On Short Notice: 15% Stronger With Kineso Tapes, HIIT With 30-20-10, Combined Training vs. Diabetes, Coffee vs. Scars, Peanuts & Pregnancy, Phosphate & Insulin + More!

Image 1: You like it fast? Then the novel SuppVersity column SuppVersity "On Short Notice" is right for you. So don't forget to bookmark, subscripe to the RSS feed or the email updates (see bottom right of the page) or simply start following me on facebook and/or twitter

Actually I am quite happy that most of you liked last Saturday's first installment of SuppVersity "On Short Notice" - it turned out that just writing down one of those mini-items, whenever I have a couple of minutes to spare yields more great content than a single post can hold. So, despite the fact that I have stockpiled 11 items for you in today's installment I have already written the first ones for next week's installment of this new column. Before we start with those of the past week, I would just like to remind everyone that you can simply add the RSS feed (all SuppVersity posts, only "On Short Notice" posts) to your favorite RSS reader, or start following me on facebook and/or twitter if you like those informational quickies and thus make sure that you won't miss any information from the realms of exercise science, supplementation and nutrition!

30 - 20 - 10  HIIT for maximal conditioning

As a regular at the SuppVersity you have already learned one or two things about the benefits (and in many cases superiority) of high intensity interval training (HIIT) for fat loss and cardiovascular conditioning (read all about HIIT).

Figure 1:  The 30-20-10 protocol consists of a inner 5x1min 30-20-10 'acceleration'-cycles followed by a 2min period of active rest; those 5x 30-20-10 low-, moderate-, and high-speed running + 1x 2min active rest pairs are repeated 3-4 times.

A recently published study by Gunnarson et al. does now show that even moderately trained individuals can benefit from a very simple yet intense 15-20min interval training (see figure 1) similar to the one the 3 women and 7 men in the active arm of the study performed (total number of participants N=20). And I would say that 4% higher VO2max, 21s faster 1,500-m and 48s faster 5-km running times are nothing you would want to miss, either. Specifically, if those come with a 30-20-10 decrease of systolic blood pressure and reductions in total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) of -0.5 ± 0.2 and -0.4 ± 0.1 mmol/l, respectively - am I right? No, well you should better stick to your arduous treadmill walks in the non-existant  fat-burning zone, then.

Add strength training to your 10-20-30 aerobic regimen and rid yourself of type II diabetes

I guess it goes without saying that the exercise approach to diabetes won't work without other lifestyle interventions, such as dietary modifications and stress reduction / management (e.g. "Chronically Fatigued? Do Qigong!". After all, you would not have gotten into the mess if your nutrition had been in check and your stress-management effective - and don't give me the "bad genes excuse", I hear that from my type II diabetic grandma often enough!

Figure 2: fasting glucose and glycolosated hemoglobin levels before and after a 20-week exercise intervention consisting of either 3x per week of combined resistance and aerobic training or aerobic only training of the same volume (based on Moro. 2012)

As far as exercise goes, a recently published study has (once again) confirmed that a combined aerobic + resistance training protocol is more effective with respect to longterm (20-week) improvements in glycemia than the regular "walk" or even worse "jog an incline for 40-60min everyday" regimen - in the study at hand the aerobics regimen employed one of those classic 'ramps' starting at 15min @ 40-50% in the first week and ramping up volume + intensity to 60 min at 60-70% (Moro. 2012): What is particularly striking about the results (see figure 2) is the differential effects on simple fasting blood glucose levels and the amount of glycolosated hemoglobin, an index for the long-term (24h) glucose stability, which improved significantly more (p < 0.05) with the combined (3x split training with 3 sets à 10-12reps + 20min of light aerobic exercise afterwards), than with the aerobics only 3x per week exercise program.

Assuming that the additional strength training component is also going to help the 24 formerly sedentary participants (men and women aged 60,41 ± 7,87y) to build or at least maintain "metabolic currency" (= muscle) you can bet money that those differences would have been even more pronounced if the trial had lasted 6 or more instead of just 5 months. Remember: You are in this for life!

And if you want do get stronger, just tape your biceps

If you train in one of the gyms, where professional athletes go in and out, you will probably already have seen people come in with those blue, green or pink "package tapes" on their limbs. Usually their coaches and or physiotherapists apply those and send them to the gym, when they are still recovering from an injury and thus cannot perform their regular training sessions.

Figure 3: Concentric and eccentric elbow peak torque with and without kineseo or placebo taping ( (Fratocchi. 2012)

As the data in figure 3 goes to show, this practice could turn out to be the kinesiologic analogon to creatin... well, aside from the fact that it works instantaneously, maybe (Fratocchi. 2012). Done right, the taping can increase your concentric and eccentric peak torgue on a simulated biceps curl (performed on an isokinetic pulley machine) by 13-15%. Whether these results, Fratocchi et al. observed in trained, but not (upper body) strength trained young men and women will translate in similar pronounced strength improvement on real curls - let alone permanent gains, once you remove the tape - remains to be seen. But let's be honest, what do you have to lose? As long as you don't apply the tape wrong (see figure 3, green-framed photo), I would say that the worst thing that can happen is that people laugh at your novel 'gymwear'.

On ultra-short notice:

• Your red blood cells can produce testosterone and other androgens - Believe it or not, but according to a recent study from the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Chile, human platelets can produce sex hormones from circulating DHEA-S (Garrido. 2012). They can also take up estrone-sulfate and convert it to 17b-estradiol (the most active form of estrogen); taking your DIM does therefore not necessarily prevent that your platelets avail themselves of the estrone your liver is spilling out and convert it back to estrogen, when they "feel that's necessary". If you don't care about that, you may be interested that DHEA can also ramp up insulin sensitivity and help you lose weight and protect your muscle against exercise induced damage - even when you train like a maniac. 

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  Image 2: Better smear some coffee paste onto your wound than special creams if you don' want nasty scars.

  Coffee paste applied to a closed wound could prevent scarring - Although the paper does not mention this explicitly (Perez-Aso. 2012), the discovery that the pharmacological blockade of the adenosine A2A receptor prevents scarring suggests that a paste made of/with fresh coffee should actually do the exact same thing. After all, coffee is a natural pan-(=across many)adenosine receptor antagonist. It goes without saying, though that you cannot apply the coffee onto the open wound, right? Well, I guess you can, but it is at least questionable if that would not rather increase your chance for infections that decrease your risk of developing ugly scars. Find out more about coffee!
• EPO increases muscle repair by ramping up satellite cell activity - According to Jia et al., endogenous EPO, i.e. erythropoietin that is produced by your body, plays an important role in satellite cell proliferation and thus the repair and the "structural expansion" of muscle tissue. Based on their studies in wild-type and EPO overexpressing mice, the researchers speculate that exogenous erythropoietin could thus be used to "contribute to increasing satellite cell number following muscle injury, improve myoblast proliferation and survival, and promote repair and regeneration" (Jia. 2012). Read more about EPO or sattelite cells, and the commonly overlooked role of estrogen in satellite cell replenishment and activation.
• IGF-1 from colostral whey is orally active and ameloriates high blood sugar - I have addressed the question whether the more or less complex peptides from milk (see "Colostrum & Milk"), deer antler (see "Ask Dr. Andro: Does Deer Antler Velvet Work?") & co can even work, when they are administered orally several times before - a recent discovery by scientists from the Republic of Korea does now suggest that, at least in diabetic rodents, the IGF-1 fraction in colostral whey exerts similar blood sugar lowering effects as its recombinant (artificial) human cousin (Hwand. 2011). Since this is nothing but another rodent study, the non-negligible blood sugar reductions of 11 and 33 % at weeks 2 and 4, respectively, are yet sill only something for the "ultra-short notice" section of the "on short notice" column of the SuppVersity (if you have not done so already, don't fotget to read up on the anti-diabetic effects of camel milk here).
• People with reactive hypoglycemia shouldn't follow a low carb high protein diet - I knew that from my experience with others (esp. women), but when the issue of reactive hypoglycemia surfaced again in one of the comments, I dug up a 1975 study which clearly shows that avoiding carbs altogether (50-60g /day in the study) will only add impaired glucose tolerance on top of the existing and persistent symptoms (Anderson. 1975). More on potential pitfalls with very low carbing: "Carbohydrate Shortage in Paleo Land" and "Half As Heavy, but Twice As Fat: 'Atkins-Style' No-Carb Diet + Exhaustive Exercise Compromise Body Composition"

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  Image 3: Craving peanut butter? The sugar (and thus increased gestational diabetes risk) is probably more of a problem than the "allergens". At least that is what the ~20% reduced asthma and allergic rhinitis risk a recent study reports based on data from the Danish National Birth cohort reports would suggest.

  Peanuts during pregnancy not a problem, but rather beneficial - While real junkies harm their unborn babies by irresponsible consumption of cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, health junkies could be doing the same by totally avoiding exposure to any kind of potential allergens. At least this is what a recent analysis of data from the Danish National Birth Cohort would suggest. According to the results of Maslova et al., the consumption of potentially pro-allergenic pea- and tree-nuts did not only elicit any changes in terms of future allergies, it was also "inversely associated with a medication-related asthma diagnosis (OR, 0.81) and self-reported allergic rhinitis (OR, 0.80)" (Maslova. 2012) - or put simply: not the consumption, but rather the abstinence of potential pro-allergens appears to dispose unborn children to develop respective allergies in later life.
• High-normal TSH good predictor of visceral obesity; irrespective of insulin resistance - "Your TSH is somewhat high, but no reason to be concerned." If that's what your Dr. told you, you better get another one. After all, a recent study by Muscogiuri et al. shows that those "somewhat high TSH levels" are a pretty good indicator of increased visceral adiposity, and all its potentially fatal health consequences (Muscogiuri. 2012). And if you want to improve your thyroid function naturally, I suggest you read my previous post "Dietary Thyroid Treatment: Beef, Green Vegetables, Full-Fat Milk & Butter Normalize TSH in Subclinical Hypothyroidism"!
• High phosphate content of meal increases postprandial blood glucose and insulin - What are two characteristics of coke and similar soft drinks? Right: They contain tons of high GI sugar and phosphate. A combination of which a group of researchers from the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the University of Tokushima in Japan has recently shown that it leads to a profound increase in postprandial (hours after the meal) blood glucose and insulin levels compared to low GI, but also compared to high high GI low phosphate (400mg vs. 1200mg) meals in 11 young, healthy volunteers. Bottom line: If high GI is bad, high GI + high phosphorus is even worse (Taketani. 2012). I am not sure how much phosphor the sports drink I wrote about roughly two weeks ago contain, but certainly less than coke, and still the average body fat gain per energy drink was ~18g ("Fat Content Per Energy Drink 0g, Body Fat Gain Per Energy Drink 18g!").

References:

1. Anderson JW, Herman RH. Effects of carbohydrate restriction on glucose tolerance of normal men and reactive hypoglycemic patients. Am J Clin Nutr. 1975 Jul;28(7):748-55.
2. Fratocchi G, Di Mattia F, Rossi R, Mangone M, Santilli V, Paoloni M. Influence of Kinesio Taping applied over biceps brachii on isokinetic elbow peak torque. A placebo controlled study in a population of young healthy subjects. J Sci Med Sport. 2012 Jul 6.
3. Garrido A, Munoz Y, Sierralta W, Valladares L. Metabolism of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate and estrone-sulfate by human platelets. Physiol Res. 2012 Jun 6.
4. Gunnarsson TP, Bangsbo J. The 10-20-30 training concept improves performance and health profile in moderately trained runners. J Appl Physiol. 2012 Jul;113(1):16-24.
5. Hwang KA, Hwang YJ, Ha W, Choo YK, Ko K. Oral administration of insulin-like growth factor-I from colostral whey reduces blood glucose in streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice. Br J Nutr. 2011 Oct 10:1-7.
6. Jia Y, Suzuki N, Yamamoto M, Gassmann M, Noguchi CT. Endogenous erythropoietin signaling facilitates skeletal muscle repair and recovery following pharmacologically induced damage. FASEB J. 2012 Jul;26(7):2847-58. Epub 2012 Apr 9.
7. Maslova E, Granström C, Hansen S, Petersen SB, Strøm M, Willett WC, Olsen SF. Peanut and tree nut consumption during pregnancy and allergic disease in children-should mothers decrease their intake? Longitudinal evidence from the Danish National Birth Cohort. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2012 Jun 26.
8. Moro AR, da Rosa R, da Silva FC, Filho PJBG. Effect of combined and aerobic training on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes. Fisioter. mov. [online]. 2012, vol.25, n.2 [cited 2012-07-13], pp. 399-409.
9. Muscogiuri G, Sorice GP, Mezza T, Prioletta A, Lassandro AP, Pirronti T, Della Casa S, Pontecorvi A, Giaccari A. High-normal TSH values in obesity: is it insulin resistance or adipose tissue's guilt? Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Jul 3.
10. Perez-Aso M, Chiriboga L, Cronstein BN. Pharmacological blockade of adenosine A2A receptors diminishes scarring. FASEB J. 2012 Jul 5.
11. Taketani Y, Yamazaki M, Ueda H, Mori Y, Tanaka T, Horie D, Ominami H, Okumura-Yamanaka H, Yamamoto H, Takeda E. Interaction between dietary phosphate and carbohydrate on glucose and phosphate metabolism in healthy young men. Kidney Research and Clinical Practice. Volume 31, Issue 2, June 2012

Blood Flow Restriction, Where Are We? "Don't Hold Your Breath", the Valsalva Maneuver Revisited. Ageless Growth, It's Never Too Late to Start. Plus: EMS as Recovery Tool & HIIT to Heal a Scarred Heart After Myocardial Infarctions

I guess it is a cultural thing that there is apparently a lot more of persuading to be done in the US and Europe to familiarize trainees with (a) the idea of limiting the blood supply to their musculature and (b) the notion that heavy weights are not all that counts.

After the huge success of the SuppVersity Exercise Science Week (read all posts), I did actually intend to put a greater emphasis on training related news in the future. Unfortunately, the number of pertinent papers that don't look at the benefits obese post-menopausal women can derive from walking on a treadmill in the fat burning zone is very limited (Please don't misunderstand this as an offense against the obese women. I anything it's meant as an offense against "experts" still advising those women to do just that). If you look closely enough, there are still a couple of newsworthy papers that have been published within the last weeks... and let's be honest, in the end it does not really matter, if they are from last week, as long as the information they provide is "news" in terms of not being part of common knowledge, yet - right?

Kaatsu - a review: Blood flow restriction research still work-in-progress

(Pope. 2013) -- Pope, Wilardson and Schoenfield have recently published an ahead-of-print paper that offers a very comprehensive overview of the current scientific perspective on training with cuffs (aka Kaatsu training). As the authors point out, the most intriguing aspect of blood flow restricted training (BFR) is that it is totally juxtaposed with the "traditional [strength training] paradigm, which suggests that lifting only higher intensity loads increases" muscle strength and size.

Figure 1: Concurrent lactate & GH increases support the metabolic accumulation hypothesis, one of the most popular explanations for the effects of BFR  (Inagaki. 2011).

One of the most commonly head explanations of the unexpected efficacy of blood flow restricted strength training at low intensities relates to the accumulation of what you could jovially call "metabolic waste" in the trained muscle. The results of a 2011 EMS study by Inagaki et al. (see figure 1), for example; suggest that the accumulation of lactate in the cuffed muscle went hand in hand with a +200% increase in growth hormone (GH) compared to the control condition. 

As Pope et al. rightly point out, these results do yet conflict with previous findings by Reeves et al. who observed similar increases in GH in trainees who wore a cuff while they were doing biceps curls at 30% of the 1-RM, despite identical lactate levels in the cuffed an not-cuffed condition (Reeves. 2006). Accordingly, alternative or rather synergistic effects such as an increase in reactive hyperemia (excess of blood) have been brought forward to explain the growth response to BFR.

I am not going to reiterate the whole review here, but still want to point out a couple of other interesting points, the Pope, Willardson and Schoenfield make. There would be, for example the increase in type II (fast, glycolytic) muscle fiber recruitment that was observed in some, yet not all studies, an increase phosphorylation of the protein synthesis gauge S6K1 (likewise a type II fiber dominant effect) and the accumulating evidence that BFR may "enhance recruitment of higher threshold motor units". In the end, the latter means that you will see similar activation patterns as you would expect them in "classic" heavy duty resistance training with comparably light loads and a cuff.

Will BFR soon become a common training technique?

"Chicken legs no more!" In a previous study even walking on a treadmill provided a growth stimulus, when the legs were cuffed before the participants hopped on the torture machine (learn more).

Yet while the implication (=similar results) appear obvious, Pope et al. are correct, when they point out that the "precise relationship between BFR and muscle recruitment still has to be elucidated" before definite conclusions wrt to the fundamental mechanism and their relation to the well-established metabolic and endocrine and paracrine responses, which do in fact share some, yet not all of the characteristics of "classic" resistance training (e.g. no increase in testosterone in response to BFR training; cf. Reeves. 2006; Fujita. 2007; Abe. 2012) can be made.

Once we have gained a better understanding of the processes that take place during and after BFR resistance training, researchers will probably also be able to provide more concrete advice how training with reduced blood flow can be successfully incorporated into the resistance training regimen of trainees on both ends of the performance continuum that ranges from the cancer cachetic patient to the elite level athlete.

Until then and in the absence of someone who's actually knowing what he/she to "cuff me up", I for my part will stick to traditional high intensity weight and interval training and would suggest that you do the same ;-)

"Deadlift, bench and squat, but God forbid: Never hold your breath!" - True or false?

(Hacket. 2012) -- I guess you will have heard about the fallacy of holding your breath while you bench squat and deadlift. It's one of those things every "I got 2h of instructions, now I am a trainer"-expert will tell his clients: "Don't hold your breath... breath!" On the other hand you will hear some of the "big dudes" tell you that you simply cannot lift weights as heavy as they do, if you don't resort to the Valsalva maneuver (VM) which is actually pretty much what most of us are doing, when we are "holding our breath", when lifting. If you carefully observe yourself, when you try to deadlift 80%+ of your 1-RM max you will realize that you do in fact hold your breath, but not like an apnoe diver would do it, on the contrary actually it's like breathing out yet with having your airways closed up.

So why are we doing bullsh*t like that 100% unvoluntarily? Well, the opponents of "holding your breath" will tell you that the pressure that's building up in your abdomen will stabilize your spine and protect you from injury. Against that background it seems only logical that we are naturally programmed to perform such a maneuver whenever we have to lift a heavy object from the ground or free ourselves from a tree that's lying right across our chest by benching it away ;-)

Even  when you are training for strength, heavy weights are not everything. A study I covered back in 2011 here at the SuppVersity showed - allegedly to my own surprise - that reducing rest times from week to week is another way to make progress and gain more mass and strength - particularly in the legs (read more)

Unfortunately, we all know that not all the things we are programmed to do - e.g. eating as much sugar as humanly (in the literal sense) possible, whenever we hit onto a honey-pot - is not necessarily conducive to our health. The existing literature on the matter appears to confirm this notion. It does however also tell us that the majority of healthy resistance trainees do not just get away pretty well when they follow their instincts and perform the Valsalva maneuver, but also achieve the desired increase in spine stability.

How effective this type of all-natural spine protection actually is, has yet never been fully elucidated. The same goes for the performance increases which are, as the scientists point out, "likely", but not adequately quantified in well-controlled studies. That there is a non-negligibly increased risk involved, especially for people with pre-existing cerebrovascular disease, cardiovascular disease and hernias, on the other hand, is non-debatable.

Against that background and in view of the fact that the hemodynamic response (=increase in blood pressure, etc.) decreases over years of training, the authors conclude that the deliberate use of the Valsalva maneuver for brief time-periods (<3s) should remain a prerogative of the more experienced trainees. 

Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) as a recover tool

SuppVersity veterans know: Recovery begins before you even hit the gym. "Pre-covery" would in fact be an appropriate term for the scientifically proven benefits of taking a hot bath 2 days before a particular strenuous workout or competition. Sounds hilarious? Well, if that's what you think, you better go back and read up on the results of the 2012 study by Touchberry et al., then.

(Kibisa. 2013) -- Ever since the huge disappointments with EMS ab-trainers, the electro-myostimulation is pretty much depreciated by the average trainee. If you still got one of those belts lying around (don't be ashamed ;-) you may want to wrap it around your calves, instead of your abs to use it as a recovery tool similar to the obviously way more sophisticated EMS devices the scientists from the Lithuania Kaunas College used in their latest study.

Kibisa et al. had recruited a group of 19 long-distance runners who had then been randomize to two groups who performed either their regular post-training routine or were attached to the said EMS device in order to apply what you may call a "post-workout recovery stimulus". Interestingly this treatment lead to significant increases in a subsequent maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) and work capacity (WC) tests, as well as profound decreases in in the 72h post muscle soreness.

As you probably would have guessed, the scientists ascribe these benefits to an "improved blood flow in the stimulated muscles and an increased venous blood pump". This however is nothing you could not achieve by an extended cool down, as well so that the study at hand won't qualify as an excuse to go and buy an EMS belt for your abs from the shopping channel ;-)

HIIT after infarction reduces scarring of heart tissue

In the unfortunate case you missed the Making HIIT a HIT! Series I highly suggest .you go back and learn about the fundamental and not so fundamental rules of how to HIIT it right. Part I comprises a brief research overview to give you an idea of what you can expect from HIIT workouts. Part II provides some theoretical considerations and a comprehensive list of 10 rules of thumbs to follow, in order to make HIIT a HIT ;-)

(Godfrey. 2013) -- The longstanding paradigm that rest facilitates recovery in the really sick is crumbling. Against that background it's not totally surprising to see that researchers from the School of Sport and Education at the Brunel University in the UK dared publishing a case-report dealing with a 50-year old post-myocardial infarction patient, who participated in 60 weeks of increasingly intense (obviously according to what a post-myocardial infarction patient can tolerate) high-intensity aerobic interval exercise.

The man who had sustained an idiopathic acute myocardial infarction had been diagnosed with 16% myocardial scar tissue early after the event saw successive improvement in the physiology of his hard, with an MRI-confirmed decrease in myocardial scar tissue. As the scientists point out, he is thus living proof for the "high efficacy and low risk" of high intensity aerobic interval training as a means not just to prevent future cardiac complications, but even to reverse existing damage.

Resistance training works *fullstop* - Regardless of age

(Mero. 2013) -- In the March issue of the European Journal of Applied Physiology Mero et al. report that their 21-week progressive resistance training regimen (two full-body workouts per week classic progression from 15 reps at 40-60% to 5-8 reps at 70-80%) yielded significant strength and size gains in old and young previously untrained subjects.

Figure 2: Changes in muscle cross sectional area and strength at the end of the 21-week study period (Mero. 203)

What's certainly surprising is the fact that there were no differences in terms of strength gains at the end of the study period between the young and old trainees. This is particularly interesting, because the "old chaps" obviously caught up, in the 2nd (=higher intensity) phase of the study. After 10.5 weeks, the young trainees had had a statistically significant advantage as far as the concentric strength was concerned. This advantage did yet melt away in the subsequent weeks.

Remember the article on the usefulness of HMB for the older trainees? With its anti-catabolic effect it would leave more of the scarce satellite cells for growth. Plus: It appears to have anti-obesity effects as well (read more)

In a way the presence of strength in the absence of size gains fits in nicely with the high myostatin expression in the older trainees which increased by >50% in the course of the study (read more about the role of myostatin building muscle) and the even more pronounced increase in myogenin, which suggest that the recruitment of satellite cells is slow / non-function in older trainees and further growth would hamper the function of the muscle cells (which is what myostatin is supposed to prevent learn more).

That two training sessions per week did yield statistically significant increases in muscle size and strength and that despite suboptimal energy and protein intake in the older individuals (<1g/kg body weight protein per day for many of the older subjects vs. 1.5g/kg of protein in the young guys; overall significantly lower energy intake than the young guys) is still impressive and goes to show you that it's never to late for you to start lifting weight.

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It's never too late! I could hardly imagine a better bottom line to this short potpourri of recent studies and it's unfortunate that for way too many of our fellow men, even an eye-opener like a heart attack is not enough to divert from the well-worn path of a sedentary life... ok, that was more than enough finger wagging for today. After all, the fact that you've found your way to the SuppVersity is evidence tells me that your path probably ain't going to end in the emergency room.

Well, unless you are a post-menopausal woman taking who's determined to take high dose folate supplements for the next 6+ years. In that case, you may well end up in the ER when the tumor in your colon you've been cultivating over the past 72 months bursts. You have now idea, what I am talking about? In that case you probably haven't yet subscribed to the SuppVersity Facebook Channel yet. Certainly a mistake, but as you've learned today, it's never too late and once you've read the respective post, you can still mae up for this lapse ;-)

References:

• Abe T, Loenneke JP, Fahs CA, Rossow LM, Thiebaud RS, Bemben MG. Exercise intensity and muscle hypertrophy in blood flow-restricted limbs and non-restricted muscles: a brief review. Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 2012 Jul;32(4):247-52.
• Fujita S, Abe T, Drummond MJ, Cadenas JG, Dreyer HC, Sato Y, Volpi E, Rasmussen BB. Blood flow restriction during low-intensity resistance exercise increases S6K1 phosphorylation and muscle protein synthesis. J Appl Physiol. 2007 Sep;103(3):903-10. Epub 2007 Jun 14.
• Godfrey R, Theologou T, Dellegrottaglie S, Binukrishnan S, Wright J, Whyte G, Ellison G. The effect of high-intensity aerobic interval training on postinfarction left ventricular remodelling. BMJ Case Rep. 2013 Feb 13;2013.
• Hackett DA, Chow CM. The Valsalva maneuver: Its effect on IAP and safety issues during resistance exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Dec 4.
• Inagaki Y, Madarame H, Neya M, Ishii N. Increase in serum growth hormone induced by electrical stimulation of muscle combined with blood flow restriction. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2011 Nov;111(11):2715-21.
• Kibiša R, Grūnovas A, Poderys J, Grūnovienė D. Restoration of the work capacity of the skeletal muscle with electrical myostimulation. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Feb;27(2):449-57. 
• Mero AA, Hulmi JJ, Salmijärvi H, Katajavuori M, Haverinen M, Holviala J, Ridanpää T, Häkkinen K, Kovanen V, Ahtiainen JP, Selänne H. Resistance training induced increase in muscle fiber size in young and older men. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2013 Mar;113(3):641-50.
• Pope ZK, Willardson JM, Schoenfeld BJ. A Brief Review: Exercise And Blood Flow Restriction. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Jan 28.
• Reeves GV, Kraemer RR, Hollander DB, Clavier J, Thomas C, Francois M, Castracane VD. Comparison of hormone responses following light resistance exercise with partial vascular occlusion and moderately difficult resistance exercise without occlusion. J Appl Physiol. 2006 Dec;101(6):1616-22.