I have been a minorly outspoken critic of COMPEX in a few threads on this forum. I based my criticism/doubt on COMPEX on my experience with electrical stimulation as a physical therapist. I also readily admitted that I had never actually tried COMPEX, until yesterday that is.
I competed in the Xterra West Championship race at Temecula, CA. I knew going in that my legs were going to be trashed at the finish, so this would be a perfect time for me to try the COMPEX recovery setting and see first hand if my criticism has been valid or not.
As expected, my legs were pretty much shot. Had some good quad cramping during the run, left hammy seized up when I tried to high-step a rock, so I was in rough shape. Although my quads were feeling better by the time I got to the COMPEX tent. Walking around after the race seemed to help.
I went in and straight away told the rep that I was a non-believer and I wanted to see if he could convince me otherwise. He went in to the typical rep talk about COMPEX and why it’s better than TENS or other stim units. Which I found interesting because he said the big difference was that COMPEX doesn’t use direct current unlike TENS. Actually the only time we use direct current is when applying iontophoresis, which is the introduction of medication using e-stim that is different from the traditional TENS unit. Nothing I wanted to debate him about however, didn’t have the energy for it.
He also went into explaining the strength gains and hypertrophy benefits of COMPEX, which is where I have my biggest criticisms/doubts.
Once he got me hooked up he said “we’ll let this run for about 20 minutes to flush out the fluids and get that lactic acid out of there.” This instantly brought on my bullshit radar. Why isn’t COMPEX educating their reps that lactic acid is not the cause of post-exercise soreness???
The first 30 seconds were ok, typical e-stim feeling with muscles bouncing around involuntarily. Toward the end of the first cycle I could feel my left quad cramping. The intensity started to ramp down and cramp started to recede until the unit started cycling up again and then the cramp went into hyper-mode. I called for the rep to please unhook me because I was cramping. He turned off the unit and asked where I was cramping, “Oh I don’t know, maybe my quads which look like I am involuntarily posing in a body building competition.” (I didn’t actually say that, I’m much more cordial than that.) One of the other reps came over and volunteered to help me stretch which was greatly appreciated except that this caused my left hamstring to go into fits. I heard her say something to the effect of “we can stretch him a bit and then try the strengthening (I think that’s what she said, but I was a bit delusional at this point) setting on a low frequency.” At this point I rolled over and politely said “No thanks, I think I’ll just walk it off.”
So long story short, I’m not sold on COMPEX. Admittedly not the most valid testing situation, but hey, this was supposed to be the recovery setting and I felt anything but recovered.