Blood flow moderation training is typically seen as something that weightlifters do, but you may be surprised to learn it can also be very helpful in your tennis elbow physical therapy. Also called vascular occlusion training, blood flow moderation is a technique designed to restrict but not completely cut off the blood flow to your arms. This blood flow restriction can lead to three specific benefits for patients with tennis elbow.
1. Increases growth hormone production
In humans, growth hormone is naturally produced in the pituitary gland, and it helps the body’s cells grow, reproduce and regenerate. These properties can be especially helpful to people who are doing physical therapy for tennis elbow.
Tennis elbow is a repetitive motion injury of the tendons on the outside of the elbow and forearm. In many cases, the repetitive motion of actions like hitting a tennis ball or typing on your computer can cause the elbow tendons to become damaged and inflamed. Vascular occlusion training can help repair the tendon damage of tennis elbow, and this is possible because the technique helps increase the body’s natural production of growth hormone. In turn, the growth hormone can be used by the body to make the collagen required to repair elbow tendons.
2. Boosts protein production in muscles
The tendons in your elbow are designed to attach the forearm muscles to the elbow bones, and blood flow moderation training can help increase the strength of these muscles. It does so by forcing the body to create more proteins that help build muscle. This means that your body will have more proteins to build muscle, and this can help increase the strength the muscles in your forearms. These stronger muscles can then offer better elbow support and reduce stress on elbow tendons.
3. Improves blood flow
Blood flow moderation can also help people who are doing tennis elbow physical therapy by improving blood flow to the elbow. This form of therapy pushes the body to create more capillaries to get blood into the restricted arm. The greater number of capillaries helps increase blood flow, and this can help your elbow tendons get more oxygen and nutrients. When your tendons are receiving more oxygen and nutrients, they may be able to heal at a faster pace.
Find this and other tennis elbow physical therapy techniques at Border Therapy Services
Our team at Border Therapy Services is trained in the use of blood flow moderation, and this is just one technique we can use to create an effective tennis elbow physical therapy plan for you. The personalized therapy plan we build for you can also include therapy methods such as:
- Manual therapy
- Kinesio Taping
- Functional dry needling
- Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) therapy
Are you ready to find out more about how we can help you? Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an appointment.