How Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) Builds More Muscle Using Less Weight (Nick Colosi) | Ep 235
Are you an experienced lifter looking for new ways to boost muscle growth, improve recovery, and stay injury-free? Have you heard about blood flow restriction (BFR) training but aren’t sure how it can fit into your routine?
Philip (@witsandweights) welcomes Nick Colosi to break down how BFR can enhance muscle growth, speed up recovery, and take the strain off your joints—without sacrificing intensity. Nick explains the science behind BFR and shares real-world success stories from elite athletes like LeBron James and the USA Olympic weightlifting team, all of whom have used BFR to stay at the top of their game.
Nick Colosi, founder and president of Smart Tools, has a doctorate in chiropractic and extensive training in sports rehab and performance. Since 2014, Smart Tools has been at the forefront of developing innovative BFR devices used by elite athletes across professional sports, including the USA Olympic weightlifting team. Nick’s mission is to make BFR training accessible, safe, and effective for everyone, from fitness enthusiasts to pro athletes.
🧤 Get your own pair of safe, effective BFR cuffs at Smart Tools (anything you buy with this link supports the podcast) or here: https://www.smarttoolsplus.com/?sscid=91k8_q3zxr&
Today, you’ll learn all about:
2:01 How BFR fits into a traditional lifting routine
4:25 Typical BFR workout structure
8:59 Substituting BFR into your workout split
11:45 Why lighter weights are essential for BFR success
14:25 Comparing BFR for arms vs. legs
20:55 Safety considerations and common mistakes
23:12 Using BFR for recovery and DOMS relief
29:19 Pro athlete success stories: LeBron and Olympic athletes
36:18 What Nick wished Philip had asked
37:52 How to connect with Nick
38:24 Outro
Episode resources:
Smart Tools (anything you buy with this link supports the podcast) - https://www.smarttoolsplus.com/?sscid=91k8_q3zxr&
How Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) Builds More Muscle Using Less Weight
As a lifter, you’re always looking for ways to maximize muscle growth while staying injury-free. Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) training offers a new tool in your strength and hypertrophy toolbox. Whether you're dealing with joint pain, overuse injuries, or simply want to build muscle with less weight, BFR can help. In this post, I’ll break down how BFR works, how to implement it into your training, and why it’s gaining traction among elite athletes.
What is Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) Training?
BFR training involves using cuffs to restrict blood flow to a limb during exercise, allowing you to lift lighter weights while still getting the muscle growth benefits of heavy lifting. This technique works because restricting blood flow creates metabolic stress in the muscle, which mimics the effects of lifting heavier loads.
So, why does this matter? With BFR, you can stimulate muscle growth without the heavy weights that wear down your joints over time. This is huge for those of us who want to keep lifting for years without breaking down.
How to Incorporate BFR in Your Routine
Let’s say you’re already following a solid lifting routine with compounds like squats, deadlifts, and presses. How do you add BFR into the mix without overhauling everything?
Start with isolation exercises. BFR works great for exercises like bicep curls, tricep extensions, and leg extensions—movements that don’t require heavy weights to begin with. You’re still doing your regular lifts, but you’re swapping one or two isolation exercises for BFR.
Here’s an example:
For arms: Add BFR to bicep curls at the end of your workout.
For legs: Use BFR with lunges or leg extensions after your heavy lifts.
Use a 30-15-15-15 rep scheme:
Start with 30 reps on the first set, using about 30% of your one-rep max.
Take a 30-second break.
Complete 15 reps for each of the next three sets, with 30-second breaks in between.
By the end, your muscles should feel like they’ve been through a heavy workout, even though you’ve used significantly lighter weights. This is why elite athletes like LeBron James and Olympic weightlifters use BFR—it gives them the gains without the wear and tear.
Why Use BFR? Benefits for Lifters
Increased Hypertrophy with Less Weight
The main benefit of BFR is hypertrophy (muscle growth) while using less weight. If you’re someone who deals with joint pain or just wants to give your body a break from heavy loads, BFR lets you keep training hard without the risk of injury.
Faster Recovery
BFR also helps with recovery. Because you’re using lighter weights, you’re reducing the strain on your body. BFR helps reduce muscle soreness (DOMS), allowing you to train more frequently without burning out.
Maintain Muscle While Injured
Dealing with a nagging injury? BFR is an excellent tool for staying active while you recover. You can maintain or even build muscle without pushing through the pain of heavy lifting.
How Safe is BFR Training?
Like anything in the gym, safety comes first. BFR is generally safe when used correctly, but there are a few things to keep in mind:
Hydration is key. Make sure you’re hydrated and have eaten before your session.
Use proper equipment. Avoid cheap straps. Use validated BFR cuffs like the ones from Smart Tools.
Stick to the recommended pressures. 50-60% for arms and 70-80% for legs.
Don’t overdo it. 5-6 minutes per BFR exercise is plenty. You should want the cuffs off by the end.
How to Get Started with BFR
If you’re ready to give BFR a try, here’s a simple way to get started:
Choose one or two isolation exercises per workout.
Apply the BFR cuffs to your upper arms or legs, depending on the exercise.
Use lighter weights (around 30% of your 1RM) and follow the 30-15-15-15 rep scheme.
Be consistent. Like any training method, the benefits of BFR come with time and regular use.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire routine—just add BFR where it makes sense, especially on days when you want to focus on hypertrophy without taxing your joints.
Final Thoughts on BFR for Strength and Hypertrophy
BFR is not a magic bullet, but it’s a powerful tool for experienced lifters looking to add variety, improve recovery, and maximize muscle growth with less weight. If you’re dealing with joint pain, overtraining, or just want to try something new, BFR might be the game-changer you’re looking for. It’s like getting the best of both worlds—gains without the grind.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
If you're a lifter who's been training consistently, pushing heavy weights for your main lifts, but you're looking for ways to maximize your gains and enhance your recovery and maybe you've even heard about BFR or blood flow restriction training, but aren't sure how it fits into a serious lifting program then this episode's for you. My guest today, a leading expert in BFR, will show you how this technique can complement your heavy lifting and unlock new avenues for muscle growth. Bfr might even accelerate recovery, help with rehab and add an extra dimension to your isolation work, without overtaxing your central nervous system or risking overuse injuries. We're going to show you how to intelligently incorporate BFR to enhance your training. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.
Philip Pape: 0:54
I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm excited to get into blood flow restriction, or BFR training with Nick Colosi, founder and president of Smart Tools. Nick has a doctorate of chiropractic with extensive postgraduate training in sports rehab and performance. He founded Smart Tools in 2014 to innovate on products for soft tissue mobilization and later BFR training. These tools have been adopted by elite athletes across professional and collegiate sports, including LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers and I've used personally their Smart Cuffs myself for several years. Smart Tools is also the official BFR partner for the USA Olympic weightlifting team, now in full disclosure. After agreeing to have Nick on the show, smart Tools sent me a pair of the latest Smart Cuffs 4.0 to try out, and, of course, I've used their 3.0 for a long time, so that was a no-brainer. I tried them out and maybe we'll have a chance to talk about them during our conversation Today. You're going to learn from Nick how BFR can enhance muscle growth, accelerate recovery and complement your traditional lifting routine.
Philip Pape: 1:57
Nick, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Philip, appreciate it All right, man. So let's just jump in with a scenario that many of our listeners can relate to, and this is a lifter who has solid experience already with a traditional type program. You know they're doing the compound lifts, squats, deadlifts. They might be using bench presses or barbells or machines and they want to add some more volume, maybe get some more hypertrophy, they want to get a pump, or maybe they are dealing with overtraining or recovery issues. Stress things like that. How can they use blood flow restriction to complement their lifting in the right way?
Nick Colosi: 2:33
Yeah, I mean it's a common question we get from our non-rehab customers or non-athlete customers, just general fitness. How do I use this just for my general fitness? How do I program it? It usually starts with let's define BFR Like hey, bfr blood flow restriction training we're restricting blood flow to the limb and exercising under a very light load. We're trying to mimic heavier loads. So we're going to exercise that maybe 30% of your one rep max and try to mimic 70 to 80% of your one rep max.
Nick Colosi: 3:07
And there's a lot of research behind that. And when you show people research, they're very shocked to know that there's this much research behind this. They're like, man, there's no way that works and there is there's a lot of research behind it. So, getting that out of the way and kind of saying, hey, this is very safe, this is very effective behind it. So getting that out of the way and kind of saying, hey, this is very safe, this is very effective, they got the cuffs, they got them on. They're finding their personalized their pressure, because that's very important. Finding limb occlusion pressure, or otherwise known as personal pressure, is vitally important to all that we do, as far as all of our programming, because it allows you to scale up and scale down as far as increasing pressure, decreasing weight or increasing weight and decreasing pressure depending on where you are in your training.
Nick Colosi: 3:49
So a typical prescription for back-of-letter terms for training is using it three to four times a week per muscle group. You want to isolate that muscle. So say like, hey, it's your bicep day. Maybe you have two or three bicep exercises you want to pick. You have two or three bicep exercises. You want to pick one of those exercises and do a BFR session with that one exercise. And a typical BFR session would be 30 reps for your first set and take a 30 second to a minute break and then 15 reps and then another 30 second to a minute break and then do another 15. And you kind of keep doing that until you get you don't want to go to like you know full exhaustion, but you want to get to like volitional failure. Right, you want to get to about where you're like okay, I got maybe one or two reps in me, save it in the tank.
Philip Pape: 4:33
You'll know where it is, because it's the point. You don't want to continue.
Nick Colosi: 4:37
Yeah, exactly, Typically it's around the five minute mark. Typically, if the load and pressure is correct, and by correct meaning, you want that thing off by five or six minutes. It's not a comfortable thing, it's not a spa treatment. It's like oh, this is going to be like a Normatec or something like that. It's like flush the systems. It's not that. However, it's highly effective at what it does.
Nick Colosi: 5:00
So if your goal is to increase strength and increase hypertrophy and decrease the load on the joints, BFR is a great, great accessory work to augment, you know, heavier lifting days. You want to maybe take a little lighter, because I see it a lot, especially at my age. You know I'm pushing 40 and you know, and I used to do a lot of lifting when I was younger and you see, a lot of people are like, yeah, my joints aren't what they were when I was 21. I can't lift as heavy as I did and as often as I did when I was younger, and so BFR is a great plugin for that. I mean, that's just one example, but it's a great example, right? I have people up to 85 years old using these things. I mean it's crazy, because they're just like I'm getting some great results and lifting these light loads.
Philip Pape: 5:46
Yeah, and I feel like it's still this secret in the community. A lot of people don't know about it still and they're like what the heck is that? I don't remember how I came across it years ago because I used to use the just cheap straps that you would just strap together and, oh man, you could screw that up easily. And then I came across, you guys, because I was looking into different products but I did find that I'm north of 40. So and I didn't get started to this until I was in my late thirties anyway.
Philip Pape: 6:13
But even now I deal with, you know, low back fatigue or shoulder fatigue or whatever. I've had a couple of surgeries and even just last week I was using the cuffs because I was having some agitation with my shoulder and I said you know, I want to just go higher rep on this, really get that close to failure without the load, and it's a great use case to fit into a lot of different populations. One of the questions people have is how does it truly mimic the 80 or 90% of one RM when you're not literally loading your body with that weight?
Nick Colosi: 6:47
Yeah, I mean, there's been so much research over the last decade and everybody kind of says something a little bit different. For a while it was metabolic stress, right, or tricking the brain, or maybe neurological, or it's just strictly mechanical loading. You're just doing that many reps.
Philip Pape: 7:02
Yeah, effective reps, yep, yep.
Nick Colosi: 7:04
Yeah, I mean, it really is about building up lactate, you know, not lactic acid.
Philip Pape: 7:08
Most people don't care, but since we're on a various science, no, let's do it because lactic acid people think of as a byproduct of hypertrophy. You're talking about lactate, so yeah, let's do that.
Nick Colosi: 7:23
Yeah, so I mean restricting oxygen-rich blood to the muscle and you're doing a lot of reps, about 50 to 75, depending on what pressure you have the cuff at, whether it be 30%, 40%, 50%, lop or 80%, so that really depends. So that's kind of what we know now is that there's that lactate buildup in the muscle restricting oxygen to the muscle, because what BFR is doing is it's restricting oxygenate buildup in the muscle, restricting oxygen to the muscle, because what BFR is doing is it's restricting oxygen-rich blood into the muscle but it's blocking those waste products out. Basically, imagine if you're doing like a high rep set of like 30 or 40 or 50. So something ridiculous, or like a HIIT training. Basically, you're going to feel exhausted. You kind of get that feeling with BFR but you get it very quickly and at very low loads. So it's used very commonly in the rehab setting for obvious reasons low load, you get recover faster.
Nick Colosi: 8:15
It's used in mainly for professional reasons, like for like athletes. It's used mainly for in-season training to deload joints, to maintain strength and hypertrophy. But you're deloading the joints NFL guys pretty much that's what they're doing now because their bodies are taking beating. Or what are we on now? Week three, going into week three. They're just starting to get beat up pretty good, so they're using it that way. Our NBA guys they use it mainly for recovery after games, but that's the pro athletes and the general athletes. They use it at all three levels. They use it during their regular training, they use it for recovery, for flushing, so there's a lot of different ways to use it. It's not just for isolation. There's a lot of different ways you can do BF.
Philip Pape: 8:59
Yeah. So that's the perfect segue, right? Because someone's thinking okay, let's say I'm on a four-day split very typical maybe upper-lower push-pull leg type split where they've got some compound lifts, some accessories and then some isolation. I mean you kind of alluded to earlier. You know a few days a week, a few different muscle groups, but you know you don't want to do all BFR and I'll tell you like there's value. And once you've done BFR you realize like sets of three to five aren't so bad sometimes and having variety in there is helpful, right? Because even with normal isolation work on a cable you might be up in the 15, 20 range for some of those. So give it to us Like what's a typical. You're going to substitute this for this or add this in with BFR.
Nick Colosi: 9:37
Yeah, I mean, kind of like I was saying before, you would substitute it. It's good to pick one exercise and substitute that as a BFR exercise. So, like biceps is just an easy example. You know, if you're doing bicep curls there's a thousand other bicep exercises you're doing, but you just pick one and then you do that rep and set scheme with BFR. That would probably be a good recommendation.
Nick Colosi: 10:02
If you're doing it for training and not for rehab and you have no other contraindications, that's also very important, making sure that you're clear to do BFR, because there are contraindications. Doing BFR like with anything I mean like with regular strength training there's contraindications. You want to be clear by a physician, but 50% LOP for the arm, 80%, 70% for the leg that is kind of where the sweet spot is now as far as LOP goes. And then you can play around with those pressures, kind of like I was saying before. You want to increase the pressure, decrease the load. So yeah, I mean that would be the typical. You know, if you're doing a push pull, I mean obviously the pulling muscles. You know bicep, you know if you're pushing muscles, tricep, you know that would be on your push days. You want to work your triceps and shoulders, you know for your push. And it's not just a distal muscle effect, it's also proximal. You're still going to get some shoulder activity.
Philip Pape: 10:48
Yeah, let's go on that. So, like, does that extend further down to, like, the pec area for bench presses, or is that a little bit less? Yeah?
Nick Colosi: 10:55
there was one research study that looked at that.
Philip Pape: 11:02
There is. There is some benefit to using it for chest exercises, for pec major, pec minor.
Nick Colosi: 11:04
Yeah, because for those listening, we're putting these in our upper arm or our upper leg and that's it right yeah, regardless of the exercise you're doing, it's always going to go on the upper arm, between your bicep and deltoid, and on the upper leg as far up on the hip as you can because you see incorrect use of this stuff on youtube with like upper calf and some other spots.
Nick Colosi: 11:20
Yeah, it's all the same plumbing and that's what you know, that's what we say, that's what Dr Nicholas Rolnick in New York says it's all the same plumbing, right? So there's no reason. You're only increasing the chances of having a nerve-related issue if you have it that far down because it's more superficial. So we do recommend it to put on the upper leg because it's thicker. Nerves are not as superficial. You'll have less complications, yeah, cool.
Philip Pape: 11:44
So you mentioned the arm. Definitely like biceps and tricep work for anybody listening, if you want, like a massive pump and just everything popping out. I mean not that that's the end goal, but it's a nice short-term reward when you do this, yeah yeah 30, 15, 15, 15. Like, that's like the protocol typically and start way lighter than you think with the load. Trust me, and start way later. Yeah, yeah.
Nick Colosi: 12:07
That's so you know like you need an ego check, right? Because you're like, ah, I can. You know I can do a 50 pound dumbbell curls, no problem, put the BFR cups on. Then you get about maybe five or six reps in. You're like, wow, this was a bad decision.
Philip Pape: 12:20
Yeah, yeah, it resets you for the next time You're like okay, now I get it, I get it. Okay, so limit collusion pressure. Just for folks to know, that's the amount of pressure that you put on the limb, and there's different ways to gauge that. Right, like you guys, your equipment does it automatically with some advanced sensors. I'd be curious to know how that happens, cause I know you've evolved the technology as well. Yeah.
Nick Colosi: 12:40
Yeah, I mean we first started we really weren't finding LLP at all and we were just kind of saying, hey, inflate it to a pressure between 100 and 200. And then once you're at maybe at a 7 out of 10, you're good to go Get out there and give it your all. And then, as things went on, it's like, okay, that's probably not the safest way to do it. It's just because that's highly, highly subjective. So when we came out with our Gen 2 model, we started using a handheld Doppler and that's great. You're finding limb occlusion pressure. You're finding that personalized pressure.
Nick Colosi: 13:12
For that user it's not the most easiest thing to do, especially on yourself. To this day I still can't find it on my foot from my lower extremity, can't do it. So it's great for the clinic because you need two people, but for the regular gym goer, they're never going to do that. We wanted the solutions for both. You know, ease of use in the clinic, but also ease of use for patients, athletes and general fitness. You know enthusiasts, as we like to call them, because usually you know people usually using this product are the ones that are very serious about their fitness. It's not going to be somebody that's like, yeah, I work out once a week and do some BFR. That's not the person. The person that's using BFR is really into fitness and know what they're doing.
Nick Colosi: 13:48
They're listening to this podcast, man, they are listening to this podcast, not pandering, I swear, but yeah. So the Gen 3 electronic pressure sensors built in both Gen 3 and Gen 4 products that we sell now they have the pressure sensor built into it with algorithms that control that sensor, and we're actually only one of two products to be validated. We're actually validated for LOP accuracy by Mayo Clinic, so we take great pride in that, because a lot of products out there say they do that, but they actually either failed their validation test or never been validated, probably because it's not accurate. So it's easy to say that, but once you have that peer-reviewed research backing you up on what you're saying, we take great pride.
Philip Pape: 14:25
Yeah, and again for the listener who has never done this before, it feels like a blood pressure cuff basically, and I know in your version three so I had the three and now I have the four it was you had to plug it into a unit and then that would pump up the unit and I think it was like a multi-chamber system and now it's maybe a single chamber bladder or something like that. Yeah, you had a multi-chambered system. Very briefly, Okay, I mean that was probably like the first six weeks.
Nick Colosi: 14:49
That was our Gen 1. You can't find LOP, oh, okay, yeah, so if it's a multi-chamber bladder system, you can't find LOP, and we moved on. We moved on to our Gen 2 units and that was a single chamber bladder system. That was like in 2018. And we've used single bladder chamber systems ever since.
Philip Pape: 15:07
Okay, yeah, and you said the upper arm maybe 50%, I think. I recall in the app you can go up to 60% on the arm and you implied more than that for the leg right.
Nick Colosi: 15:18
Correct, yeah, so you can do for the arm anywhere between 30 and 60 and then for the leg right. Correct, yeah, so you can do for the arm anywhere between 30 and 60 and then for the leg anywhere between 40 and 90.
Philip Pape: 15:26
Yeah, man, and I personally find the leg more uncomfortable than the arm, you know, probably just because it's just so massive, but others may have a different experience. For me it just feels like, wow, that's tight, even when it's not up there. But then when you start doing some, let's say, front squats, I mean, man, talk about a totally different experience, like what's your favorite leg movement or two with the cuffs? Probably lunges, which is not a favorite without the cuffs for a lot of people.
Nick Colosi: 15:52
I know right, yeah, Bulgarian split squats. I mean I hate those. I do them, but I hate them with BFR. It's like a next level. Hate Like it is.
Philip Pape: 16:04
Do you do them loaded, in that you still do them loaded, or can you do them almost body weight? In that case, I haven't done BFR ball bearings because yeah, yeah, yeah, but lunges like walking lunges.
Nick Colosi: 16:10
Yeah, walking lunges. Yeah, yeah, walking lunges.
Philip Pape: 16:12
Because walking lunges. Well, I mean you could throw a barbell on your back if you be pretty brutal, right, typically body weight. I'll do body weight.
Nick Colosi: 16:17
Yeah, nothing crazy, yeah cool, I'll also just walk with them too for like 20 minutes or 30 minutes.
Philip Pape: 16:26
Just do some aerobic stuff, that's awesome because you know, and I'm sure you come across this misconception and you mentioned already, like oh, bfr, lighter weight Sounds so much easier until you realize squeezing your limb and doing tons of reps of something is not. It's a different hard, it's a different form of hard. But for something like that where you're doing a leg day and you're doing accessories for hypertrophy, like quad war, split stuff, maybe step ups Some of those people don't really like as much anyway with load, and I could see this being a selling point and I'm selling myself on it Like, yeah, do the walking lunges, just throw in the cuffs and just walk. So it's convenient and you're still getting this nice workout.
Nick Colosi: 17:02
Yep, yeah, I think it's a lot of our. I mean, I do it, but anybody can do it. A lot of our older customers do it to boost their aerobic capacity. You don't want to go on a 16 mile bike ride with them or anything like that, but like a 20, 30 minute decently brisk walk with cuffs more than enough. We don't recommend doing all four cuffs at one time. That's one thing that I just absolutely detest when I see that on social media. Because you kind of need to do that. If you have a multi-chamber bladder cuff, you need that because it's not going to give you that stress to the muscle. You need to do four cuffs at one time all limbs but the single chamber bladder system like ours, not only don't need to do that, it's recommended not to do that because it's not safe at all. Got it Good to know not safe.
Philip Pape: 17:51
Just two cuffs. If you need to challenge yourself, throw on a rucksack or something.
Nick Colosi: 17:55
Yeah, exactly Throw on a rucksack if you need to challenge yourself.
Philip Pape: 17:58
I like that man. Yeah, I forgot about that trick, though, just walking with the cuffs. I don't know, I haven't read through all the literature that comes with the new smart cuffs, but I assume there's some resources you have that kind of give people these ideas.
Nick Colosi: 18:10
Yeah, I mean you can simply. I mean, if you want to make it easy, just put it on. You know, starting off, just do like 50% LLP and put it on your legs, pump it up to 50% LLP and just walk for 20 minutes and then, if you get tired, just deflate them. Just deflate them. And yeah, I mean, safety is number one. Safety is the most important thing. We just don't want people abusing it and then potentially injuring themselves. We have a lot of self protections in the app and also the product, but you only can do so much.
Philip Pape: 18:41
Nothing in the show constitutes also the product, but you only can do so much. Nothing in the show constitutes medical advice.
Allan: 18:50
Please seek consultation with your doctor before starting VFR training. Hi, my name is Alan and I just want to give a shout out to Philip, pape of Wits and Weights for being a huge part of the foundation for my continued health and well-being. Philip exemplifies a nutrition coach who demonstrates how much he cares. Philip works tirelessly and with dedication to provide coaching, support and major content for us to use. He creates a practical approach from research and Philip empowers all of us to use food as quality for our health. He is skilled in how to assess and direct nutrition. Philip creates a community full of wisdom, support and camaraderie. In summary, philip Piper is the real deal. He knows how to assess and direct nutrition and he continues to steer me in the right direction. Thank you, philip.
Philip Pape: 19:43
Are there scenarios where BFR is actually more effective? And I'm thinking of training specifically, not necessarily rehab, but I don't know how much research studies you guys have done on that, maybe even the cardio that you just mentioned but from a training perspective, would you say BFR is superior to X, for I mean we always tell people, if you can lift heavy, lift heavy, because there's a huge neurological component to that that you're just not going to get with lighter loads.
Nick Colosi: 20:09
And we never tell people that this is going to replace heavy lifting. That's also not true. We always tell people this is a accessory work, this is to augment your heavier lifts. You're going to improve your heavier lifts by integrating BFR into your training. So we're not saying this is going to replace it. It is a nice adjunct to it. It's a nice accessory work. It's nice to help prevent injury and recover from injury. If you got a nagging shoulder like my shoulder is always pain. So like if you got a nagging shoulder, nagging elbow, you know you tweak something, do some BFR for the week, you know, and just take it lighter and let those tendons recover. You know I also noticed my tendons don't recover as fast as they used to. You know, you know when I was 21,. Right, you can go out drinking and then you know not to worry about golfer's elbow, but it's, yeah. So that's where it really is highly effective.
Philip Pape: 20:58
That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, no, as an accessory, and the things we mentioned before. What about? And then travel comes to mind. Actually, we're going to a family vacation next weekend. I would never ask my wife like to let me go to a gym while we're on a family vacation, but I could bring my little you know case of BFR cuffs and do stuff in the room. Gives even more options than just like bands or TRX or something no-transcript.
Nick Colosi: 21:50
Active lifestyle. Nowadays they're requesting for better equipment.
Philip Pape: 21:55
Until you stay in an Airbnb. You see, I love bringing guests like you on, because then it's selfishly. I'm like, okay, here's all the ideas for this, because you could do pushups, you could do all sorts of body weight things, and now you're getting it up into the quasi or mimic of a loaded regime of that movement, which is awesome. So let's just tie up on the safety thing, since you've alluded to it a couple of times. You mentioned the pressure which can be controlled if you have good equipment. You mentioned not doing four limbs at once. You mentioned not going too long with these. On Any other key things people need to be aware of and stupid things that people have done that they shouldn't.
Nick Colosi: 22:31
Yeah, I mean make sure you're hydrated. Make sure you're hydrated and make sure you've eaten something that day. Don't go in, don't try doing it fast. It's probably not the greatest idea If you have any blood disorders or anything like that. There's a significant amount of contraindications Nothing major, though, like pretty much. If you're cleared to do strength training, you can do BFR. So there's really not, like you know, special contraindications for BFR that you wouldn't really have for regular strength training. I mean, maybe cancer, that's about it. Pregnancy, although that one's that's a hot topic.
Philip Pape: 23:04
It always is, even with lifting.
Nick Colosi: 23:05
We always say pregnancy but we'd have. There's no research to say that it's hard with pregnancy. It's just play it safe.
Philip Pape: 23:12
And because there's no research to say that it's effective with pregnancies. Right, exactly, all right, so that's good. Let's talk about recovery, then. What are, what are some ways people might think of using BFR for recovery? You you already mentioned a couple, like one being if your joints are acting up instead of doing your normal training session, put this in there. What I'd be concerned about is people starting doing more volume than their body can handle and actually backfiring, you know, because they're like adding this into what they're already doing. So what are some good ways to think of it that way?
Nick Colosi: 23:40
Yeah, I mean from a recovery standpoint. I mean IPC comes to mind ischemic preconditioning. We know that's on our 3.0 Pro model. You can do it with a 4.0 model, although with new updates we're going to make it a lot more automated. So IPC stands for ischemic preconditioning, aka recovery mode. Basically what it does, it will inflate to a pressure. Usually it's about 80 to 100% LOP, so almost full occlusion.
Nick Colosi: 24:10
It's entirely passive, Okay. So like I remember one person was like yeah, I put IPC and I started exercising. I was like why did you do that? So like it was incredibly painful. I was like, yeah, no shit. Like it's not meant to be active, it's definitely passive. So like, like, don't do that. Like nowhere in our user manual says that. But anyways, we said entirely passive. So you just sit there. It's like a norm attack, right. So you just sit there, watch tv, do whatever. It will inflate and it will hold that for five minutes and after five minutes it will deflate. And then it will deflate and stay deflated for three minutes and then it will five minutes on again. So five minutes on, three minutes off. You can do that three times and then that's it.
Nick Colosi: 24:46
That's's the recovery period and the research is relatively mixed up. It's not a slam dunk, not a home run. That just does everything that some research studies says it. It increases VO2 max one to 2%. So for the average person, is that really that big of a deal? Yeah, kind of. For the pro athlete, that's everything right. One to 2%, that's huge. But it does reduce DOMS. It does improve your recovery for the next day. So if you had a hard workout, do a recovery mode for 10, 15 minutes when you get home, after you shower or whatever, and just sitting on the couch great way to just recover.
Nick Colosi: 25:18
You can do that on arm or legs. Arms are a little bit more painful, so you got to be a little bit more painful. So you got to be a little bit more mindful. Like, would I go 100% LLP on the arms? For LLP, Probably not. I'd probably go more like 80%. It's funny, the research is really mixed. So I keep saying 80% or 100% because there's been studies that have shown that both are effective. For IPC it's not just 100% LLP anymore, it's, you know, could be 80%. And for the arm, you know you got the neurovascular bundle 80%. And for the arm, you got the neurovascular bundle. It's pretty superficial. So you want to be mindful of that. So numbness and tingling is a lot easier to get to occur on your arm than it is on your leg. So 80% LLP for a recovery session for the arm it's usually what I do. But yeah, I mean, that's how it's really used for recovery. Besides for your active recovery days or your light lift days, Besides that kind of what we already touched on already. That's how it's usually commonly used.
Philip Pape: 26:10
Yeah, that's a really good one. I wasn't aware of that recovery mode. I think that's awesome because that is super common for especially like a really heavy low back workout or a leg day, to just have that bit of DOMS. And I'm going to try that out and, you know, let people know how it goes. You said it even slightly increases VO2 max. You said one or 2%. So it's something which I want to pull on that thread because earlier you also mentioned the walking with it and whatnot. What does this science show if it's used kind of on a regular basis as a conditioning tool, what you potentially could get out of it?
Nick Colosi: 26:41
Yeah, you're just stressing the body. You're just stressing the body to a greater degree in a very short amount of time. So that's pretty much the theory about how it's going to increase that VO2 max Research. Again, sometimes you can make it say what you want to say, Sure.
Philip Pape: 26:55
I appreciate there's nuance. Yeah, there's.
Nick Colosi: 26:57
There's nuance, right, and there's a lot of there's just mixed results on it. So the theory behind it really isn't all there or, as we don't really know for sure how it's doing it, and that's kind of what we have to live with right now. We know it's safe to do. We definitely know it's safe to do because I mean, it's funny, as you talk, to like orthos, right, and they're recommending BFR for their patients and the patients would be like, oh, that sounds dangerous and the ortho is like I just had you on this. I'm in surgery in the OR, restricted fully for two hours, you're okay for five minutes. They just find it silly and comical and you're not even a full occlusion, you're at percentage.
Philip Pape: 27:35
Yeah, no, no. But some people do have that instant reaction when they don't know, and even listening to the show and the curiosity they're like let's step back. Are you guys talking about just completely cutting off all blood flow? You know, and it's not that there is a safety element, you have to be aware and do it properly. There is some tolerance, like let's just admit it.
Nick Colosi: 27:54
Yeah, back to the safety point. Yeah, that's why we do it that way. That's why we do personalized pressure, because we're almost guaranteeing not almost, we are guaranteeing that you're not going to exercise at full solution, as opposed to you just taking a wrist strap and just wrapping it and you see that right. You see those BFR straps on Amazon the 20 bucks. It's like cool, if you want to do it, go for it. Me first, I would never do that. I feel like it's very unsafe, easy to occlude and there's just a lot of drawbacks.
Nick Colosi: 28:29
But yeah, that's how it started, right, arnold was doing that back in the 60s and 70s. Right, he was back, he was taking I don't even know what the hell he was using. It was like a towel or something. He was just wrapping his arms and he was chasing the pump, right, and that's Arnold works for him. But we've evolved a little bit. The tech's evolved. We're not blind to the fact that people use wrist straps or BFR straps or whatever, because some people yeah, we understand it's a higher price point for our products, the digital, electronic BFR products, we understand.
Philip Pape: 28:52
Yeah, no, and I've seen the evolution over the years as well. I did used to have straps like that that had the little clip, and it was like the difference from one limb to another and one session to another. It was so big you were just wondering if you were getting the right. You don't want to tighten it too much because you're like, oh man, turning purple, what's going on?
Nick Colosi: 29:07
We're not good. I mean purple. It's a yeah, that's a relatively once you're exercising, relatively normal reaction. But if you're purple before you start exercising, probably over tightened in the pit.
Philip Pape: 29:19
Exactly, man, exactly All right. So I know you've worked with athletes. I know you have this partnership with the Olympic weightlifting team. People want to hear some cool stories. I know you talked about things on other podcasts, but you work with LeBron James. I used to be a Miami Heat fan, by the way, and it was a big. It was sad when he went to the Cavs from our perspective. Hey, you stole from us in the beginning. I mean yeah, no, I mean that's what I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, it went both ways. Exactly. I was actually in Florida when he did the announcement and I hadn't been living there in years, but that was funny. So either him or you know we just had the Olympics, so maybe that's a super relevant what you guys have been doing there outfitting them with the cuffs.
Nick Colosi: 29:56
Yeah, actually, lebron, I live in Cleveland, by the way. Cool, I figured that. Yeah, Okay, that makes sense. Around the same time, yeah, I played LeBron's high school team, akron, in Akron. Yeah, in Akron. Yeah, yeah, he lives in Bath, right outside. But yeah, no, he uses a lot for recovery, so like on the plane after games. He uses a little bit in off-season training, but mainly for recovery purposes, like a lot of the other NBA guys do.
Nick Colosi: 30:20
As far as our you know, usa USA Weightlifting was interesting. They actually were using our product, unbeknownst to me, I have no idea. Sometimes it's amazing people that will email you and be like, hey, we're using your product. I'm like, I had no idea you're using our product, no clue. So, usa Weightlifting they've been using our product now for about three or four years and they're like we love the BFR product, we've used others.
Nick Colosi: 30:45
Our athletes love your product. Would you be able to sponsor us for the upcoming Olympics? I'm like, yeah for sure, whatever you need. So we started working closer with them about a year and a half ago as far as protocols and things like that. Hampton Morris, who won the bronze, he's been using our product now for quite a while, even before the partnership and he used a lot for recovery. He used a lot mostly exclusively for recovery, and he's just like I just love the way I feel the next day or immediately after doing the recovery modes for my lips. So, and he won bronze, so that was pretty cool. I think he was a male weightlifter to win a medal since 84.
Philip Pape: 31:18
Yeah, I know it's crazy. We are not dominant in that sport, so that's pretty cool to be tied to that yeah.
Nick Colosi: 31:23
Yeah, and he's young, he's just a kid, he's like 20 years old, so that was really cool. So, yeah, I mean they've been using a lot and, being as portable as it is, it was really nice. They can take a Harris, they can have it in the village and take it everywhere they want.
Philip Pape: 31:37
So he was using it like after every training session. I'm just curious, like the protocol there.
Nick Colosi: 31:42
Yeah, he would take it. He wasn't using it every night, but he was using it pretty frequently. He was probably doing it maybe three or four days a week for recovery purposes. Yeah, some pretty cool stories. That was a really cool story. It's always good when you don't know that they're using it and they love it. Or you see it on social media with somebody and you're like I had no idea they got it. I don't know if I can mention his name, but he's a head of a. I don't know if I can mention his name, but he's a head of a major studio like NBC, cbs, abc, and he was using the product. I was like that's really cool. And he's like, hey, let's jump on a call and go over. I'm like don't you have anything? They're like I'm sure you have better. You know, like to waste your time on me. Like you know that was really cool, like awesome guy devoting time. You know, for this was really cool.
Philip Pape: 32:25
Yeah, and for his physical health too, you know so.
Nick Colosi: 32:28
Yeah, You'd be surprised who orders off the website that you know, because a lot of, like athletes or movie stars, they want just free products, sometimes Right, and other times they just order off the website. I was like I wonder if that's you know, so-and-so you know.
Philip Pape: 32:42
No, that's awesome. I mean so because people are always wondering, like, what does this person do? Because they want to emulate it, and that's not always the right approach when it comes to training because they're elite athletes. But it does lead me to ask do you guys have like training programs that you offer associated with the product or even for free online for people to check out?
Nick Colosi: 33:02
So right now, all of our education is more clinical sports, performance-based, for health professionals and personal trainers, strength coaches, things like that.
Nick Colosi: 33:10
But as BFR has now evolved, almost half of our customer base is non-health professional, so it's like patients and athletes and, just again, just general fitness enthusiasts. So we are currently transitioning to offer more options for them, for more custom programming. So we're launching a new website in about 60 days we are going to start doing 30-minute free consultations with customers to just say, hey, what are your needs, what are your goals, how do you want to apply this to your training? And then we can kind of go over that with them and then offer them, you know, online coaching, just in BFR, you know, if they want. So I'm like, yeah, that's 30 minutes enough, just I just need to get started. Others are like I need my handheld from start to finish, right, so then we're going to start doing that and offering some more specialty courses as well, you know that are non-clinical, just so people you know people are using it not only correctly but also, you know, optimally for their training, so they get the most bang for their buck.
Philip Pape: 34:11
Cool man. Yeah, no, I, without being in a walking infomercial, I'm probably going to be using them more, maybe posting some stuff for folks, so those listening to the podcast. Maybe I'll do a follow-up episode or two from this on taking the information and talking about the recovery mode and walking with it, and maybe some tips for folks who want to try it, Because I do think it opens up a whole other world. That again, I don't know why more people haven't heard about it. I don't know if you know why that's the case or not.
Nick Colosi: 34:35
I think it's because it sounds dangerous. It's relatively unknown, mainly because the price point was so high for so long. But I think we're at a point now where we're getting the price point down. I think our 3.0 is 299, right. So as far as BFR goes for electronics, it's the most affordable electronic BFR device you can find. You won't find a more affordable product for that short of like straps. So making it affordable was like step one. Step two was getting it into the hands of patients from primary market was clinical, so we did that. Now it's okay. We got athletes using it. We got people that are working out four or five days a week. They're really into their fitness. They've heard about BFR. They want to kind of take it to the next level or they want to augment their training older and they want to deload the joints, you know, and it's still workout and still lift weights. So it's interesting the amount of people that it can be used for. It's really it's way more than actually I even thought when we first launched the product.
Philip Pape: 35:35
Yeah, that's usually what happens, right? People start using it in ways that you didn't expect and then boom new market.
Nick Colosi: 35:40
Yeah, although I did have one person use it. They're like I have. They're like they had four cuffs on and they had like a heart rate monitor and then they had something else on their ears and then like something on their head. I was like that's a bit much. I think you're taking the wearable thing to a whole different level that I don't want to go to. So I was like tone it down a little bit. But yeah, people are using it in ways that I never thought. I'm like ah, that's a pretty good idea.
Philip Pape: 36:04
Yeah, and I know there's an entire podcast devoted just to BFR, right, every single episode, because I can imagine now how connected we are with all the integrations, with the rings, with the wearables. There's just sky's the limit on how we study all this and connect it all together. But if there's one thing that we didn't cover today that you wished I had asked, what would that be?
Nick Colosi: 36:25
It's a bigger question, probably like something that you regret or think you could have done differently, and that would have been. I mean, I don't regret anything as far as like the product goes, because sometimes you have to take those lumps to learn right. So, like our 3.0 was our first electronic product we ever did. We were learning. So it's like if it's everything smooth sailing, you are not ready for failure. You know like you're not pushing yourself right. You know you kind of have to take those lumps. But yeah, I mean, I guess what we have cooking, I guess you know. So we have two more products that we're working on that aren't BFR related but they're health and fitness related, so can't really mention it. But they're health and fitness related, so I can't really mention it, but it's in the fitness strength realm. So I'm really excited about that because it works well with BFR and it goes to our. You know we're making things simple and easy to use for people, making it affordable and making it affordable that that's kind of what our company's all about.
Philip Pape: 37:19
What a tease man. What a tease. All right, I guess I'll see what that is.
Nick Colosi: 37:22
Yeah, I'll see in the next months with the new product. That's kind of what we're looking at. So we're about a year out from it.
Philip Pape: 37:28
Yeah, no. So just for the listener knows, I was more than excited to have Nick on here, because I use the product myself and any product that you go from one version to another and they seem to have listened to every single thing that customers wanted changed about that, even though the first product's great. I think they're doing the right thing. It's kind of like some of the apps that I use that they're super involved with the community and the user base, so I respect that. I think you're doing great work. Those listening. We'll throw some links in the show notes. Where would you like listeners to learn more about you and your work?
Nick Colosi: 37:57
Yeah, our website, smarttoolspluscom. You can just Google it. You can Google Smart Cuffs, smarttoolscom or SmartToolsPluscom. Yeah, that's probably the best way. You know, we're rehauling our blog so it's much more educational. Right now it's kind of again we're building a new website, so we're kind of just like in transition period right now. But, yeah, we want to be much more active on our blog. As far as you know, educating, you know non-health professionals as well as health professionals on how to best use our product. You know how best to use BFR Cool man.
Philip Pape: 38:28
What I want to do is I'm going to put together a quick little like suggested kind of program thing, maybe run it by you and let the listeners know they can download that as well and kind of connect all this together that way for our listeners. Awesome, man. Well, thanks so much for coming on. It was a pleasure. Love learning about this stuff.
Nick Colosi: 38:42
Absolutely Thanks for having me.
