Over the last eight weeks, I’ve added an inch and a half of muscle to each of my thighs. Now, that’s not necessarily from occlusion training with SAGA, but I do feel that the lightened load on my accessory work has allowed me to push myself harder on the main compound lifts. So you want some outfits that look as good lounging on the couch as they do on the city street? These are the best athleisure brands that'll take you there.

Once I hit week six of my squat program, my knees were starting to feel quite tender. So I didn’t want to add more stress by doing heavy quad extensions. By adding BFR cuffs, I can still get an excellent pump with a third of the weight. That’s where the magic of BFR cuffs comes in handy in my opinion. SAGA Fitness Review The Cuffs SAGA Fitness is an Australian brand making blood flow restriction (BFR) cuffs for occlusion training. SAGA offers two sizes of cuffs: the medium, which will fit on your arms, and the large, which is designed for legs. The SAGA App is super simple and straightforward. Just punch in some basic info about yourself to get started.In plain English? Basically, if you’ve torn a chest muscle, you’d normally be out of commission. You run the risk of reinjuring the muscle if you hit the gym and start doing bicep curls with your normal 30-pound weights. These BFR cuffs inflate automatically with calibration from the app. They're wireless so you don't need bulky equipment, and they sort of make you look like Iron Man.

My recommended pressure is 140mmHg on my arms, and that’s plenty to get a wild pump at very light weight. Like I said, I’ll aim for 30 reps on the first set, which usually gets my arms (or legs) burning. After your set is finished, you can hit “Pause Workout,” which will momentarily deflate the cuffs.

SAGA is a technically advanced option for occlusion training, and it requires a bit of an investment (at least when you compare it to a folded up resistance band). So it’s important to consider how often you’ll be using BFR training in your routine. I love how easy it is to throw the cuffs on either my legs or arms, inflate them within the minute, and get in 10 minutes of intense BFR training. For me, it offers a different way to hit the target muscle groups that’s not heavy, but still just as intense. But if you’re a regular joe like me, I think these work best when you’re halfway through an 8-week heavy lifting program and your joints start to ache a bit.

In other words, in the time I’ve been training with the BFR cuffs, I’ve used them for bicep curls, tricep extensions, and leg extensions, which all focus on one particular muscle. Because I don’t superset bicep curls with pushups, bench, or any other exercise, there’s no need for me to deflate my cuffs in between sets. This is more helpful if you’re running a superset (one movement followed by a different movement as a single set). I’ve been using the cuffs for one movement only, and just aiming for single sets. But SAGA Fitness, an Australian-based company, is aiming to change that. With their Bluetooth enabled BFR training cuffs, their app supposedly works like a sports-medicine therapist, inflating and deflating the cuffs to the perfect level for maximum hypertrophy.The most high-profile user of SAGA cuffs is the Hollywood stuntman, Bobby Holland Hanton. And he was the stunt-double who played Batman in the major fight scenes of The Dark Knight Rises. You don’t have to be injured either—while there’s no replacing the heavier lifts like squats, deadlifts, and bench presses, BFR training can add another element of intensity to your machine-weight work.

If you run through a set and feel that the restriction wasn’t enough, you can easily increase (or decrease) the pressure with just a few taps.They’ve been particularly helpful as I’ve gotten further along in the strength and hypertrophy program I’m currently working on. Do you know that feeling when you’re ready to hit the weights hard, and two weeks in your knees start screaming? Launched in March 2023, this step-by-step system will teach you everything you need to know to ATTRACT the women you desire and KEEP them in your life . I'll share with you the exact strategies that I, and hundreds of my students have successfully applied to achieve true dating abundance as masculine men. This sort of training has been a staple in sports medicine for recuperating athletes as studies show it’s an excellent training intensity technique to allow for continued muscle growth at much lighter weights than you’d normally use.