After listening to the aching in my knees after some heavy squats, I decided to work SAGA’s cuffs into my routine. Bottom line: SAGA is the only wireless product on the market that allows for precise blood flow restriction (as in, you can dial in the mmHg).

Pro athletes have been harnessing the science of blood flow restriction (BFR) training for years to help with injury recovery and quick muscle gain.Blood Flow Restriction can be tricky business—sure, you can go with elastic bands, but those take forever to get on and off. When comparing workouts of the same volume (weight times reps), BFR is significantly more effective. For me, that’s using them for one exercise every session, which is absolutely worthwhile when stretched over the course of an eight-week program.

The SAGA app is super simple and intuitive, which I’m grateful for—there’s enough to focus on in your workout without the need to fiddle around with your phone.If William could only wear one outfit for the rest of his life, it’d be slim blue jeans, a green fitted oxford shirt, Chelsea boots, and a nice watch. But you can add BFR cuffs above your bi’s, pick up the 10-pounders, and get a similar pump with a third of the weight. That said, adding in a few sets of low-load BFR training to augment your standard high-load training can offer a different stimulus to your muscles and is possibly more effective than high-load training alone.

Pairing your cuffs to your phone is virtually automatic, as all you need to do is make sure your phone’s Bluetooth is on, and tap the center button for both cuffs. When you head over to the quad-extension machine, add on your BFR cuffs, lighten-up the weight, and aim for 15-30 reps. If you’ve recently had a sports-related injury, BFR cuffs are a fantastic way to stay in shape without overloading the injured part of your body. You shouldn’t wear your BFR cuffs inflated for more than 20 minutes at a time, though a balanced high-load-focused routine will never have you working with BFR cuffs for longer than that anyway.SAGA Fitness aims to solve those problems with their Bluetooth activated BFR bands, so we put them to the test to see if they’re a worthy addition to your workout. This is more helpful if you’re running a superset (one movement followed by a different movement as a single set). Sure, there are cheaper alternatives like rubber bands (imprecise and inconsistent), and wired pressure cuffs (comes with an attached box like a blood pressure machine).

And it’s difficult to know if you have enough inflation in your bands when you pump them up yourself. SAGA Fitness is an Australian brand making blood flow restriction (BFR) cuffs for occlusion training. 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. That said, five minutes is the general recommendation, and you can absolutely get your sets in around that time-frame.You run the risk of reinjuring the muscle if you hit the gym and start doing bicep curls with your normal 30-pound weights. When using a device like the SAGA fitness cuffs, you’ll never run the risk of occluding your muscles too much, as they’re calibrated to your blood pressure and body. 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. 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.