The Effects of Blood Flow Restriction and Body Weight Support Treadmill Walking on Electromyographic Activity in Lower Limb Muscles

Blood flow restriction (BFR) is an emerging rehabilitation modality shown to enhance muscle activation and elicit strength gains comparable to high-intensity training at lower loads (Cognetti et al.,2019). Body weight support (BWS) treadmill walking is another modality that has gained popularity due to the effect it has on lowering muscle activation with increasing support levels (Jensen et al.,2016). However, to date no research has looked at electromyographic (EMG) activity utilizing both modalities concurrently. This study investigated if stride frequency (SF) and muscle activity of the rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris (BF), tibialis anterior (TA) and gastrocnemius (GA) would be influenced by an interaction between BWS and BFR. Seven healthy participants (3 men and 4 women; age: 23.71 3.01yrs; height: 171.27 6.91 cm; body mass: 64.38 4.94 kg; body fat percentage: 18.76 5.44 %) completed four walking conditions at 0% & 50% BWS with and without 80% occlusion pressure of BFR at a self-selected speed. EMG activity was recorded for 30s during each condition. Results revealed that EMG activity was not influenced by an interaction between BWS and BFR for SF (P=.345), RF (P=.845), BF (P=.684), TA (P=.761) and GA (P=.129). Additionally, BFR alone did not influence EMG activity across muscles (SF (P=.161);RF (P=.639); BF (P=.684);TA (P=.479);GA (P=.404)), nor did BWS ( SF (P=.740); RF(P=.675); BF (P=.900); TA (P=.102), except for GA (P=.039). These finding suggest that BFR did not influence EMG activity regardless of BWS. Thus, suggesting that further research is needed to further explore the neuromuscular effects of BFR under varying levels of BWS and walking speeds.