4 Proven Ways Red Light Therapy Can Increase Your Stamina

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Your body knows best what’s going on and it knows how to repair itself. Even when you’re trying to increase your stamina. But, sometimes, due to many different reasons, your body doesn’t have the resources necessary to do this. This is where red light therapy comes in. One of the best things about red light therapy is that it gives your body the energy it needs to “fix” the things that need “fixing.”

By giving it more energy, delivered in the most natural way possible, red light devices actually help you help yourself.

This same logic can be applied when you are trying to boost your stamina using light therapy. You already know what you should be doing to increase your stamina:

  • Adjust your diet to help you with stamina and endurance
  • Choose the best supplements for better stamina
  • Keep hydrated
  • Organize your workout sessions to increase stamina

Red light therapy helps you with every one of these efforts and makes them more effective. That’s how having your own red light therapy device can speed up your efforts to give your stamina a boost. 

Let’s explore the science behind each of these items from the list above.

#1 Red Light Therapy Improves Nutrient Absorption

Nutrition plays an essential part in any athletic regimen, no matter what the goal is. Stamina boosting efforts are no different. There is a certain way you should be eating to ensure better stamina and endurance. 

The experts recommend choosing the right amounts for each of the main nutrients, but also to mind when those nutrients are used. For example, there are different recommendations for carbs before, during, and after high-intensity workouts if you are planning to increase your stamina and endurance. There are similar recommendations for proteins, fats, and others.

Each of these nutrients plays an important role – Carbs provide the necessary glycogen to act as fuel for your muscle. Once the glycogen from your carbs is exhausted, your body turns to your fat deposits for fuel. This is not as fast or as efficient as burning carbs, but it is just as essential.

This is how red light therapy can help. Red and infrared LEDs can increase glycogen and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthesis. If you can make the glycogen synthesis more efficient, you are basically improving the efficiency of fueling your muscles. This can help you endure more strenuous exercises for longer periods of time.

#2 Red Light Boosts the Effects of Supplements 

There are several go-to supplementation strategies that marathon runners use to increase their stamina and endurance. These include caffeine, carbohydrate-electrolyte beverages, caffeine, protein-enriched carbs, amino acids, creatine monohydrate, beta-alanine, and others. 

There are different mechanisms that these supplements use to help you increase your stamina, but the one thing common in all of these strategies is the fact that you have to ingest them If your gut microbiome is not functioning on a very high level, you will not make the most of the supplements you are using.

One of the most extensively researched effects of red and near-infrared therapy is its effects on the microbiome in our gut. Red and near-infrared LED lights can balance the good bacteria in your gut and prevent overgrowth. In other words, RLT can help your gut work at the optimal level, which is the only way for your body to use the supplements you include in your diet.

Besides this amazing effect, there are also synergistic and complementary effects to that of supplements. 

For example, beta-alanine can reduce blood lactate accumulation which means our muscle fatigue is delayed. At the same time, red light therapy can help your body metabolize lactate and creatine kinase levels faster. 

This means that while beta-alanine reduces the already existing levels of lactate serum, red light therapy helps your body reduce those levels even faster. Just the perfect combination to delay muscle fatigue.

#3 Red Light Therapy Increases Effects of Good Hydration

Staying properly hydrated is one of the most important elements of building endurance and stamina. Water is necessary to regulate your body’s temperature, but also to remove waste. 

Besides these important factors, water also helps create cushioning for our joints while running to prevent injury. Also, one of the most important effects of proper hydration is that it energizes our cells. 

Water is necessary for the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which actually is the fuel of our cells. Red and near-infrared light help this process and make it more efficient

#4 Red Light Improves Your Workout Efficiency

There is much evidence that shows that red light therapy helps you train smarter and get better results. Similar mechanisms are behind boosting the exercise results of strength workouts and endurance workouts. Red light helps them all. 

If we shift the focus on the workouts designed to increase stamina, it’s easy to see that increasing muscle strength and delaying muscle soreness to prevent fatigue are two crucial elements. 

Once again, red light therapy covers all the bases and helps you work out in a way that’s more efficient and the results come faster. According to a meta-study about photobiomodulation on human muscles, it has been shown that red light and near-infrared light help all the factors necessary for boosting stamina:

This review will cover these effects that have been reported up to now in the current literature, concentrating on: i) prevention of muscle damage after exercise, including delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS); and ii) increasing capacity for muscle workload, improving fatigue resistance, functional and athletic activity, and hastening recovery after exercise

Photobiomodulation in human muscle tissue: an advantage in sports performance?

The result of this study is that there are more positive than neutral and negative results of red light therapy on the above-mentioned factors. They go as far as to raise the question of whether the use of RLT should be regulated by the Olympic Committee. 

By making your efforts to increase stamina more efficient, red light therapy can give you that competitive edge you were looking for. However, you need to include it in your weekly routine for maximum effect. 

This is not always easy when you spend most of your free time planning and preparing good, nutritious meals, working out, and staying on top of your athletic regimen. 

Adding one more thing to that task list is just not feasible. That’s why you should be careful when choosing the best red light therapy device for yourself. If you opt for a portable red light therapy device you can wrap around your body and still get the effects of a big RLT panel, you could be doing red light therapy at home while multitasking.

You could wear it while you are working, cooking, and even exercising. With this in mind, FlexBeam makes a good choice as your portable red light therapy device. It offers flexibility and versatility without compromising on power and all the benefits of red light therapy in one device.  

Discover more about FlexBeam and what else it can do for you.