Top athletes and wellness experts around the world are incorporating red light therapy into their routines, and for good reason. When used correctly, it’s a powerful tool for wellness and recovery. But "correctly" is the key word, and it highlights the single most common mistake people make when using red light therapy.
Even one of the greatest athletes of all time, LeBron James, who is a known advocate for RLT, has showcased a setup that demonstrates this common error.
Take a look at this photo from his social media. Do you notice anything off?
If you guessed that the lights are too far away from his body, you are correct.
This is the number one mistake to avoid with red light therapy, and it’s a simple matter of physics. The effectiveness of red light therapy is directly tied to its intensity, or irradiance. As the light travels further from its source, it disperses and loses its power.
Think of it like a pressure washer. If you stand twenty feet away from a dirty surface, the water spray will be gentle and ineffective. To truly blast the grime off, you have to bring the nozzle in close.
Red light therapy operates on the same principle. Distance matters—a lot. For a session to be effective, the light source needs to be close enough to the user’s skin to deliver an optimal amount of energy. When panels are positioned too far away, a significant amount of that energy is lost to the surrounding air, which can diminish the potential benefits of the session.
This is a critical factor for wellness providers to understand. To deliver consistent and effective results for your clients, you need equipment that is specifically engineered to solve the problem of distance. That’s why we’ve designed our red light therapy beds, like the OvationULT, with an innovative zero-gravity design that positions the user in close proximity to the LEDs, ensuring maximum light absorption.
Understanding the science of light delivery is what separates an okay red light therapy session from an exceptional one.