A Comprehensive Model of Blood Flow Restriction in the Post-surgical Rat

Blood flow restriction (BFR) with low-load exercise (BFR-exercise) is an increasingly popular tool used to increase muscle strength and attenuate muscle atrophy, especially after injury or surgery. However, the mechanisms underlying BFR-mediated muscle growth are not well understood. Likely contributing to the mechanistic knowledge gap, rodent models of BFR-exercise have not been well described. In this methods paper, we demonstrate a comprehensive, clinically relevant protocol to establish BFR-exercise in awake rats. This protocol includes generating a muscle loss state via bilateral ACL-R, determining targeted blood flow occlusion pressures, and performing weighted hind-limb knee extension exercises with BFR. These methods can be used for further application in mechanistic and physiologic studies of BFR-exercise.