NCT06746792

Low Load, High Gains: Blood Flow Restriction's Impact on Quadriceps Adaptations

Active, enrolled NA Last updated 4 March 2025

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Low-load resistance exercise with blood flow restriction in Healthy Individuals in 30 participants. Participants enrolled and being followed up; not accepting new ones.

Timeline

11 October 2024

Primary endpoint
29 March 2025

29 March 2025

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Karabuk University
Phase	NA
Status	Active, enrolled
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	single
Primary purpose	other
Enrollment	30
Start date	11 October 2024
Primary completion	29 March 2025
Estimated completion	29 March 2025
Sites	1 location across Turkey (Türkiye)

Drugs / interventions tested

• Low-load resistance exercise with blood flow restriction
• High-load resistance exercise

Conditions studied

• Healthy Individuals — all drugs for Healthy Individuals →

Sponsor

Karabuk University

Who can join

Adults 18 to 25, male only, with Healthy Individuals. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Low-load resistance exercise with blood flow restriction (BFR-RE) presents a compelling alternative to high-load resistance exercise (HL-RE), particularly in scenarios where high loads are not feasible due to various limitations. Blood flow restriction exercise restricts blood flow to the working muscle, creating a state of ischemia. A significant advantage of BFR-RE lies in its capacity to stimulate muscle hypertrophy and strength adaptations using light external loads (20-30% 1RM), comparable to those achieved with high-load (HL) training programs that employ 70-85% 1RM As a result, BFR training has been increasingly adopted in both athletic performance and rehabilitation settings over the past few decades. Quadriceps strength and power are essential factors in both the advancement of athletic performance and the successful return to unrestricted sporting activity following injury. The findings of Culvenor et al.'s review strongly suggest that weakened quadriceps strength is a significant risk factor for symptomatic and functional decline in the knee during both activities of daily living and sport-recreational activities. Numerous electromyographic (EMG) findings suggest that single-joint and multijoint exercises elicit varying muscle activation patterns. For instance, single-joint exercises targeting the quadriceps, such as leg extensions, demonstrate higher EMG amplitudes compared to multijoint lower-extremity exercises like leg presses and squats. Resistance training, characterized by the application of high mechanical tension, remains the cornerstone for promoting muscle hypertrophy, So, research suggests that higher training intensities are associated with greater hypertrophy, up to a certain point. While both light and heavy loads have been shown to elicit similar muscle growth when sets are taken to failure. Studies have reported that high-repetition training with light loads leads to greater central fatigue. Existing literature comparing the effects of BFR-RE and HL-RE primarily focuses on the some quadriceps and hamstring muscle group and its associated exercises. However, none of these studies employed a training protocol in which sets were taken to or near failure.

Publications & conference data

1 peer-reviewed publication reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Effects of Blood Flow Restriction Resistance Exercise Versus Traditional Resistance Exercise in Voluntary Exhaustion on Quadriceps Muscle Adaptations in Untrained Young Males: A Randomized Trial.
   Akgül MŞ, Uysal HŞ, Keskin NK, Çetin T, et al · · 2025 · cited 1× · PMID 40428762 · DOI 10.3390/medicina61050804