The Acute Effect of Resistance Exercise Training with Continuous and Intermittent Blood Flow Restriction on Growth Hormone, Insulin-Like Factor-1 and Lactate in Non-Athletic Young Men

The aim of this study was to compare hormonal and metabolic responses to three types of resistance exercise trainings in non-athlete young men.

40 subjects with the mean age of 22.56 ± 1.50 and the BMI of 23.75 ± 55.5 kg/m2 were randomly divided into four equal groups: (a) low intensity resistance training (20% one repetition maximum) with continuity of blood flow restriction (BFR), (b) low intensity resistance training (20% one repetition maximum) with intermittent BFR, (c) traditional resistance training (80% repetition maximum) with no BFR, and (d) the control group. Subjects performed the barbell curl 4 times until exhaustion and with a 1-minute rest between the sets. Blood sampling was performed before and one hour after the exercise session. Dependent T-Test (intra-group comparison) and One-Way Anova (inter-groups comparison) were used to analyze the data (P≤0.05).

The levels of growth hormone and lactate in all three three experimental groups showed a significant increase compared to the baseline (P≤0.001), while insulin-like growth factor was not increased significantly in any of the groups. Inter-group results showed that after a training session, the levels of growth hormone and lactate were not changed significantly between the three experimental groups.

It seems that low-intensity resistance exercise trainings and continuous and intermittent blood flow restriction are effective in terms of hormonal and metabolic changes similar to traditional resistance exercise trainings