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Originally from https://www.lunaspanel.com/post/pro-athletes-harnessing-the-power-of-red-light
Being a professional athlete is no joke, and when your body is a central part of your job, it needs to be very well taken care of. And even when athletes are doing all the right things to take care of their body, injuries are still widespread in professional sports; but it used to be that their career was over if an athlete was injured. But now, athletes can undergo surgery and pop back up on the court or field months later. How is that possible?
As most athletes know, a large portion of time is dedicated to repairing muscles and alleviating inflammation for the next game. Regardless of the sport, teams spend millions of dollars on professional physical therapists to guarantee their athletes receive the highest physical treatment standard.
The recovery process for an athlete is essential and a determining factor of how well they’ll perform during their careers. You’ll often hear the words “optimizing performance” when discussing the recovery process for athletes. Today, the recovery process isn’t just to heal an athlete but to naturally enhance their performance.
So, how do professional therapists optimize professional athletes’ performance and recovery? Well, red light therapy is turning out to be one of the most effective treatments for these high-performing individuals.
Professional trainers are always looking for natural ways to enhance their player’s performance. With light has proven to be a lead modality, many trainers and athletes use light therapy to enhance the body’s natural healing process. But how does it work?
When used, natural red light penetrates the skin and cells. When the light reaches the mitochondria, it stimulates the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is a natural energy currency in the human body. With an enhanced ATP production, cells in the muscle are optimized and repaired faster.
Hundreds of peer-reviewed clinical trials have backed up the results athletes see on the courts and fields. In 2015, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials, and the results were astounding. They found that most clinical trials showed “significant improvement for the main measures related to performance,” including endurance and speed. And through this meta-analysis, it was concluded that “phototherapy (with lasers and LEDs) improves muscular performance and accelerates recovery when applied before exercise.”
However, red light therapy does more than recover muscle tissue. It also increases muscle strength, ultimately improving physical performance.
A 2016 study researched red light therapy on elite athletes and trained and untrained athletes. What was found was that red light therapy after training could increase muscle mass. So, not only does red light therapy accelerate the recovery process, but it also improves muscle strength.
But what about endurance? Being strong is only one aspect of being an athlete. Endurance is crucial when competing against an opponent. A triple-blind, placebo-controlled trial published in 2018 studied the effects of red light therapy on men and women undergoing endurance training on treadmills. It was found that red light therapy pre-exercise can “increase the time-to-exhaustion and oxygen uptake and also decrease the body fat in healthy volunteers when compared to placebo.”
Another study from 2018 completed by Brazilian researchers found that after their randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled trial on pro soccer players, those who underwent red light therapy stayed longer on the playing field. It was concluded that light therapy “…had a significant improvement in all the biochemical markers evaluated…pre-exercise [light] therapy can enhance performance and accelerate recovery…”.
Peer-reviewed clinical trials worldwide have all concluded the same thing: red light therapy works for increasing athletic performance levels. Luna’s red light therapy device can help professional athletes and the rest of us exercise regularly, recover from injuries, and improve our physical and muscular health.
Athletes take exercise and training very seriously to maximize and improve performance. Whether you’re a competitive elite athlete or someone who’s just born to win every day, recovery can be one of the most neglected aspects of our daily lives.
Recovery: We hear it all the time from coaches and instructors, but it’s also one of the hardest things to do. The saying “Push yourself to your limits” happens also to have its own limits. Neglecting your training recovery aspect for optimal performance can take a toll on our body in the long run.
In this article, we show the importance of rest and recovery and some of the ways to speed up our body’s healing process, such as integrating red light therapy treatment.
After training or a strenuous workout, our body responds to strain, injury, or stress as a defense mechanism in inflammation. While it may sound damaging, inflammation is a natural response when our muscle tissue regenerates and grows from microtears. Going through the process is important to allow muscle growth and performance improvement. However, the inflammation needs recovery for your muscles to heal from too much strain or injury for it to maximize its healing effects.
Recovery is the process that your body undergoes to recuperate between training sessions or from the time of danger to its healing progression. Recovery works by giving your body time to regenerate muscle tissues.
Whether it’s a strain, acute soreness, or severe damage, your body needs time to heal. The time needed for the recovery process is also dependent on the severity of the damage/strain/injury. This means that the greater the stressor's intensity to your body, the longer the time you need to spend to allow your body to recover.
Many athletes have made recovery time a priority as it assists in the healing process of muscles post-inflammation. Giving your body time to recover can result in an improved performance.
During the recovery time, the muscle repairs regenerate and strengthens to tolerate a higher level of strain the next time. In other words, taking time to heal makes you stronger and less susceptible to future injuries. Having enough recovery time helps in optimal performance and longevity by helping the athletes convalesce both psychologically and physically to train and perform better.
By doing this, you can prevent future chronic problems, decreased sports performance, increased risk of injuries, or fatigue caused by inadequate healing.
1. Plan Your Rest Time
Planning your rest schedule and duration involves many factors such as the intensity of your activity, your age, and your skill level in sports/pieces of training. You may need less time to recover or more, depending on your personal needs. As a general rule, for medium to intense workouts/training, it is prescribed to maintain a healthy duration of 45 hours in between training.
Pro tip: Engage in Active Recovery
If you’re not suffering from an injury or severe damage, it’s important to incorporate active recovery periods during your recovery time so your body can maintain its active state.
Proper blood circulation is important in the recovery process. When the body gets injured, the body responds by dilating blood cells to speed up blood flow. Active recovery helps maintain good blood circulation and removes lactic acid out of inflamed muscles. Active recovery activities involve light physical movements such as stretching or yoga to allow proper blood flow and help your muscles recover and adapt better.
2. Get Enough Sleep
The Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is at its peak at night as we sleep. This hormone is responsible for tissue repair and recovery. This is why the key to a speedy recovery is to make you get a good REM sleep at the right time during your recovery period. Make sure to get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep at night to ensure that your body gets enough rest that it needs and to avoid any future complications. Lack of sleep can deter the process of muscle recovery.
Pro tip: Don’t be scared of having a few extra hours
Especially when you are suffering from intense strain/injury, it’s important to sneak in a few extra hours of sleep within your recovery period. In fact, a 2018 study suggests that sleep extension, a form of sleep intervention, can significantly contribute to the success of an athlete’s recovery. One way to ensure you get a significant amount of rest is to make sure your body has a healthy circadian rhythm. If you’re worried that you’re having trouble sleeping at night, there are many ways to improve your circadian clock- including red light therapy.
3. Refuel your Body
A healthy diet is also one of the great pillars of health. The nutrients you take in play a great role in your body’s function to cooperate with the recovery process. Minimize processed foods that may contain too much salt, sweets, and alcohol. These types of food may promote inflammation and dehydration, which can hinder the recovery process. Make sure to eat a balance recommended diet of whole foods.
Have an evaluation with a licensed dietitian or nutritionist to assess your nutritional needs. Assessment may vary depending on different factors such as weight, BMI, and activity level.
Pro tip: Focus on your Protein Intake
Protein is the key macronutrient that is responsible for muscle building and repair. It has amino acids that are metabolized by your body to ease muscle inflammation and build stronger muscles. Skip gulping on those protein supplements and focus instead on taking protein from whole foods such as lean meat, eggs, and cheese.
4. Listen to your Body
There can be all kinds of rules in recovery to maximize healing, but you can’t go wrong with paying attention to your body’s signals. Often, your body’s responses can be neglected. However, overlooking these signals can result in overtraining, which puts your body at risk of having more problems in the long run.
Despite your recovery time or period, if your body signals indicate pain and soreness, it’s important to give it time to recover better to address the issue. Aside from obvious physiological signs, pay attention to your heart rate variability, indicating your body’s adaptability to stress and your overall cardiovascular fitness.
5. Incorporate Red Light Therapy
Thanks to innovative medical devices, athletes and trainers have utilized more advanced healing modalities like red light therapy. Red Light Therapy is a popular, non-invasive, and effective light therapy treatment that can improve blood circulation essential for tissue and muscle recovery. It works by using LED to deliver wavelengths that deeply penetrates the skin and cells.
Integrating red light therapy in your recovery process can speed up muscle repair and minimize pain and swelling. The therapy accelerates the healing process by enhancing macrophage activity responsible for the white blood cell’s healing and anti-inflammatory response.
Pro tip: Try using Light Therapy Body Pad
Kaiyan Medical’s Light Therapy Body pad utilizes a high-end, medical-grade dual optical energy pad that uses 30 pieces of red light and 30 pieces of infrared light. The therapy's duality promotes deep treatment by treating injured skin surface while repairing deeper muscle, bones, tissue, and joint damage. The therapy pad is specially made with a broader light spectrum to increase absorption and penetration so you can maximize the treatment’s benefits. It’s a safe, non-invasive treatment that you can add to your recovery process so you can get back in the game stronger than ever.
Recovery and Rest are just as important as optimizing and improving performance. Allowing your body to maximize its natural healing processes can improve performance and overall better physical and mental health.
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Garber CE, Blissmer B, Deschenes MR et al. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Quantity and quality of exercise for developing and maintaining cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal, and neuromotor fitness in apparently healthy adults: guidance for prescribing exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2011.
Michael Kellmann, Maurizio Bertollo, et al. Recovery and Performance in Sport: Consensus Statement. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2018 Feb 1.
So-Ichiro Fukada, Takayuki Akimoto, Athanasia Sotiropoulos. Role of damage and management in muscle hypertrophy: Different muscle stem cells' behaviors in regeneration and hypertrophy. Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Res. 2020 Sep.
Daniel J Plews, Paul B Laursen, et al. Training adaptation and heart rate variability in elite endurance athletes: opening the door to effective monitoring. Sports Med. 2013 Sep.
Michael R. Irwin, Richard Olmstead, Judith E. Carroll. Sleep Disturbance, Sleep Duration, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies and Experimental Sleep Deprivation. Biol Psychiatry. 2016 Jul 1; 80(1): 40–52.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247927
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Performance and recovery go hand in hand when training or doing physical activities, regardless if you’re an athlete or not. In fact, athletes and their trainers utilize light therapy to improve their performance and muscle health and optimize recovery. To expound further, this article will tackle optimizing performance in fitness, improving the recovery process, and breaking down the significance of light therapy.
Optimizing performance means paying attention to the body and how it functions, to live and train the body, and to find the best way to support its functions. Performance is not based on how hard or heavy are the weights you lift or the number of kilometers you’ve run; it is how effective your performance is and how you match it with your lifestyle (with the way you eat, drink and sleep).
On the other hand, recovery is about the effectiveness of the body’s healing process and the conscious effort of being in your best shape by enhancing your workout. It is also about utilizing the body’s tools and functions to effectively finish the jobs required daily.
Performance and recovery are correlated to one another. In exercising or training, if you want to improve fitness, workouts should be consistent. To get stronger, faster, and bigger, certain efforts must be made to increase performance levels. The recovery process is essential in health. It contributes to the workout; it is the downtime between training sessions or a break due to an injury or a period of healing from any exhaustion experienced.
Breaks like cool-downs, rest, and ample time of sleep give your body time to recuperate. They also allow healing for the muscles and tissues affected, strained, or damaged from workouts or training.
Performance is better when recovery time from soreness or inflammation is maximized. It also helps prevent burnout, fatigue, and possible injuries. If recovery is not made right, your physical performance may not reach its optimal state. Some athletes and trainers even make a recovery a priority over training itself. They believe that when an athlete recovers better than their competition, they will train harder in the long run.
Even if you are not an athlete, you should know how to let your body rest, heal, and recover properly from any form of injury or physical activity. Everyone has their own activity levels to maintain. It may not be sports-related, but everyone demands effort from their bodies on a day-to-day basis.
Regardless if you are an athlete, your body has limits. And if you push too hard, the body can break down and perform worse, especially if you didn’t observe any recovery time. Overtraining and pushing the body beyond its limits can affect performance in the short term or long term. Chances of injury are higher when you don’t allow yourself to recover, and it may also affect hormonal levels and the function of the immune system. The body needs time to process inflammation or any injury.
Inflammation happens when the body responses to danger or strain. It often takes place during a strenuous workout. When exercising, inflammation may indicate muscular damage. And when a muscle is “damaged,” it means that the tissue is growing and undergoes repair to get stronger.
Experiencing inflammation is a normal part of the growth and repair of muscle tissues. However, if you won’t set aside time for recovery, your inflammation may worsen over time and lead to greater health consequences.
Here are some ways that can help you improve your body’s recovery process:
The body speaks when it sends signals to the brain. Sometimes, we dismiss these signals because of training goals. This may eventually lead to fatigue and injury. When you experience pain or when your muscles are sore, it is important to give your body time to recuperate. You must also be aware of your heart rate, especially at rest, as it may be saying something about the state of your health.
Besides giving your body time to recuperate, deep sleep also allows the body to digest and process fat and recover from inflammation or damaged muscle tissues. It is harder for the body to recover from pain, strain, fatigue, and injury when you’re sleeping less than 7–8 hours per night. If you’re struggling with getting enough sleep, try doing meditation or speak with a doctor so he/she can advise you about developing a sleeping routine.
Getting the right amount of whole foods, good carbohydrates, protein, and good fat can also boost your performance and recovery. Lowering your intake of processed foods, alcohol, and sugary drinks can also help decrease inflammation.
The performance and recovery of our bodies depend entirely on our cells. When our cells are creating and using energy efficiently, our bodies recover faster. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) energy is released to give us power in what we do. The process of creating ATP energy works best when our body and cells are well-balanced, reaching a state called homeostasis.
High-quality devices are now available in the market to help athletes and trainers enhance the body’s natural healing and recovery process through light therapy.
Light therapy is a non-invasive treatment that uses LED lights to deliver red and near-infrared light to the skin and cells. It promotes efficient cellular ATP energy production and helps restore the balance of cells and tissues. Light therapy can be done before or after a workout. Some even do it both times — before and after a workout, depending on their goals.
Pre-conditioning with light therapy before working out can also help strengthen muscle performance. It can limit muscle damage and strain, lessening the chances of inflammation or soreness. When used after a workout, it promotes the speedy recovery of muscles and accelerates its adaptability to exercise. It also helps the body process acute inflammation after physical activity.
Muscles are composed of millions of cells that need to release ATP energy to fulfill the body's jobs, balancing exercise and stress. Light therapy helps improve cellular ATP energy, glycogen synthesis, oxidative stress reduction, and protection against muscle damage from exercising. Light therapy also helps improve blood circulation and oxygen availability, which allows better healing and recovery. It helps with the overall improvement of physical performance and faster recovery times. It also helps limit fatigue from exercising and strength training.
As discussed, light therapy promotes faster healing and recovery and soothes cells under stress when doing strenuous workouts, incurring injuries, and experiencing inflammation. When you set aside time for recovery, you give your body and cells what they need to function, thus improving your overall performance.
At Kaiyan Medical, we offer high-quality light therapy devices to help you achieve and maintain your fitness and performance goals. If you have questions about our products and the brands we offer, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will respond to you as soon as possible.
Ontario is a known leader in conducting innovative clinical trials, and the clinical trials community in Ontario has proven this strength throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. One innovative trial underway in Ontario is Vielight Inc.’s COVIDlight trial, which tests whether the recovery of COVID-19 patients may be accelerated by the use of a specialized light therapy device. This trial was made possible in part by Clinical Trials Ontario’s Trial Site Network through a connection made between Vielight Inc. and Impact Clinical Trials. CTO spoke with representatives from Vielight and Impact Clinical Trials about their trial and their experience with the Trial Site Network.
Vielight Inc. has developed a compact and portable device named the “Vielight RX Plus,” based on the science of photobiomodulation (PBM). PBM uses certain light energy to modify cellular functions and can play a role in the management of COVID-19. This clinical trial assesses the efficacy of the Vielight RX Plus to reduce symptom duration and severity in patients suffering from COVID-19.
The Vielight RX Plus device delivers light therapy to the sternum and the nasal canal.
“This device brings a holistic approach to the treatment of COVID-19 patients,”
said Nazanin Hosseinkhah, Research Scientist and Physicist at Vielight Inc.
“The device stimulates the thymus gland, creates nitric oxide, increases natural killer cells, acts as an anti-inflammatory therapy, and increases cellular energy.”
This unique, at-home study has the potential to modulate immune cell and cytokine activity in COVID-19 patients with an easy to use the device.
“We are very hopeful that this trial will prove to help patients recover from COVID-19 at home, and result in less burden to the healthcare system,”
said Hosseinkhah.
This randomized controlled trial, being managed by Impact Clinical Trials, is actively recruiting 280 participants who are confirmed to have contracted COVID-19. The trial was authorized by Health Canada in early September and is recruiting participants in Ontario and the United States. Participants are allocated into a treatment or a control group, with 140 participants randomized to receive the Vielight RX Plus device and the other 140 participants receiving the current standard of care. The trial is conducted remotely with non-hospitalized participants.
Participants in the treatment group receive the device by courier within 24 hours of registering for the trial. They are asked to place the device on their chest and onto their nostril for 20 mins each day. They then track their symptoms within a daily survey over a 30-day period.
“This is a simple, at-home study for participants to be involved in,”
said Andrea Berk from Impact Clinical Trials.
“Participants in both the treatment and the control groups are completely supported throughout the trial, with a 24-hour number they can call if they have any questions.”
This trial was made possible in part by a connection made directly through CTO’s Trial Site Network. The Trial Site Network, part of CTO’s Industry Concierge program, comprises more than 230 sites. The Network allows CTO to provide warm introductions to Ontario’s hospitals, research institutions, private research networks, and CROs.
“We have been able to guide companies such as Vielight in getting their trials up and running in Ontario,”
said Andrew Haller.
“I was introduced to Andrew Haller from CTO a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic,”
said Berk.
“Pre-COVID I was working on half a dozen connections that had been made through the Trial Site Network. When COVID-19 hit, those projects were put on hold. I reached out to Andrew to let him know Impact Clinical Trials had the consulting capacity, and that is when he introduced us to Vielight.”
Haller knew that Vielight had been searching for someone to take on the management of their clinical trial. “When Andrew introduced us to Andrea Berk from Impact Clinical Trials, we immediately connected and knew they were the right fit,” said Hosseinkhah.
When it comes to pain, we could hardly avert it! Especially the muscle pain. Given that the human body has over 600 muscles, it is tough to avoid muscle pain. Evidently, one out of three Americans is affected by muscle pain annually.
Not only this, Musculoskeletal pain affects around 116 million Americans, which results in poor productivity, missed work or school, fatigue, and lost interest in work.
But doesn’t we treatments for this chronic pain? Of course, we do have several options. Currently, therapies available consist of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, steroid injections, pain medications, and surgery. Each of these has its own specific risk profiles.
What we need now is an effective solution that is less time-consuming, low risk, safe and non-invasive, and yet cost-effective. All these features are available in treatment; we call Low Laser Light Therapy (LLLT). Light therapy has been in the medical field over the past forty years. Light therapy has been demonstrated to lessen inflammation and edema, promote healing in a range of musculoskeletal pathologies. LLLT is being accepted around the globe. This is an advanced, cost-effective, non-invasive therapy for pain that could elevate the quality of life while reducing your financial strains. The causes of muscular pain are numerous. Hence, LLLT helps people from all fields like sports, fitness, medical, and even old age.
In this process, light with a wavelength in the red to the near-infrared region of the spectrum (660nm–905nm) is employed on the skin surface. The reason for using these wavelengths is that they have the ability to penetrate the skin and soft/hard tissues. From various conducted clinical trials, this treatment is proven to have a good effect on pain, inflammation, and repairing of the tissues. The therapy goes from 30 to 120 seconds or more a week, depending upon the pain's severity.
Based on the tissue condition, the therapy can go on for weeks or months. LLLT has resulted in relief and reduction of inflammation, pain relief, and accelerated tissue regeneration.
But how does the light actually work?
Do you know that many acute orthopedic conditions such as strains, sprains, muscular back pain, frozen shoulder, neck and back pain, etc., are amenable to Low Laser Light Therapy (LLLT)?
The Infra-Red light relieves pain in a different section of the body and increases relaxation sensation while also comforting the muscles. LLLT has been shown to enhance the multiplication of cells like fibroblasts, keratinocytes, endothelial cells, and lymphocytes. Fibroblasts and keratinocytes are two major cell types that respond to the inflammatory phase in the repair/regeneration process.
LLLT can enhance neovascularization, promote angiogenesis, and increase collagen synthesis to succor in the healing of acute and chronic wounds. The LED light sessions have shown the ability to heal skin, nerves, tendons, cartilage, and bones. Low-intensity LLLT stimulates mitochondria and also enhances the mitochondrial membrane potential.
The peripheral nerve endings of nociceptors (also known as the pain receptors), consisting of the thinly myelinated and unmyelinated, slow-conducting C fibers, lie within the epidermis. This complex network converts harmful stimuli into action potentials. Moreover, these nerve endings lie on the surface or superficial in nature, making the LLLT wavelength penetration work easy.
Hence, with the rise of chronic pain in different countries, it is imperative to validate cost-effective and safe techniques for managing painful conditions, allowing people to live active and productive lives. Light therapy is constantly evolving in relieving muscular pain. It improves the muscle's endurance, reduces muscle soreness, joint pain, and inflammation.
It’s time to let go of the pain!!
Experience the difference with light therapy from Kaiyan Medical.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12605431/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27472858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743666/
Imagine that the movement of a single hair on your arm causes severe pain. For patients with neuropathic pain — a chronic illness affecting 7 to 8% of the European population, with no effective treatment — this can be a daily reality.
Scientists from EMBL Rome have now identified a special population of nerve cells in the skin that are responsible for sensitivity to gentle touch. These are also the cells that cause severe pain in patients with neuropathic pain. The research team, led by EMBL group leader Paul Heppenstall, developed a light-sensitive chemical that selectively binds to this nerve cell type. By first injecting the affected skin area with the chemical and then illuminating it with near-infrared light, the targeted nerve cells retract from the skin’s surface, leading to pain relief. Nature Communications publishes the results on 24 April 2018.
The Spicy Effect
By clipping off the nerve endings with light, the gentle touch that can cause severe pain in neuropathic patients is no longer felt. “It’s like eating a strong pepper, which burns the nerve endings in your mouth and desensitizes them for some time,” says Heppenstall. “The nice thing about our technique is that we can specifically target the small subgroup of neurons, causing neuropathic pain.”
There are many different nerve cells in your skin, which make you feel specific sensations like vibration, cold, heat, or normal pain. These cells are not affected by the light treatment at all. The skin is only desensitized to the gentlest touch, like a breeze, tickling, or an insect crawling across your skin.
Illumination vs. Drugs
Previous attempts to develop drugs to treat neuropathic pain have mostly focused on targeting single molecules. “We think, however, that there’s not one single molecule responsible. There are many,” Heppenstall explains. “You might be able to succeed in blocking one or a couple, but others would take over the same function eventually. With our new illumination method, we avoid this problem altogether.”
Touch and pain were assessed by measuring reflexes in mice affected by neuropathic pain in their limbs. Affected mice will normally quickly withdraw their paw when it is gently touched. After the light therapy, however, they exhibited normal reflexes upon gentle touch. The therapy's effect lasts for a few weeks, after which the nerve endings grow back, and gentle touch causes pain again.
The team also investigated human skin tissue. The tissue's overall makeup and the specifics of the neurons of interest appear to be similar, indicating that the method might be effective in managing neuropathic pain in humans. “In the end, we aim to solve the problem of pain in both humans and animals,” says Heppenstall. “Of course, a lot of work needs to be done before we can do a similar study in people with neuropathic pain. That’s why we’re now actively looking for partners and are open for new collaborations to develop this method further, with the hope of one day using it in the clinic.”
