Red light therapy can be your secret weapon if you are trying to increase your running stamina for an upcoming race. All marathon runners are mindful of their diet, improving their marathon plan, and putting in some extra hours, in preparation for their race.
To stand out from the other runners, you need to figure out how to increase your running stamina fast using new advancements in the world of running. On top of being your best bet, red light therapy is also perfectly safe, scientifically proven, and gives you a wide range of additional health and fitness benefits.
But first thing’s first – how does red light therapy help you increase your stamina in running?
Prepare Your Muscles for Gradual Stress Increase
Your marathon plan has to have a gradual increase in sessions, to avoid injuries. Red light helps make muscles stronger and more resilient. Red light therapy also helps prepare your muscles for tough runs. It does this in a few different ways.
Regular red light therapy sessions promote the processing of toxins. This means that your body will be able to keep going for longer because of the slower build-up in lactic acid.
Another thing red light therapy is good for is increasing the speed at which oxygen travels to your muscles. That also means more endurance. Add this to your body getting rid of toxins faster and you have a significant running stamina increase that helps your body deal with the added stress of longer or faster runs.
Boost Quality of Your Muscle Recovery
When we look at the mechanisms for boosting stamina-focused exercise results, there are two vital elements. Increasing muscle strength and limiting delayed onset muscle soreness. Proper, high-quality rest is essential for achieving these results because muscle recovery is just as crucial as the workout itself.
Red light helps out with all of this. Research shows that red light and near-infrared light aid the prevention of muscle damage after exercise, including delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Effectively, this means red light also increases the capacity for muscle workload, improves fatigue resistance, functional and athletic activity, and hastens recovery after exercise.
So, a twenty-minute session before and after a training session can make a huge difference in the results of your hard work and provide you with more thorough muscle recovery.
Avoid Injuries While Increasing Running Stamina
When you increase stamina running you can end up with an overuse injury such as a stress fracture, plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, or tendonitis. If that happens, you’ll be forced to rest instead of working towards your goals.
To prevent this, you should definitely make sure you don’t increase your running distance by more than 10% at a time. Since red light therapy supports your muscle growth, it supports you in injury prevention as well. If you have strong muscles they can take on a part of the stress that your tendons, ligaments, and joints would normally have to deal with.
Make Your Diet More Efficient
Naturally, the nutrients you consume, and how your body absorbs them are a crucial part of athletic training. Red light even can have positive effects activating and aiding your gut microbiota.
Research has shown that red and NIR (near infrared) light can change the gut microbiome in a beneficial way in human subjects. That means that red light therapy can help balance the good bacteria in your gut. That causes your body to get the most out of what you eat and the supplements that you add to your diet.
Red light helps absorb essential nutrients as well – mainly glycogen, which your muscles use as fuel. Carbohydrates provide the ten glycogen you need. Red and infrared light can make glycogen synthesis more efficient because it can increase glycogen and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) synthesis. This means better fueling of your muscles so that you can deal with more intense training.
Get More Rest while Sleeping
Sleep is one of our most basic needs. It is essential for restoring your energy, healing, and your mental stability. Without these things you can’t have decent training, let alone one where you push your endurance limits. So, if you’re still wondering how to increase speed and stamina for running then this is an important one to read.
We tested the effects of red light therapy in connection to improving your sleep cycle. This is what we did using FlexBeam and tracking the sleep quality and patterns using Oura ring.
Protocol A – FlexBeam used horizontally over the front of the abdomen for 10 mins on preset 2, followed by use of FlexBeam horizontally across the corresponding area on the lower back – 10 min preset 2. The device was used during the day, prior to sunset whilst seated.
Protocol B – FlexBeam used vertically on the front of the body – upper chest to abdomen – preset 2 for 10 mins. The device was used prior to falling to sleep whilst in bed.
It was evident that our client’s sleep improved. There was a 41% increase in deep sleep minutes when compared with the average deep sleep duration from his previous 12 months.
Red and near-infrared therapy help to stimulate melatonin production and prepare you to fall asleep. It also helps you to stay in deep sleep for a longer period of time.
Improve Your Mindset
A good mindset is essential for proper training as it leads you to better running stamina. So, what can you do to improve this?
- Focus on positive thoughts. The more positive you are the more you become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your brain is wired to strengthen repeated associations. This will help you stay motivated.
- Visualization can have the same effect. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between events imagined and those that are real. If you imagine reaching your goal in the most detailed way possible, it could give your motivation levels a boost as well.
- Use a distracting technique. If you’re having a hard time during a run, you could try and keep your mind off it. Music is the most common way to do this. Focusing on a beat helps our brain zone out everything else. Another example is tapping. Make a fist with both hands and tap your thumbs on the sides of your curled-up index fingers. As if you’re clenching a ballpoint pen and clicking it. Time the clicks to your running pace.
- Red light therapy can help stabilize your mood and reduce anxiety. Energizing your entire body also means boosting your hormonal regulation, as well as balancing your neurotransmitter production. These can help with some anxiety and depression symptoms, depending on their cause.
Increasing running stamina basically means keeping your entire body at a high level of performance. To achieve this, you need a holistic approach, rather than “fixing issues one by one”.
Red light therapy is known to increase the workings of mitochondria – the ‘powerhouse’ of the cell. This energy is then distributed where it is needed the most. Since mitochondria float around in your bloodstream you don’t need to target a specific area to achieve the systemic effects.