All of the above and you can add in, “instead of” a normal workout. When introducing BFR to a group of athletes that are already engaged in vigorous training, one strategy is to add the BFR workout at the end of the normal workout. Several reasons. First, they can do their normal workout with their normal feelings to judge how hard or how much they do, not influenced by the BFR workout. Second, we use the “normal” workout to induce some metabolic disturbance, which reduces the time needed to cause all fibers to fail (see above). Third, it is a hard (if not impossible) sell to have a group completely abandon what they have traditionally done. You may establish a beach head by adding BFR training to the end of what they normally do. Then as they see their strength and fitness improve, they usually reduce the amount of “normal” training. With “power” athletes, we never go completely away from traditional training, but with endurance athletes, (partially because of the penalty of weight gain), we move to nothing but BFR training exercises for their strength training. A final consideration is that if the athlete tries to do their normal program plus BFR (3 to 5 times per week), they may, over time, get too tired. So what they do and what they cut out or replace with BFR must take into consideration with their overall training load.
B StrongTM can also serve as a great warmp up prior to a training session. In this case, you do not do a full workout to failure but put the belts on and pressurize during stretching exercises or warmup routines. Blood is pooled and forced deep into the capillaries and veins and helps to get things going and wake up the body in preparation for the workout.