Red Light Therapy for Muscle Recovery from Squats

About the author

Evelyn Reed, M.S.

Health Science EducatorCertified Wellness Coach

Evelyn Reed, M.S., is a Health Science Educator and Certified Wellness Coach specializing in evidence-based, at-home wellness solutions. With a Master's degree in Health Science, she focuses on translating complex scientific research on cellular health and light therapy into practical, accessible protocols. Evelyn is dedicated to empowering individuals to manage pain, improve sleep, and enhance skin vitality. Her science-first, empathetic approach makes her a trusted advocate for achieving long-term health goals.

If you have ever walked down stairs the day after heavy squats and felt that deep, delayed soreness in your quads and glutes, you know muscle recovery is not just a performance issue; it is a quality‑of‑life issue. As someone who lives at the intersection of at‑home red light therapy and strength training, I talk to lifters and everyday exercisers all the time who want one thing: to keep squatting hard without feeling wrecked for half the week.

Red light therapy is now marketed as a way to do exactly that. The science is promising, but it is not magic, and much of the strongest evidence still comes from lab settings rather than living rooms and garages. In this article, we will walk through what actually happens to your muscles when you squat, how red light therapy interacts with that process, what the research says, and how to use an at‑home device thoughtfully if you decide it fits your recovery routine.

What Squats Do To Your Muscles

Squats are a classic example of exercise that induces what researchers call exercise‑induced muscle damage, often shortened to EIMD. The International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy has described how novel, high‑volume, or very demanding efforts, especially those with strong eccentric contractions, produce intracellular muscle damage, swelling, inflammation, and delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS. Eccentric actions are the lengthening phases of a movement, like lowering into the bottom of a squat under load.

Moderate muscle damage is not a bad thing. It is part of the stimulus that helps your legs get stronger and more resilient over time. The problem is when soreness, stiffness, and fatigue are so intense or so prolonged that they interfere with your next training session, your daily activities, or your motivation. If your squat day makes it hard to train again for several days, you are effectively lowering your training volume and slowing your long‑term progress.

This is where recovery tools matter. The traditional pillars are sleep, nutrition, smart programming, and basic strategies like active recovery and gentle stretching. Red light therapy, or photobiomodulation, is now being tested as a way to support this recovery process, especially in lower‑body muscles that work hard during squats.

A Quick Primer On Red Light Therapy

Red light therapy, also called photobiomodulation or low‑level light therapy, uses specific wavelengths of visible red light, roughly around 620–700 nanometers, and near‑infrared light, usually around 800–1000 nanometers. According to educational resources from Atria and sports therapy clinics, this light is non‑ionizing and non‑heating at therapeutic levels, which means it does not break molecular bonds or burn the skin.

When you sit or stand in front of a panel, the photons penetrate the skin and are absorbed by chromophores inside your cells. One key target is a mitochondrial enzyme called cytochrome c oxidase. Multiple sources, including the Journal of Biophotonics and reviews on human muscle performance, describe a consistent mechanism:

Red and near‑infrared light can increase mitochondrial ATP production, modulate nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species, and influence signaling pathways related to inflammation, tissue repair, and cell survival.

Delivery formats range from small hand‑held wands and facial masks to larger panels and full‑body beds. Dermatology and hair‑loss treatments often use smaller or lower‑powered devices, while muscle‑focused recovery setups tend to use larger panels or cluster applicators tuned for deeper tissue penetration. Stanford Medicine notes that in‑clinic devices are typically more powerful and precisely dosed than many consumer panels, which is important to keep in mind when you are setting expectations for at‑home use.

Clinically, red light therapy is best established for specific skin and hair applications. The evidence for sports performance and recovery is promising but mixed. Reviews in the Journal of Biophotonics, the American College of Sports Medicine community, and ACE Fitness all highlight beneficial findings alongside inconsistent results and emphasize that dosage and setup matter greatly.

Person getting red light therapy on legs for muscle recovery after squats.

How Red Light Therapy Interacts With Squat‑Stressed Muscles

From Light To Cellular Energy

After a hard squat session, your quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings are in a temporary energy deficit. They have burned through ATP and stored glycogen and have micro‑damage that needs to be repaired. Several reviews on photobiomodulation in human muscle tissue report that when red or near‑infrared light reaches muscle fibers, mitochondria respond by producing more ATP.

Because skeletal muscle is densely packed with mitochondria, especially in active individuals, therapies that improve mitochondrial efficiency have a logical role in recovery. Articles from Solbasium, Physical Achievement Center, and other sports recovery practices all converge on this point: by stimulating cytochrome c oxidase and related pathways, light therapy can support the energy needs of muscle repair and help the tissue return to full function sooner.

For squat recovery, that means the muscles responsible for driving you out of the hole and stabilizing your hips may be able to restore their energy balance more efficiently after a session, which may translate into less lingering heaviness or weakness in subsequent days.

Calming Inflammation And Oxidative Stress

When you load a bar and move through deep squats, you create microscopic tears in your muscle fibers and supporting connective tissues. Your body responds with an acute inflammatory process. That response is necessary for adaptation, but excessive or prolonged inflammation and oxidative stress can worsen soreness and delay recovery.

Multiple sources, including MG Sports Massage, Joovv, and mechanistic reviews on photobiomodulation, describe how red light therapy appears to modulate inflammatory and oxidative pathways. Research summarized in the Journal of Biophotonics and systematic reviews on human muscle suggests that photobiomodulation can reduce markers of inflammation such as C‑reactive protein and lower muscle damage markers like creatine kinase in some protocols. Studies in both animals and humans have also reported increases in antioxidant defenses.

A practical example comes from a study on plyometric exercise in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Healthy men performed one hundred demanding drop‑jumps, then researchers compared groups receiving red or near‑infrared light versus placebo. The near‑infrared group had significantly lower creatine kinase levels seventy‑two hours later, and both active light groups showed some performance advantages on squat jumps during recovery, even though soreness ratings did not differ much.

For lifters, this suggests that while you may still feel normal post‑squat stiffness, the cellular damage and inflammatory load may be somewhat reduced under appropriate light‑therapy conditions, potentially preserving more function for the next training session.

Blood Flow, Nitric Oxide, And Nutrient Delivery

Several therapy centers and academic reviewers describe another key component of red light therapy: improved circulation. As photons interact with mitochondrial enzymes, nitric oxide can be released back into the tissue instead of remaining bound inside mitochondria, where it can inhibit energy production. Nitric oxide is a potent vasodilator, meaning it relaxes blood vessels and improves local blood flow.

Articles from Fick Physical Therapy and Performance, Physical Achievement Center, and Joovv emphasize that better circulation helps deliver oxygen and nutrients to working or damaged muscles and speeds removal of metabolic byproducts like lactate. For squat‑stressed legs, enhanced blood flow to the quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves after training can support faster clearance of waste products and supply the raw materials needed for repair.

Long‑Term Adaptations: Strength, Hypertrophy, And Performance

The most intriguing data for strength athletes relate to what happens over weeks and months when photobiomodulation is combined with resistance training. A case‑control study published in the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation followed a pair of identical twins through a twelve‑week quadriceps strength program. One twin received red and near‑infrared LED therapy to the trained muscles after each session, while the other received a sham treatment.

The twin receiving active light therapy achieved greater improvements in maximal strength, showed lower levels of creatine kinase, reported less muscle soreness, and demonstrated gene‑expression changes consistent with reduced inflammation and muscle atrophy and increased protein synthesis and oxidative‑stress defense.

Broader strength‑training literature summarized by performance‑oriented wellness providers describes similar trends. A review cited by Degree Wellness, examining randomized controlled trials, found that combining resistance training with phototherapy often led to larger gains in muscle performance and sometimes roughly fifty percent greater increases in muscle thickness or strength compared with training alone, particularly in lower‑body exercises such as leg press.

For someone who squats regularly, these findings suggest a plausible role for red light therapy not only in day‑to‑day recovery but also in long‑term strength and hypertrophy when used consistently around training. At the same time, a critical review from TrainingPeaks points out that not all trials show performance benefits, particularly in upper‑body studies and in certain markers of oxidative stress, and that real‑world gains may be smaller than those seen under ideal lab conditions.

What The Research Says About Lower‑Body Exercise And Recovery

The studies below do not all examine squats directly, but they focus on lower‑body muscles and stressors that are highly relevant to heavy squat training.

Topic or Study	Key Findings	Relevance To Squat Recovery
Photobiomodulation in human muscle tissue, Journal of Biophotonics review	Review of forty‑six studies with around 1,045 participants reported that red and near‑infrared light can enhance muscle mass gains after training, improve performance measures such as repetitions and time to exhaustion, and reduce inflammation and oxidative stress in many protocols, though results are not uniform.	Suggests that when dosing and timing are appropriate, photobiomodulation can support both performance and recovery in trained and untrained individuals, including for lower‑body resistance work.
Plyometric drop‑jump study in Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research	Twenty‑eight healthy men completed one hundred drop‑jumps after receiving red light, near‑infrared light, or placebo. Near‑infrared light led to significantly lower creatine kinase seventy‑two hours later, and both active light groups showed better squat‑jump performance during recovery. Soreness did not differ much between groups.	High‑force plyometric landings stress the quadriceps and calves in ways that resemble the eccentric load of squats. Lower damage markers and retained jump performance hint that similar protocols might help maintain lower‑body power between squat sessions, even if soreness is not dramatically changed.
Repeated sprint EIMD study in International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy	Thirty‑three participants performed forty short sprints with aggressive deceleration to induce muscle damage, then received phototherapy or sham treatment over five days. The phototherapy group reported significantly less calf soreness, but there were no differences in vertical jump or agility recovery.	Demonstrates that phototherapy can meaningfully reduce soreness in specific lower‑leg muscles without necessarily enhancing all performance metrics, which mirrors how some lifters feel “less beat‑up” even when strength numbers are unchanged.
Quadriceps strength and LED therapy twin study in American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	In a twelve‑week quadriceps training program, the twin receiving LED therapy after sessions gained more strength, showed less fatigue and lower creatine kinase, and had gene‑expression shifts toward muscle growth and reduced atrophy compared with the placebo twin.	Squats heavily recruit the quadriceps. This study provides a strong case that targeting those muscles with light therapy around training can amplify strength gains and support healthier muscle remodeling over time.

Across these and other trials, a few themes emerge. Photobiomodulation is more likely to help when it is applied close in time to the exercise session, when clinically studied wavelengths are used, and when the dose is in a moderate range rather than extremely low or excessive. At the same time, some well‑designed studies in the training and coaching community have found little to no benefit on certain outcomes, particularly when dosing was suboptimal or protocols did not match those used in successful trials.

Athlete's muscular legs resting on a mat for red light therapy muscle recovery.

Practical Guide: Using Red Light Therapy Around Squat Workouts

If you decide to experiment with red light therapy for your squat recovery, the goal is to use it as a structured, evidence‑informed tool rather than an expensive gadget you try a few times and forget. The following principles are based on research‑driven guidance from clinical educators, sports medicine providers, and wellness companies that build muscle‑specific devices.

Safety First And When To Be Cautious

Most reviews describe red light therapy as having a very favorable safety profile when used at non‑heating intensities. The Atria education guide notes that these lights do not break molecular bonds and are typically used at levels that do not heat tissue. Stanford Medicine emphasizes that safety concerns are usually related to improper eye exposure and misuse rather than the light itself.

Reasonable precautions include using eye protection when your face is directly exposed to bright panels, avoiding staring into the LEDs, maintaining at least several inches of distance from large panels, and talking with a physician if you are pregnant, have active cancer, take photosensitizing medications, or have a complex medical history. If you have knee or hip pathology, or a recent lower‑body surgery, it is also wise to clear any new therapy with your orthopedic or rehabilitation team.

Choosing A Device For Lower‑Body Recovery

For squats, you want to reach large muscle groups: quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. A small facial mask or spot wand designed for cosmetic use is unlikely to deliver enough coverage or the correct power density to meaningfully affect these tissues.

Educational resources from Atria, ACE Fitness, and device manufacturers focused on muscle recovery suggest looking for panels or flexible arrays that use both visible red and near‑infrared wavelengths within ranges that have been studied in muscle tissue. Companies such as Solawave emphasize that their muscle‑recovery devices are distinct from skincare tools, typically offering higher power density and deeper penetration.

Another consideration is dose control. Research‑grade or clinic devices often include clear charts relating distance from the light, session time, and power output. Consumer devices sometimes provide only vague guidance. In general, look for a product that publishes its tested irradiance at realistic distances and, ideally, has been used in or modeled after published muscle‑recovery protocols. FDA clearance often relates more to safety than to proven performance benefits, but it can still be a useful signal that basic safety standards have been addressed.

How To Position The Light After Squats

Most practical guides, including Atria’s and several sports recovery providers, converge around a similar starting strategy. Expose bare skin, because typical leggings and shorts can block a significant amount of light. Position the panel roughly a few inches to about 2 feet from your skin, depending on the device’s power, so that it comfortably covers the front of your thighs and hips.

A simple post‑squat routine might mean sitting or standing in front of the panel for around 5 to 10 minutes focusing on the quadriceps, then turning to expose the hamstrings and glutes for another 5 to 10 minutes. Calves can be included in that posterior session or given their own short block. Many experts recommend starting with this shorter duration and increasing gradually only if you tolerate it well.

Consistency appears more important than marathon sessions. Atria’s guidance emphasizes a “Goldilocks” or biphasic dose response: too little has minimal effect, while too much can blunt benefits. They recommend beginning with several shorter sessions per week and expecting to notice meaningful effects only after regular use over two to four weeks.

Before Or After Squats: Which Is Better?

Different studies have used photobiomodulation before exercise, after exercise, or both. Pre‑exercise “preconditioning” has been associated with better performance and reduced markers of damage in several trials. For example, in the plyometric drop‑jump study, light was applied before the exercise, and participants maintained more power and showed lower creatine kinase during recovery. Reviews summarized by Degree Wellness and Joovv also report improved time to exhaustion and reduced post‑exercise soreness when light therapy was used before endurance or resistance sessions.

Post‑exercise treatments, especially within a short window after training, are more common in recovery‑oriented settings and have been linked with lower lactate and creatine kinase compared with recovery methods such as ice baths in some studies of cyclists.

For someone focusing on squats at home, a reasonable approach is to start with post‑squat sessions, when you are already in your training space and can pair your cooldown with light exposure. If you respond well and want to be more aggressive for a meet prep cycle or a heavy block, adding a brief pre‑squat session on key days may make sense, as long as overall volume and fatigue are managed thoughtfully.

Fitting Red Light Therapy Into A Complete Recovery Plan

Even the most positive reviews on photobiomodulation stress that it should be considered an adjunct, not a replacement, for basics like sleep, nutrition, load management, and good movement mechanics. Joovv and other performance‑focused companies repeatedly highlight sleep as the single most powerful recovery tool, recommending roughly seven or more hours of quality rest per night. They also emphasize whole‑food nutrition, hydration, and monitoring of stress and heart rate variability.

The ACE Fitness expert review on red light therapy points out that while evidence for improved markers such as creatine kinase and DOMS is impressive, there are no universally accepted guidelines for frequency, intensity, time, and type. In practical terms, it means your red light routine should be layered on top of solid programming: progressive overload, deloads when necessary, sensible squat frequency, and the kind of warm‑ups that prepare your joints and nervous system for load.

If your sleep, protein intake, and training plan are chaotic, red light therapy is unlikely to rescue your squat recovery. When the fundamentals are in place, light therapy may become a valuable fine‑tuning tool to help you feel less sore between sessions and preserve more performance across the week.

Pros And Cons Of Red Light Therapy For Squat Recovery

From an evidence‑based wellness perspective, it is important to weigh the benefits and limitations clearly.

On the positive side, red light therapy is non‑invasive and generally well tolerated. The underlying biology is plausible and increasingly well characterized at the mitochondrial and cellular level. Systematic reviews in human muscle suggest that photobiomodulation can reduce markers of muscle damage and inflammation, improve repetition performance and time to exhaustion, and in some cases amplify strength and hypertrophy when combined with resistance training. At a subjective level, clinics and recovery centers frequently report that clients feel less sore and more ready to train.

However, there are also meaningful drawbacks. High‑quality panels and beds can be expensive, and you need regular sessions for weeks before deciding if it truly helps you. Studies summarized by TrainingPeaks and Stanford Medicine remind us that evidence for broad performance and wellness claims remains limited and inconsistent, especially outside controlled environments. Consumer‑grade devices may be less powerful and less precisely dosed than those used in clinical trials, which could blunt real‑world effects.

There is also an equity and ethics conversation beginning in sports science. The Journal of Biophotonics review raised the question of whether light therapy’s performance‑enhancing potential should affect its status in competition. At present, it is considered a legal modality, but that discussion highlights just how early we are in fully understanding its role in athletics.

The bottom line is that red light therapy appears to offer modest but meaningful recovery support for some people and protocols, particularly when combined with lower‑body strength work that resembles squats. It is not a guaranteed shortcut to bigger numbers, and it works best when your overall training and self‑care are already dialed in.

Man in a gym performing barbell squats, essential for strength training and muscle recovery.

Frequently Asked Questions About Red Light Therapy And Squats

Can red light therapy replace my warm‑up, stretching, or deloads?

No. Red light therapy does not prepare your joints and nervous system for load in the way a squat‑specific warm‑up does, and it does not change the fact that tissues need planned easier weeks to adapt. Think of light therapy as something that may help you feel better between sessions, not as a substitute for the foundational elements of good programming, movement quality, and progressive overload.

How soon should I expect to notice any change in soreness or performance?

Most clinical and educational sources, including Atria’s practical guide, emphasize that consistency over time matters. Many users do not notice a strong difference in the first few sessions. Instead, changes tend to emerge over two to four weeks of regular use, such as several short sessions each week around training. It is helpful to track your squat loads, reps, soreness ratings, and readiness to train so you can judge any changes more objectively.

Is red light therapy right for me if I am not a competitive lifter?

Yes, you do not need to be a powerlifter to consider red light therapy. Many of the participants in published studies were recreational exercisers, and several wellness clinics describe benefits for people who simply want less discomfort from daily activities or general resistance training. If squats are part of your routine and DOMS makes it hard to stick with your plan, red light therapy can be explored as one more recovery option, ideally in conversation with your healthcare provider if you have any medical conditions.

Red light therapy is an exciting, evolving tool in the squat‑recovery toolbox, but it is not a magic beam that erases hard work. When you respect the science, choose an appropriate device, and integrate it thoughtfully alongside solid sleep, nutrition, and smart programming, it can become a compassionate ally in helping your legs feel ready to bend again. If you decide to try it, start simple, listen closely to your body, and use the data from both research and your own experience to guide your next step.