Brendan Duffy<\/strong><\/a>, a sleep expert who works with many collegiate and professional teams, as a helpful tool for jetlag as I was getting ready to fly to Abu Dhabi (a ~24-hour flight) to compete in the World Triathlon Championships last November. I ordered a set immediately and used them on my flights to and from Abu Dhabi (no swelling or \u201cheavy legs\u201d feeling\u201d) and after my first race (my legs felt fresh 24 hours later for my second race of the trip).<\/p>\nSince my return and having begun to ramp up my training for my 2023 triathlon season, I use Firefly after every intense bike and run workout. My recoveries have never been quicker and training quality, even after a difficult workout the previous day, has never been higher.<\/p>\n
Firefly is not a gimmick being touted just by testimonials from professional and Olympic athletes. It is a scientifically proven technology (it came from a medical device which received FDA approval, so it\u2019s been tested and proven many times over). Firefly increases blood flow to your legs (and throughout your body) by as much as 400% following intense exertion, thereby increasing oxygen to the fatigued parts of your body, reducing soreness, and speeding recovery. Firefly works by sending small electrical pulses to stimulate the peroneal nerve just below the knees. It also helps to reduce jetlag and swelling during flights by keeping the blood flowing while seated for long periods.<\/p>\n
So those are the physical benefits, now for the psychological benefits. As any serious athlete knows, we judge our physical readiness to train and compete based on how our body feels. Firefly has proven that it can accelerate recovery from intense physical effort. It also has demonstrated its value in easing the physical challenges of jetlag.<\/p>\n
Now let me describe how it can have an equally powerful influence on the recovery of our minds from those extreme physical exertions and on our psychological readiness to perform in our next workout session or competition.<\/p>\n
The judgment that we make about our physical readiness to re-engage in our sport also impacts our psychological and emotional readiness to perform. In fact, our assessment of our physical state influences the two most essential \u201cmental muscles\u201d that are necessary for maximum training efforts or \u201cfull gas\u201d competitive performances.<\/p>\n
First, our confidence will suffer if our body doesn\u2019t feel good for the simple reason that if our body is off, we aren\u2019t going to believe that it will perform at its highest level, either in training or competition. If you are striving to give your best effort in training or execute at your highest level in competition, you have to have complete confidence that your body can perform to that high level. Without the confidence that comes from a body that feels recovered, rested, and recharged, doubt, uncertainty, and worry will slow you down. The accelerated recovery that Firefly produces enables your body to feel its best and, as a result, ensures that your confidence muscle will be strong when you train or compete next.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also found that Firefly has a big impact on my motivation to train. As every athlete has experienced, it\u2019s really difficult to get motivated for a workout when your legs are feeling heavy and dead from a previous workout or competition. Since I\u2019ve been using Firefly, my legs feel more recovered from previous days\u2019 efforts, so I\u2019m motivated to hit it hard in my next workout or \u201cgo all in\u201d in my next race.<\/p>\n
Motivation and confidence are the foundation of everything that athletes do to pursue their goals. If you\u2019re not motivated, you\u2019re not going to do the work necessary to achieve those goals. And without confidence you won\u2019t push your limits because you won\u2019t believe that you can handle the physical demands when you enter what one of the pro triathletes I work calls the \u201cdark place.\u201d Firefly gives a little boost to both my motivation and confidence because if my body sends the message to my brain that it is recovered, rested, and recharged, then my brain says to my body, \u201cit\u2019s go time,\u201d and all of me\u2014body and mind\u2014 are totally committed to giving my best effort in training and races.<\/p>\n
Disclaimer: I gain no financial benefit from your buying this product. I write about it because I bought it, use it, believe in it, and think that you may benefit from it as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a huge passion for technology in my athletic life. I have a smartwatch (COROS), heart-rate monitor (Polar Verity Sense), power meter (Quarq), bicycle head unit (Garmin), running pod (COROS), smart swim goggles (FORM), training platform (TrainingPeaks), virtual cycling platform (Zwift), and more. Admittedly, I haven\u2019t gotten blood lactate, glucose, or sweat monitoring devices, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1770,1516,1517,1557],"tags":[820,226,1672,394,915,1657,155,61,207,1039],"class_list":["post-16598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling","category-ski-racing","category-sports","category-triathlon","tag-conditioning","tag-fatigue","tag-firefly-recovery","tag-mental-training","tag-pain","tag-soreness","tag-sport-psychology","tag-sports-2","tag-training","tag-triathlon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18614,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16598\/revisions\/18614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}