Shedding light on ischemic preconditioning to enhance physical fitness
Presentation Type
Keynote Speaker
Abstract
Oxygen is critical to human survival, therefore our bodies have developed sophisticated multicellular mechanisms to adapt to oxygen deficiency – hypoxia. While hypoxia has been robustly incriminated in varied pathological states, evidence is also accumulating to demonstrate its ergogenic effects at the systemic and cellular levels. Whether breathing a gas containing less oxygen, holding once’s breath or mechanically restricting blood flow to a limb, a cellular hypoxic stress develops, to which the body responds with a complex series of well-coordinated humoral and neural mechanisms. This response forms the basis of the so-called hypoxic conditioning, a procedure by which a potentially deleterious stimulus is applied below the threshold of damage to a tissue, organ or organism in order to increase its resistance to the same or greater noxious stimulus. This presentation will discuss the scientific bases of the ischemic preconditioning (IPC) modality in which upper or lower limbs are subjected to transient periods of circulatory occlusion induced with a pressure cuff. We will shed light on the mechanisms involved as it relates to health and sport performance, and provide practical applications for safe and efficient implementation.
Shedding light on ischemic preconditioning to enhance physical fitness
Oxygen is critical to human survival, therefore our bodies have developed sophisticated multicellular mechanisms to adapt to oxygen deficiency – hypoxia. While hypoxia has been robustly incriminated in varied pathological states, evidence is also accumulating to demonstrate its ergogenic effects at the systemic and cellular levels. Whether breathing a gas containing less oxygen, holding once’s breath or mechanically restricting blood flow to a limb, a cellular hypoxic stress develops, to which the body responds with a complex series of well-coordinated humoral and neural mechanisms. This response forms the basis of the so-called hypoxic conditioning, a procedure by which a potentially deleterious stimulus is applied below the threshold of damage to a tissue, organ or organism in order to increase its resistance to the same or greater noxious stimulus. This presentation will discuss the scientific bases of the ischemic preconditioning (IPC) modality in which upper or lower limbs are subjected to transient periods of circulatory occlusion induced with a pressure cuff. We will shed light on the mechanisms involved as it relates to health and sport performance, and provide practical applications for safe and efficient implementation.