Blood flow is thought to be of great importance to the contracting muscle and hence limiting the amount of blood that the muscle receives would have an effect on the muscle activity. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine whether restricting blood flow to the forearm muscle would influence the rate of muscle fatigue.
94 healthy subjects completed an experiment involving restricting blood flow to the forearm muscle. Subjects were divided into two groups; half of which used a sphygmomanometer around their arm and raised it up to 100mmHg to restrict the blood flow; whilst the other half of the subjects were in the control group (didn’t use any). Both paradigms were completed within 4 minutes with alternating 5 second hold and 5 second rest. The subjects had to squeeze the grip apparatus up to 50% of their MVC and after every minute reached they had to press it as hard as possible.
The results indicated that the (MVC) in the control group were notably higher when compared to the restricted blood flow group particularly after 2 minutes of the fatigue protocol (p < 0.005). In addition, muscle activity after restricting blood flow had significantly decreased (p < 0.0001). Moreover, the muscle activity after 2 minutes of recovery in the control group was greater (91.416 ± 17.903) than the restricted blood flow group (86.842…show more content… A range of different factors have been shown that give rise to fatigue such as the fibre types each person has, their fitness levels and the intensity of the exercise they are performing (Allen et al., 2008). Although several different studies have examined muscle fatigue mechanisms and the various factors that contribute to it, few have focused on the effect of restricting blood flow on skeletal muscle fatigue. It had been shown that restricting blood flow from the contracting muscle influences
