Kaatsu: A Japanese Technique to Effortlessly Gain Muscle and Improve Your Heart

Is it possible to build muscle without lifting weights? Can we
tone our facial muscles? Is it possible to improve our
cardiovascular system with almost no effort? Today, we sit down
with former USA swim coach and Kaatsu CEO Steven Munatones. He
tells us all about his decades-long journey of discovery and
tutelage under Dr. Yoshiaki Sato in Tokyo, wherein he studied the
myriad benefits of Japanese Kaatsu bands and developed a plan to
introduce this technology to the world. Huge amounts of research
out of Japan are showing that one can maintain strength and
vitality as they age, improve overall vascular function,
rehabilitate injuries all with zero risk of injury.


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Key Moments“Why would someone [restrict blood flow]?
They do it for a variety of reasons, and there's a lot of
literature out there by researchers, scientists, physicians, and
physical therapists, and you want to do this mostly to build
muscle. Building muscle helps if you're injured, maybe you had a
surgery on your knee, maybe you broke your arm. It helps reduce
atrophy. And so part of the recovery process is rebuilding that
muscle loss. When you use BFR, you actually reduce the amount of
muscle atrophy that you get, so your body will heal itself and
then you go through a shorter recovery period because you're not
losing as much muscle mass.”





“Fundamentally, what's happening is a bit of hypoxia or lack of
oxygen in the muscle. If you do movement as simple as bicep
curls. It could be stretching, it can be walking, whatever you
want to do that leads to that uncomfortable feeling you have when
you work out. That lactate sends a signal through your central
nervous system up to your brain. And then the brain thinks that
you are doing something very vigorous, something very intense.
And when the brain receives that signal again, the brain does not
know if you're lifting heavy weight or you're just doing BFR. So
it reacts as it naturally does and produces growth hormones
amongst other metabolites, which flow through our vascular system
and promote muscle growth”





“The Japanese found that when you engorged the limbs and blood
and you do slight movement, this is the most effective way to
trigger those signals up to the brain and then release a variety
of hormones.”

Connect with Steven
Kaatsu
LinkedIn
Book: Open Water Swimming


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