Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers
Welcome Masters swimmers, triathletes, and anyone striving to live well and swim well! Hear powerful interviews with world-class champions, leading experts, and everyday heroes—sharing tips, tools, and stories to boost your motivation, training, and life performance. Hosted by Kelly Palace, Masters Swimming Champion, author, and former NCAA Division I head coach. A podcast that champions you!
Champions Mojo for Masters Swimmers
How Red Light and Sound Can Supercharge Mitochondria, Healing & Recovery for Masters Swimmers: Dr. Zulia Frost, EP 293
Brand New episode! What if the missing link in your recovery isn’t another supplement or stretch, but energy at the cellular level? We sit down with Dr. Zulia Frost—medical doctor, researcher, and co-founder of Recharge Health—to unpack how photobiomodulation, neuromodulation, and sound can help your body heal faster, perform better, and sleep deeper without side effects.
Zulia’s story is a powerful one: a devastating car accident, spinal fractures, and paralysis in her right leg. Conventional care saved her life, but it was targeted red and infrared light, gentle nerve stimulation, and a disciplined movement routine that rebuilt it. She explains in plain language how red and near-infrared wavelengths interact with mitochondria to increase ATP, release nitric oxide, and open blood flow—key steps that reduce pain, accelerate collagen repair, and restore function in joints and muscles. We compare sunlight to devices, discuss why consistent dosing matters, and reveal why wearable, skin-contact designs can deliver a reliable, high-intensity dose where you need it most.
Get 10% off on FlexBeam at www.ChampionsMojo.com/FlexBeam and enter championsmojo as a coupon code at check out.
Pain lives in the nervous system as much as in tissue, so we dive into neuromodulation for endorphin-driven relief and layer in sound therapy to shift brain waves toward calm. Zulia shares practical routines for athletes and everyday movers: short sessions for acute injuries, broader mapping for chronic issues, and pre-activation before training to boost output. She also offers simple, science-backed habits—consistent bedtimes, a few minutes of morning red light over the chest or abdomen, stretching before the day’s load, and brief walks—that support circadian rhythm, gut health, and resilience over time. We close with clear guidance on facial use, eye safety, and how to personalize settings without guesswork.
Whether you’re rehabbing a shoulder, chasing a PR in the pool, or trying to sleep through the night, this conversation gives you a practical blueprint to turn light, sound, and routine into results. If this helped you rethink recovery, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others find it.
• photobiomodulation basics and why mitochondria matter
• nitric oxide, blood flow, and faster tissue repair
• wearable versus panel devices and sunlight trade-offs
• dosing for acute injuries, chronic pain, and sport prep
• neuromodulation for pain relief and endorphins
• sound therapy, brain waves, and deeper sleep
• routines for circadian health, stretching, and breathing
• gut microbiome support with red light
• safe face use and eye protection guidance
• a proactive approach to long-term vitality
Visit Recharge Health to learn more about FlexBeam and create your routine today
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
Check out Kelly's Books at www.KellyPalace.com
Hello, friends. Welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast, where we bring you valuable interviews and topics to help you live well and swim well. Topics that are especially interesting to master swimmers or anyone striving to perform better in the pool or in life. I'm your host, Kelly Pallas. Today's guest is a true trailblazer in modern healing, and you are going to want to stick around to hear about some science-backed innovations for therapies that will make us recover faster and live healthier. Our guest today is Dr. Zulia Frost. She began her career as a traditional medical doctor following the familiar path of charts, checklists, and protocols until a devastating car accident changed everything for her. That experience became her turning point, revealing the body's extraordinary ability to heal when given the right support. With over 30 years of experience bridging Eastern and Western medicine, Dr. Frost has become one of the world's leading experts in photobiomodulation, neuromodulation, and energy medicine. As the co-founder and clinical director of Recharge Health, she's helping thousands reclaim their vitality through light-based, non-invasive therapies. And she's on a mission to make these science-backed innovations accessible to everyone. And I want to share one of the main reasons I wanted to have Dr. Frost on the show is because she's a true expert in red light therapy, a powerful recovery tool for athletes. And I personally have been using red light therapy myself for years, and I've experienced firsthand how transformative it can be. This is an evolving science that's gaining traction with athletes and health professionals around the world. And today we have the perfect guest to help us understand how it works and what the latest research reveals and how we can use light to recover, heal, and perform at our best. I'm so excited to have Dr. Zulia Frost on the show. Welcome to the show, Dr. Frost.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Kelly, for inviting me. I look forward to sharing with my knowledge.
SPEAKER_01:I know you are a globetrotter, Dr. Frost. Right now, where are you in this big world? Right now I'm in Barcelona, Spain. You are actually with Recharge Health, which is a company out of Norway. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I co-founded Recharge Health. So we actually started seven years ago.
SPEAKER_01:And in reading about you, I learned that Recharge Health is about non-invasive therapies, which you learned to lean into when you had a terrible accident yourself, which caused you a lot of pain. Could you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness it's uh it's some few years ago, but the accident was actually deadly. I I seriously was so close to dying. And somehow I managed to survive. And I was left with uh debilitating pain because I had three fractures in the spine, and I was only diagnosed with one fracture, that the other I learned that I had at later time. And I also was left with uh my right leg was paralyzed, so I I thought I would never walk. And you know, when you're young and you suddenly find yourself from being 100% top physical health into the prospect of being in the in a wheelchair for the rest of your life is not really that exciting. And so, yes, pain is one thing. Pain was at the beginning like number one issue. I struggled with time, and then of course, it took me months and months to recover, but I still think I recovered a lot faster than other people did. Thanks to my knowledge, thanks to my body, which was very intuitive, and uh, I designed all my exercise program, and I had a really strong will to recover. That's something we should talk about as well.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure we would all love to hear about how the will to recover plays a role in our healing and recovery.
SPEAKER_00:I am not a great person to take much medication. I'm rather sensitive to it. I was already then looking for a natural way to get my physical health back. After gaining control of the pain, what was left after the accident is that two, three times a week I would come when sciatica type of pain would come back, and it's really like relentless. And you feel depressed, you feel like nothing you want to do in the world. So I looked at the way how body works naturally, and I actually experienced what it's like to be a patient after being a doctor, so I I we swap places and I learn a lot from that experience. I learned that uh physical energy is very important, so exercise was absolutely paramount for me, but also this uh the light because I used to do jokes uh very early in the morning, I would plan to joke and meet the sunrise in front of the mountains, and you you sort of sort of worship that sunrise, you you uh gain that healing red lights from it. And I discovered tools very early in my time, the tools which using this light, electricity, sound, which can actually potentiate your healing. And uh thanks to those tools I very quickly became pain-free, and then I was able to maintain my health. And once I experienced this myself, the transformation, the fact that I could do now literally everything, and uh I could do physical activity I couldn't dream of when I was uh lying in that wards in a hospital. I now feel like almost like I have to tell the world about my experience because it was so transformative and made me look into different ways of healing and utilize the uh energy aspect by physical aspect of our body. And soon I learned that you could do a lot and all these applications, they really are quite safe, they don't have side effects. Uh, with that in mind, I practiced then of course with patients, and patients would have tremendous fast recovery, and they would ask me why nobody was telling me about this. And that's why I feel like I I have now to send a message to everyone. Let's look collectively into our physical being, not just chemical being.
SPEAKER_01:I love your passion for getting this message out there. Could you explain to us some of the words from the introduction? What photobiomodulation is and neuromodulation, maybe the two differences in those specific things and energy medicine, and how they're all connected with modalities for healing.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, this is something new for people to know, but uh really it's uh straightforward. It's just uh it's uh just a jargon, scientist jargon, yes, to put things complicated. Um the photobimodulation is basically the science of using light at low intensities. Well, you could it could be a sunlight, it could be any kind of lights, but the uh light which modulates the body responses. So if you, for example, have inability to sleep, it may help you to regulate your sleep pattern, and then you would be able to go back and sleep, yes? The the light has impact on the body. When you talk about neuromodulation, it's to activate your nerve endings, which typically uh lives in your skin, yes? So this is how the body communicates with the external world through the skin, and skin reflects everything what is inside you, but also translate any stimulus which comes from outside to your nervous system. It sends messages and say, look, there is a danger, or opposite, I am relaxed, uh, everything is good. So if you can use any form of stimulation to activate this nerve endings, then you can control pain, you can modulate your pain responses. Or beyond that, because you send message to the brain, and our mighty brain knows how to keep your body sort of in a survival range of uh good parameters. So you could use also sound, you can use uh you can create resonance patterns with sound, and you also can impact the cells. In this case, the sound, energy from the sound could come and empower the cell energetic processes distantly, with no, you know, it's it's just physics, it works on the physical level. And of course, maybe for most people quite an alien concept, but trust me, it's been in the research for the last 50 years, these modalysis, and they truly work. And uh I know because I've been involved in the development of the uh different devices and therapies, that it does work. My patients tell me so.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and I think on a gut level, if we really listen to our bodies and our minds what feels best, we do know that we feel great when we're on a sunny vacation or we peek a hill and see the sunrise or the sunset. And listening to some beautiful sounds, those all definitely affect us. So I'm sure that's part of the healing process. And in your research, do you use these combinations of therapy immediately? Or where would you start if someone came in, say, with an acute shoulder problem or back pain or knee pain? Where would you start with them?
SPEAKER_00:I would start straight there with hurts. And why? Because the whole body is focused on that already. The whole body recognizes when you're injured. And uh the body is very clever. It tried to maintain balance, it tried to get you back uh on track as soon as possible as well. But you know what my personal discovery is uh that why people not often heal very well, it's because they don't have enough energy at the physical fundamental level. Because the energy is generated inside each of your cells in the organelle called mitochondria. And this mitochondria has to work all day long to produce these energy molecules called ATP. And these energy molecules they engage in every chemical process. So if you don't have a sufficient amount of energy, you just won't, the cell won't perform the healing responses. So if we manage to give and deliver this energy directly to the affected cells, just by doing this, we already potentiate the healing. And uh when you have energy, you heal a lot faster. And of course, you probably observe this. Children they heal very, very quick compared to very old people, and very old people they have decline in this mitochondria, they have less number of mitochondria, they have more toxic and polluted mitochondria, so they're dysfunctional. And um, of course, the mitochondria is also sensitive to environmental toxins. And thank God we we when those people who look after themselves, they're minimizing this and they stay younger, but there are people who just you know bombarding body with toxins all day long, and then they surprise why that why can't they heal?
SPEAKER_01:Gosh, it makes so much sense that we would need energy to heal.
SPEAKER_00:How does that work? Yes, for example, if I use flex beam device, this is uh light generating device, it produces light very similar, it's the same wavelengths as the sunshine. Yes, the sunshines uh just give you an example, and it gives you all different spectrum. Red, green, blue, yellow, it collectively creates white lights. Uh what the scientists found is that uh certain spectrum of light can have healing property, but of course it's uh not as weak as sunshine, it's a little bit more potent. And then as sunshine shines on the cells, and uh, the cells through evolution learn how to harvest the particles of this light, they call photons. So these processes typically happen in mitochondria when we use red and uh infrared light, for example, is the most beneficial for healing. You really have two players. Yeah, you have the photon of light, and in your body you have a receptor to bind that photon, yes? And that receptor is lives in the mitochondria. So if we have these receptors, we can bind photons and we can then speed the engine of producing energy faster. So you have a lot more ATP molecules which generate energy. So when you have this flex beam or uh red light therapy device generating red and infrared light, in the area which you shine, you can speed up the motor and make more and more energy for the cells. And as a result, the whole healing is faster. There are some other mechanisms as well. So during this process, your cell bind oxygen better and they release nitric oxide. And nitric oxide, maybe some people don't know, but it's really, really good one because it opens up blood supply. So in this shoulder, which you're trying to fix after surgery, A, you give the energy, and B, you open up collaterals and more blood coming here, bringing oxygen, nutrients, all the bricks of the healing of the tissue. And then, of course, you've got the collagen, and this collagen as well becomes much stronger and lasting, and it's just the whole healing, like on styloids.
SPEAKER_01:I've got a couple of items for you. One is just an explanation for our listeners, the flex beam product, it's different than most red light therapies because it is a portable, flexible, personal wearable red light device. I described my big, stiff, heavy panel. I couldn't transport it to a swim meet or travel with it in my luggage, but the flex beam is a wearable device that has more of a high intensity. So you don't need to guess, do I need to be 20 inches away from it or four inches away from it? It's all set up so you just put it on you and you have the right dosage of photobiomodulation. That is what the flex beam is. Dr. Frost, have I missed anything in describing it? Because I do have a follow-up question that I think listeners may have in their mind.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, Lee, it's uh it's perfect. I just want to add that the panels were discovered accidentally because NASA scientists was working with the panels to create plants in space, and they use red lights. And his hands were there under the lights, and they had ulcers or some skin disease. And that red lights suddenly heal his hands very quickly. So uh these panels are really designed for plants, yes, because plants not moving like we human beings. So we were thinking, well, what if we design something for human body? And if we have constantly in mobility, we can use something flexible and we can put it right on the body, right in skin contact. We can wrap it around three-dimensionally, and surely delivery would be better because if you're standing too far away from your panel, then you don't have enough of that energy density stimulation. So that was our solution from being going from panels into something wearable on the skin.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that makes perfect sense because I'm never sure should I be closer to the panel or farther away. I happen to be in Florida right now where there's plenty of sunlight. So why can't people just use sunlight?
SPEAKER_00:And I encourage everybody to go outdoor as often as if you can. Uh however, sunlight has the full spectrum, including UV spectrum, which you need to be careful about, yes? Because UV is a very short, very energetic wave. Uh, UVB is okay to use and it is used in medicine to treat psoriasis. But UVC, it's not okay, because that could cause skin cancer. So you have to be careful with sunlights to be to do an overexposure. But I'd say half an hour in a day is actually good. You feel good with this, yes? But like you in Florida, what about uh our team in Norway? Where right now is a true lack of sunlights. And to be honest, not everybody has the opportunity to be outdoors. And we have office hours and we have to rush and go home. Uh, really, the solution is to have some useful and safe um spectrum of light at home, so you can use it when you can't see sunlight. And some people live in cities where they don't even see the sun because they're this you know buildings blocking their view, and this is unhealthy.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And I don't like the UV part of the sun. I tend to get burned, so that is great. That's great to hear. Is it like ice where you can use it multiple times a day for 20 minutes, or is it three times a week, or what would the dosage be?
SPEAKER_00:It's all come from the uh the goal. What is your goal? Yes. So the number one, like if you just had an injury, it's very fresh, it's there, it's a big shock for the body. Then you can use lights on the injury or around the injury, really depends uh on what you're dealing with. But you can do it uh two times a day or three times a day, but short. Uh it's uh flex beam always designed to produce always 10 minute stimulation. The dose, which is quite important aspect of a light therapy, is programmed in these 10 minutes. So you can do from 10 minutes a couple of times a day or three times a day, yes. However, if your injury already became very chronic and it's been there with the body a long time, uh, it actually impacts the whole body dynamics. Yes, the posture, you start developing compensation with it. So then you'd need to use uh flex beam where you experience pain 10 minutes, but also then include some other areas. Like if you have right side the bottom of your body affected by pain, then you need probably the other side top to see the compensational pattern and then apply. It will be about 30 minutes a day. And then there is another application, like if you don't have any of this injury, you recovered, you're all perfect, but you want to maintain your wellness. So this one you can use, for example, before you go into the gym, you can use uh half an hour on muscles which are gonna be engaged. Prepare yourself and you perform much better, yes? Or if you do swimming competitions, I have the suggestion to use of the muscles, the key muscles which are gonna be engaged, yes? So obviously the upper back, obviously the cords, big bulk of muscles, and just stimulate with light. This is will prepare the body and give cells energy. So depending on the goal, we give people the possibility to explore the device and uh even create the routine. Some people use it routinely every day. You can use it every single day.
SPEAKER_01:Very nice. I would love for you to talk a little bit about the neurobiomodulation, like sound, if we want to use that as part of our healing. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:In my clinic, I work with patients and I use all modalities almost at once, yes, unless, of course, if somebody has really presented with very specific issue or focus on that. With neurostimulation, it's really, really good on pain. Like you know, to actually reduce pain level because you stimulate the nerve, you send a message to the brain and say, Hey, I've got this issue. And the clever brain would say, Okay, I need to release endorphins because it really hurts. Yes. So your endorphins are much, much better uh in quality, and uh they don't make you go dopey, like synthetic narcotics, yes, and in and they release in such atomic qualities in the body, so they literally just counteract that pain. So I would combine with this, I would definitely use sound therapy. I use uh uh recorded tracks, which actually I took part in this project to 432 Hz music, if you haven't heard of this. But it's um a nice sort of tunes, more like um relaxation sort of music. And then uh we did EG and we looked that uh brain becomes much more relaxed, but also the uh uh delta waves uh associated with healing was really getting higher uh during the truck. So now I know for sure if you combine with uh sound healing as well. Then you heard of this the the big uh crystal balls, yes, they produce this resonant healing, so the whole body is vibrates, it's also very potent, and uh I I would say uh throw everything. Uh nutrition is very important, exercise very important, and a good sleep. Good, good sleep is so super important in healing. So if you are unable to sleep, you need to work on stress management and get yourself to the point when you can sleep.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think that's powerful. So 432 hertz music. I I think my husband listens to that. And the delta waves, the singing bowls or the crystal bowls, I I love that. I have a tiny little crystal singing bowl. And when I use that, the sound and the vibration of it does just make me feel so calm and helps me sleep. It's really wonderful. What are you seeing that most people come to you with? And how do how do we avoid these problems that you commonly see?
SPEAKER_00:Well, of course, first, of course, you need to invest in fixing your problem. And uh, to do this, you need to know the core, where it's coming from, what actually happened. Because in the many scenarios, in the in the many scenarios, what I see, people come, and the pain could be referred pain. Very often people come with shoulder pain, but the cause is in the neck. So as a practitioner, I would palpate, I would find where the tension is, when there is a skew, what is the body mechanics, I need to assess it all. And if you don't sleep, for example, I need to understand why you don't sleep, is it not enough melatonin in your body, or you in stress release too much cortisol? Yes, and then you can regulate again through light therapy, it's actually quite useful because uh you can induce melatonin production by stimulating with red light. And you in the past it was believed that you need to look at red light, but now uh we know that even by places on the body, you can improve your melatonin level, you can self-regulate that melatonin. What I'm trying to say once you fix your problem and you want to stay well, you need to do a regime. It contains many things. Number one, I would say go to bed in the same time and wake up in the same time. It's important for your circadium rhythm. When you wake up, don't jump immediately. Oh, I have so much to do. Yes. I'll literally do this mental exercise. I think what is the most important thing I want to achieve today. And uh, whilst in this kind of semi-meditative state, I put uh flex beam on my chest because you know the heart is here, or on my stomach. One thing I didn't tell you today is that uh when you stimulate with lights, we have studies now to say that it improves gut microbiome, red light specifically. So I would normally put over the heart and stomach, and it takes 10 minutes, and then I stretch. So stretching is very important because you prepare the spine, stretch, and then you get up with all the gravity, suddenly the whole body becomes but if you stretched enough, then you become much more aligned and ready for the day. And uh then when you do the whole as a routine, make sure you exercise. This is like absolutely must for everyone. If even if you're super busy, make 10 minutes. Get up, stretch, get up and do deep breathing. But exercise, even small exercise, even 10 minutes, you quickly go around the block, you come back, it's a different person. So I know everybody is busy nowadays. I know we have overload with information, but if you create this little routine for yourself, then you would be much more organized, less stressed.
SPEAKER_01:Actually, you mentioned the gut microbiome and how red light can affect that. Before we go to the very last question, so you actually put the flex beam on your stomach for 10 minutes. And is the flex beam all one dose, or can you change the settings? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And you can put either like horizontally across the navel or vertically. There are three programs, and each program is designed uh at what level you want to make in part. Like you're talking about at the beginning about the skin issues. Yes. So the program one would address skin issues, program two is A little bit deeper, so uh joints, small joints like Achille, uh the tendon, or something like this would be good for program two, and also this uh stomach or liver, you could do it as well in program two, and program three produces really deep penetration stimulation, is right really concentrated, very, very good with muscles, deep joints. So I would use three if I want to prepare for swimming competitions or really big some big events. I would just do all my key muscles on three. I want to really deeply to induce that blood flow to induce energy.
SPEAKER_01:So three settings. What about the face? Can we use this on the face?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely. Everyone who's got flex beam asking me this question, saying, Well, it's so good for my body, can I use it on the face? Yes, you can. Um uh normally we use program one because you want to affect the collagen and use you want to affect the state of your uh uh collagen in the face, yes. So program one, but don't forget our device is super, super potent. It's like your panel, the energy, the panel in this. Imagine it's that pot and it's on the body in the close contact, yes. So for the face, we normally do it at about uh reading book distance, yeah. But I also want you to cover eyes, it comes with a little uh goggles for this situation. Uh why? Because again, light is really potent, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I do want to explain to those listening and not looking because we are on an audio here. You were holding that flex beam up about 12 inches from your face and saying to use goggles. And I know there's been some research on macular degeneration. Can you use this for treating macular degeneration?
SPEAKER_00:The light should be less potent than ours in flex beam. I found it's a British company, they do uh goggles and they have dedicated strengths of light for macular degeneration. For flex beam, it's more on-body, you know, recovery. And uh I just think it's a little bit too strong for the eyes.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that makes sense. And that's what most of us are looking for is muscle recovery. I know I am. So is there anything that we have not talked about that you wanted to share before we close?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I just want to say, you know, we came to this new age. Uh, we we really have to take control of our health. We have to empower ourselves, we have to be proactive in our health. We shouldn't sit and wait, okay, when arthritis is gonna hit me, right? We should do everything we can, preserve this beautiful body so it can blossom and function. So even if you're 60, 70, and 80, you still climb in the Everest and live full quality of life. So there are some tools you can use for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and yes, and it's so refreshing to have tools that aren't pharmaceutical or medical or that have side effects. You really are doing great things in the world, Dr. Frost, and we appreciate you spending this time with us today and wishing you all the best. Thank you for being on the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Kelly.
