How Compex® muscle stimulation can help you shoot harder, recover faster, and stay on the pitch all season long.

Soccer rewards the player who’s a step faster, hits the ball a little harder, and still feels strong when the clock hits 85. Those edges don’t come from one big thing — they come from doing a lot of small things right: training smart, recovering properly, and keeping yourself off the injury list. That’s exactly where Compex® muscle stimulation fits in.

Compex devices use electrical impulses to activate muscle contractions without having to pick up a weight or lace up your boots. The technology has been used by professional athletes and sports medicine practitioners for decades, and the research behind it for soccer specifically covers everything from strength gains to performance improvements.

WHY YOUR LEGS NEED MORE THAN JUST PRACTICE

Think about what your legs go through in a single soccer match: explosive sprints, sudden stops, jumps, tackles, and 90-plus minutes of near-constant movement. The muscles doing most of that work—your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves—take a serious beating. Practice and gym time help, but there’s a limit to how hard you can push before fatigue and injury risk go up.

That’s where EMS (Electromuscular stimulation) comes in. By delivering  electrical impulses through electrode pads on your skin, Compex devices cause your muscles to contract—building strength —without adding more stress to your joints and tendons. Studies have documented strength gains of 10 to 41% in the quads alone from dedicated EMS programs.¹ For a soccer player, stronger quads mean a harder shot, a higher jump, and a more explosive first step.

THE RESEARCH: REAL PLAYERS, REAL RESULTS

In a study from the University of Burgundy, researchers tested exactly what happens when soccer players add Compex EMS sessions to their normal training, just three short sessions a week for five weeks, pads on the quads, no extra running required.¹

The kicking improvements came fast: ball speed was already up by week three, and kept climbing through week five, reaching nearly 10% faster with no run-up, and 5.6% faster with a full approach.¹

The players who did just their regular soccer training without EMS? No meaningful change in any of those numbers. Same session, completely different results. What made the finding especially compelling is that the gains showed up where it actually matters on the pitch—not just in a strength test, but in actual kicking speed. The researchers called EMS “a viable approach for developing specific attributes used in soccer”—and recommended it for both pre-season and in-season use.¹

IT WORKS FOR THE PROS, TOO

Maybe you’re thinking: sure, it works for amateurs, but what about elite players who already train at a high level? Researchers at the German Sport University in Cologne ran a 14-week program with professional players during an active competitive season, adding whole-body EMS twice a week on top of six or seven regular soccer sessions.²

The comparison group did the exact same sessions, same warm-ups, same jumps, same workload—but without EMS. They saw essentially no improvement in those areas.² Two 20-minute EMS sessions a week was the only difference, and it made all the difference.

RECOVERY: FEEL BETTER, PLAY MORE

Hard training only pays off if you can recover from it, and that’s where a lot of players leave gains on the table. Sore legs, lingering fatigue, and that heavy feeling two days after a tough match all get in the way of your next session being any good.

Compex recovery programs use low-level stimulation to get blood moving through tired muscles, flushing out the lactic acid and metabolic waste that causes soreness, and bringing in the oxygen and nutrients muscles need to rebuild. Compex’s Active Recovery program can help move the needle in how your legs feel after a hard effort. Use it right after training or a match and you’ll notice the difference at your next session. If you’ve just played a tough game, the Competition Recovery program can help reset tired muscles so they’re ready to go again sooner.

WHICH COMPEX DEVICE IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

Compex has been building muscle simulation devices for 40 years, and every device in our lineup is FDA cleared and available over the counter. Here’s how the lineup breaks down for soccer players:

Every wired 3.0 device comes in a water-resistant sleeve, up to 8 hours of battery life, USB charging, and a display that shows you exactly where to place the pads for whatever muscle group you’re targeting.

HOW TO USE COMPEX FOR YOUR SEASON

Before the Season Starts

Pre-season is the perfect time to put in a proper EMS strength block. Research shows that meaningful improvements in leg strength and kicking power can show up in as little as three weeks, and a full five-week block produces the biggest gains.¹ Use the Strength or Explosive Strength programs three times a week alongside your preseason training.

During the Season

When games are coming every week, the priority shifts to staying sharp and recovering fast. Just two EMS sessions a week, in addition to regular training, was enough to help improve strength, speed, and kicking power throughout a competitive season.² Add Active Recovery after matches to flush out the soreness and Competition Recovery later that day to help fully reset your legs before the next training session.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Every soccer player wants to shoot harder, sprint faster, jump higher, and stay healthy. Compex can give you a way to work on all of those things in sessions shorter than a typical television show. Studies on soccer players specifically show nearly 10% harder shots after five weeks,¹ as well as double-digit gains in strength and kicking velocity in professional players.²

Whether you play in a Saturday league or are grinding toward the next level, Compex fits into how you already train— and makes it work harder for you.

References:

¹ Billot M, Martin A, Paizis C, Cometti C, Babault N. Effects of an electrostimulation training program on strength, jumping, and kicking capacities in soccer players.J Strength Cond Res.2010;24(5):1407–1413.doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181d43790

² Filipovic A, Grau M, Kleinöder H, Zimmer P, Hollmann W, Bloch W. Effects of a whole-body electrostimulation program on strength, sprinting, jumping, and kicking capacity in elite soccer players.J Sports Sci Med.2016;15(4):639–648.PMC5131218

All Compex devices referenced are FDA 510(k) cleared. Consult a healthcare professional before beginning an EMS program if you have any underlying medical conditions.