Strength & Conditioning

A study on thirty males split them into three groups to assess strength and muscle sizes changes after the application of red light therapy.

1. The control group who remained sedentary for the duration of the study.
2. Training group who did an eight week exercise program
3. Training group and near infrared light therapy group.

They did the same 8 week training program but also completed a light therapy session before each training session.

Results

The strength of the training group improved by an average of 14% whilst the group that added a light session prior to their training improved by nearly 25%. The muscle size of the quadriceps of the training group improved by around 10% while the group that included light therapy sessions experienced an improvement of double that.
Injuries are disruptive to any individual's life but especially to those who have an interest in professional sport.
A study looked at 65 athletes and a total of 395 different injuries in university athletes. The goal of the study was to look at red light therapy and if it can facilitate healing in these injuries. The average number of sessions was just four and this decreased anticipated return to play to 9.6 days compared to the expected 19.2 days.
The injuries could be categorised into 53 different types: knee sprains (26.2%), hamstring strains (9.6%, achilles tendonitis (8.2%), intercostal strains (7.1%) and shoulder strains (5.5%). The average treatments per injury was 4.3 with a range of 2-6 treatments. Sixty-five athletes used LED light therapy for an average of 4 treatments after being diagnosed with an injury.
The subjects were ready to engage in their sport (‘return to play’) in an average of 9.6 days compared to the anticipated return to play of 19.2 days. 76.5% of the subjects achieved a satisfactory result. Reasons for dissatisfaction were mostly concerned with the length of treatment time being 20 minutes. Lack of success in treating the injury was not listed as one of the reasons.