Muscle Tissue Healing Blog

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Last updated: April 2025

Red light therapy is popular among elite athletes and has gained traction among fitness enthusiasts to speed up muscle tissue healing.

It helps those in physical therapy recover from injury and anyone who needs to improve muscle tone.

This all-natural treatment decreases recovery times and boosts performance.

In this article, we’ll explore how anyone — athlete or not — can use red light therapy for muscle tissue healing.

1. Does Red Light Therapy Help Muscle Tissue Healing?

A landmark 2017 review of 46 studies and 1,045 participants went so far as to say that red light therapy could provide athletes with an unfair advantage in competition.

Part of peak performance in athletics is recovery. Post-and pre-workout red light therapy can speed up healing so you can get back to your sport faster after injury, sometimes even after very intense workouts.

2. Red Light for Therapy and Muscle Tissue Healing: How It Works

When you expose red or near-infrared light to bare skin, wavelengths of energy are absorbed into your muscles. Specifically, they absorb into your cells’ mitochondria. The mitochondria are your cells’ energy centers.

Red light therapy stimulates the mitochondria, producing more adenosine triphosphate, the energy source for human cells. Well-nourished cells simply perform better, and this includes repair and regeneration.

Red light therapy reduces oxidative stress in the muscles by promoting the body’s natural production of antioxidants, reducing cellular damage, and helping cells recover.

Treatment enhances the communication between cells to improve their function and coordination. It increases blood flow to the muscles to increase oxygenation and nutrient delivery to the muscles.

Faster cell regeneration is another hallmark of red light therapy. This helps athletes who need to recover quickly, whether from intense training or injury.

Treatment also stimulates collagen synthesis. One typically thinks of collagen in terms of skin, but collagen is also an essential component of the muscles and connective tissue. Increased collagen synthesis can help repair muscles, tendons, ligaments, and even cartilage, as well as skin repair in the event of an injury.

3. Muscle Tissue Repair With Red Light Therapy

You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to benefit from red light therapy. Anyone can experience muscle soreness. All patients can benefit from daily exposure to red and NIR light. Here are some of the common problems that red light therapy can solve.

Treating Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is pain experienced after a workout, which sometimes doesn’t start until a few days after a workout session occurs. It’s a common occurrence, especially for individuals engaging in intense exercise.

It may also occur after strenuous activities like extended horseriding or sports games.

So, how does red light therapy help treat DOMS, including pain relief and faster recovery?

Red light therapy increases blood flow to the muscles. This helps return oxygen and nutrients to the body. It also helps remove metabolic waste products, including lactic acid. Red light therapy can help relieve the pain and stiffness associated with DOMS.

Faster Return to Play: Healing from Overtraining

Overtraining is a real problem for many athletes. The desire to improve performance can lead to training too soon after exercise before the muscles have had time to recover. While red light therapy can’t help an athlete rest more, it can help shorten recovery time.

Exercise causes microscopic tears in muscle fibers. As they heal, they heal stronger and thicker. That’s what one sees as muscle mass grows and as athletic performance increases.

Red light therapy accelerates the repair of muscle fibers by increasing ATP production in the cells. This reduces swelling and inflammation, improving blood flow and stimulating collagen synthesis.

Healing from Injury

Light therapy accelerates injury from soft tissue muscle pulls, tears, and bruises. It also helps treat connective tissue injury in tendons, ligaments, and cartilage.

Better Athletic Performance With Red Light Therapy

Since muscle recovery is the basis of peak athletic performance, it’s important to “nourish” your muscles with red light therapy before and after a workout.

Red light therapy preconditions the muscles by stimulating blood flow. This helps improve muscle suppleness, endurance, and power during exercise while reducing fatigue and loss of power.

Using red light therapy after a workout promotes the growth of lean muscle mass by stimulating protein and collagen synthesis to help muscles rebuild themselves stronger.

Better Mobility With Red Light Therapy

The treatment also supports joint health. Anyone who suffers from joint pain will likely exercise less to avoid the pain; unfortunately, this leads to a downward spiral of more stiffness and pain. Red light therapy is a proven remedy for osteoarthritis and inflammatory joint pain.

You can do yoga and stretching exercises while enjoying red light therapy - it’s an easy way to fit red light into your daily workouts!

Reduced Soreness in Repetitive-Movement Sports

Athletes whose sports have repetitive movements such as swimming or cycling, are more prone to overuse injuries. Red light therapy supports the joints, muscles, and connective tissue involved in these sports.

Faster Healing From Bruises and Strains in Contact Sports

Muscle bruising is common in contact sports such as football or martial arts. Red light therapy helps heal bruises by stimulating blood flow and reducing inflammation.