100 %) of BFR and without restriction. Three electrodes were used to record muscles activity of the rectus femoris (RF), vastus lateralis (VL), and vastus medialis (VM), dominant limb during the exercises in all the experimental sessions. Normalization was performed using the dynamic peak method with the numerical of the Root Mean Square (RMS) values of each muscle analyzed. The RMS values were significantly higher in sets 3 than in sets 1 for the VM, and higher in sets1 than in sets 2 for the RF muscle, both with 50 % BFR (p < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference between sessions with different percentages and without BFR (p > 0.05). It is concluded that similar muscle activation occurred between sessions without and with restriction different percentages of blood flow restriction at the same low intensity, in the leg press exercise.