PEMF therapy for athletic performance enhancement has been around from decades. Competitive sportsmen and athletes started using pulsed electromagnetic fields as part of their training long ago. Perhaps the credit goes to their therapists and trainers who spend endless hours doing research on enhancing their client’s well-being and competitive advantage. Sports performance at a champion level requires consistent practice and ability to do it.
When you’re training day and night and maintaining the perfect diet recommended by your sports nutritionist, there is seldom time to address more complex issues like sleep and recovery time. A portable PEMF device is one way to fit a recovery routine into a busy training schedule.
Let us look at how athletes use PEMF and what research has looked at so far.
How athletes use PEMF
PEMF therapy is applied by using electromagnetic coils and applying the generated pulsed magnetic fields to the body. NASA research on human nerve cells grown in the lab found that a time-varying electromagnetic field made the cells multiply faster; it was a lab study, not a study of people. The pulsed magnetic fields used in PEMF therapy are non-ionizing.
Some researchers are exploring whether PEMF affects how cells use oxygen for energy, through oxidative phosphorylation including the Krebs cycle, and the balance of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This work is mostly at the lab stage. For post-workout muscle soreness, two small randomized studies found that soreness eased faster with PEMF (2015, 2025), while a larger placebo-controlled trial of a different, much weaker whole-body mat found no effect on induced muscle pain (2018).
PEMF therapy for athletic performance enhancement
If you’re curious about the wider research, see our overview of PEMF and pain research. In today’s date, competitive sports are also about biohacking supremacy of the teams. Just like in auto racing, the pit team and engineering team pool their knowledge, skills and experience to make the team win, professional sports players and athletes need to work with their sports physiotherapists, chiropractors, nutritionists and even psychiatrists to deliver performance.
A personal PEMF device makes daily use easy, and high-intensity PEMF systems are also available. Personal wearable PEMF devices can be used for a quick session before or after training or a game, as part of a warm-up or post-workout routine. The FlexPulse is the highest intensity wearable PEMF device with 200 Gauss peak amplitude. There are no other wearable PEMF devices that go beyond 10-50 G, most popular ones hover under 5 G.
Some athletes also use PEMF for brainwave entrainment as part of their routine. Sports science journals world-over are beginning to publish research on PEMF, and we expect more to come. Everyone needs a personal PEMF device, they just don’t know it yet!
