Hello, today I might have had some kind of strain or possibly worse while benching. I posted about it in the pain & rehab forum, an if symptoms persist I think I will do a remote consultation. My question in the meantime is if I can use the BFR bands I have for any kind of chest training? Like BFR pushups or dumbbell bench? Would the chest or triceps be the limiting factor if I were to do this? Would it somehow make things worse with how BFR works and my possible pec strain? I think I heard in Eric Helms podcast about using BFR for chest it shows the chest working quite a bit and the triceps wouldn’t limit the exercise. I want to do some kind of pressing and stay active.
I don’t think you can restrict blood flow to the chest with BFR bands, as the blood supply to the chest is more central and there would be problems using a tourniquet there.
Sorry, I think I worded that poorly. I mean you have the bands around your triceps, doing pushups and dumbbell benching with the bands around your triceps/armpit area. I would never put it around my chest as I think the only safe places to do it are around your tricep or upper leg area. Does that change anything?
That’d be BFR for triceps and some of the shoulder then, which is of course fine. It’s not BFR for the pecs though.
Thank you. One last question: do you recommend unilateral chest training if I pulled my right pec but my left pec feels pretty normal? Will this lead to imbalances I’ll have to deal with later. I think I just pulled it since my there’s no distension or gap on my outer pec, and it seems to be improving.
I don’t think there’s anything uniquely necessary about unilateral chest training if you can find a bilateral entry point.