The benefits of blood flow restriction training

Shane Harris has spent nearly two decades trying to restore his health after a 'crazy' car crash – and he is finally making progress thanks to a novel therapy approach.

Mr Harris has been battling to regain his strength following a life-threatening automobile accident in 2006 that caused a traumatic brain injury and fractures to his skull, neck and collarbone.

"I was 20, a young dude being crazy ... and landed on my head. I was put in an induced coma and part of my skull was removed due to swelling," he said.

"When I was at Epworth Richmond, my parents were told I wasn't expected to walk or talk.

"It's been a lot of hard work to get to this point. This is my 19th year of rehab."

While he has regained mobility since leaving the Melbourne hospital, Mr Harris is still a long way from returning to the strenuous activities he so loved half his lifetime ago – playing football, surfing and riding road bikes.

"At the moment I can't do what I want, so I keep pushing. My strength is lacking and so is my endurance," he said.

"I fall over quite regularly. Anything over 1km and I start to fatigue and collapse. My legs just drop out from under me."

Adrian Sexton, an exercise physiologist helping Mr Harris at Epworth's Hawthorn rehabilitation clinic, said his patient's problems seemed to be neurological.

"The nature of a brain injury means the brain loses the capacity to send messages across the nervous system effectively to the muscles affecting function," Mr Sexton said.

After his progress with traditional therapies reached a plateau, Mr Harris started Blood Flow Restriction Training (BFRT) – a technique that helps patients who cannot tolerate high-intensity exercises, which the Victorian private healthcare group started using three years ago.

A cuff is attached to Mr Harris' leg to restrict blood flow while doing low-load resistance training, aiming to tackle muscle atrophy and enhance strength responses.

"When you starve the muscle of oxygen, the muscle fibres that you would normally use for high intensity exercises like sprinting or power lifting are engaged," Mr Sexton said.

"With the blood flow restricted, patients can do basic exercises and have a similar strength response to higher load activity."

The benefits were immediate for Mr Harris, who will do BFRT twice a week for the next three months.

He achieved a 200 percent improvement in calf strength on his left leg, and 250 percent increase on the right, which led to significant improvements in his mobility.

"We're continuing to boost his level of functioning, get stronger and improve his mobility," Mr Sexton said.

"We have had about 50 patients go through Epworth using this therapy so far. It's proving quite successful."

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