I’ve been training in the gym now for a little more than 2 years and I have made many strength and size gains. However, one thing that nobody prepared me for was stretch marks in my skin.
Stretch marks are made when the body grows at a rapid rate and the skin doesn’t have enough time to adjust to the growth. This leaves the skin with discolored markings, usually a red or purple color. Stretch marks are most commonly seen after pregnancy due to the rapid growth of the stomach area. It can also be caused by weight gain.
In my case, I got my stretch marks from body building. As my body adjusted to losing weight and gaining muscle mass it came at a pretty big cost. My skin has been left with severe stretch marks all over my arms and deltoid area. These marks can be distracting and bring down ones self-esteem. I have a lot of friends that I’ve talked to after their pregnancies and they all suffer from the same problem.
I started to research in different forums as well as YouTube to see what cures are out there and found out there really isn’t a sure way to get rid of them. Certain fitness YouTube channels address the problem, but don’t offer any solid solutions. The most common advice is to rub lotion or cocoa butter on the marks and they will go away for a short period of time but will return as soon as you start training again. From taking a survey of friends and family that went through pregnancies, this is a hit or miss solution.
I was about to give up on my research and go on living with these marks when my gym (Planet Fitness) started offering a new service called « Red Light Therapy ». The people at the desk didn’t know much about it but said it’s supposed to deliver nutrients to the skin such as vitamin D.
After researching it I found out that red light therapy is used to treat different skin disorders such as severe acne and psoriasis. The red light penetrates the skin helping boost your circulatory system and brings more red blood cells to troubled areas. It also stimulates vital collagen and elastin production. Collagen helps plump the skin, while elastin firms the skin. This is what I believe helps repair the skin after it stretches.
When I first started using the red light therapy bed, I didn’t take any before or after pictures because I wasn’t planning on sharing my progress. Now that I have seen the results over time, I decided to stop using the therapy and regrow my stretch marks to share with you the results.
The first picture shown in this article is of my underarm/deltoid area and my newest stretch mark. This one seems to grow the more I work on chest with cable flyes. Now this was about the size of every stretch mark that I had on my body. Now, compare it to the second picture which is of my bicep. Notice how the marks are no longer purple, thick, or deep? The marks on my bicep have shrunk significantly and now look like they may have been a scar that I got from when I was a child. The size reduction was after only a hand full of treatments.
The treatments are only 12 minutes long and I would go twice a week after weight lifting. Another added benefit of the red light therapy is that it’s not as strong as UV light which is found in tanning beds so it’s safe for tattoos! That was one of my biggest worries, considering that I have colored tattoos on brown skin, I really didn’t want them to fade with tanning. I also began to notice that after using the therapy my body and mental attitude would also improve, kind of like when you spend all day out in the sun. If you are someone like me and work graveyard shifts and never get any sun, you should really give this a shot.
Now, what I plan on doing is starting a forum post here at ScottHermanFitness.com and posting up weekly my progress of getting rid of my newest stretch mark. I plan on going twice a week and hopefully I’ll be able to take some friends along that suffer from psoriasis and stretch marks and keep track of everyone’s progress.
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