MUSCLE STRENGTHENING ASSOCIATED WITH PARTIAL VASCULAR OCCLUSION AND ITS APPLICABILITY IN MUSCULOSKELETAL REHABILITATION – A REVIEW

Abstract

Muscle strengthening is widely recommended for the improvement of physical weaknesses. The literature describes the use of a minimum load of 60% of 1-RM to obtain strength and 70% to 85% of 1-RM to obtain hypertrophy, however in the clinical scenario, high intensity resistance training is challenging or even contraindicated. In this sense, muscle strengthening associated to partial vascular occlusion is a very interesting strategy, capable of promoting strength changes, using lower loads (30%1-RM). Objective: To check the effects of muscle strengthening associated with vascular occlusion on strength gain and muscle hypertrophy. Method: This is a literary review in the electronic databases: PEDro, Pubmed and Cochrane Library. The search strategy involved articles in Portuguese and English. We used as inclusion criteria, studies published between 2009 and 2019 that reported muscle strengthening associated with partial vascular occlusion, using lower loads (30%1-RM), compared to traditional resistance strengthening, loads of 70%1- RM. The PEDro quality scale was used as the exclusion criterion, clinical trials with PEDro scores < 6 were excluded. Results: A total of 181 articles were obtained. However, only 21 trials met the requirements. In addition to the clinical trials, 12 systematic reviews that analysed the effect, application and proposed mechanisms to explain the adaptations from TROVP were included in this review. Conclusion: Low intensity muscle training associated with partial vascular occlusion is an effective strategy to provide increases in strength and muscle hypertrophy similar to traditional resistance training. Furthermore, it is a viable strategy for musculoskeletal rehabilitation, since it can be applied in several clinical settings, where traditional resistance training is a limitation.