(Draft from Pamela’s forthcoming book, Timeless in Less Time)
Out of everything I now champion, I was perhaps the most skeptical about PEMF, which stands for Pulsed Electro-Magnetic Field. I first learned about PEMF through Dave Asprey and Bulletproof Labs, which became Upgrade Labs. I didn’t get to try it when I was there, because it was all booked! I was told it was the most popular of what they offered by my trainer, who got me set up on the Vasper.
In researching PEMF prior to opening up HACKD, there wasn’t anything about the claims and the marketing that made any sense to my science brain. The machine that they had at Bulletproof was the $35k Pulse Center Pro machine, and as a self-funded start-up company primarily focused on fitness, this “general wellness” machine was an easy pass. Once I opened up HACKD and continued my research and exposure to people like Bob Troia, who had a smaller, less expensive device he swore by called the Micro-Pulse, I continued to be intrigued by the anecdotal stories I was hearing and seeing. Bob had sprained his ankle quite badly one week and used the Micro-Pulse on it in addition to red light therapy and that ankle healed faster than anything I had ever seen.
Clients of mine were frequently asking if I was considering getting PEMF, and I decided to schedule a demo with the local Pulse Centers rep. The night before the demo, one of my HACKD founding members who was a doctor and the medical advisor for a huge chain of gyms actually texted me and asked me about whether I had heard anything or was considering PEMF. Funny coincidence, except I don’t believe in coincidences. The next day, still skeptical, I had my demo.
The Pulse Center Pro machine has the capacity to adjust both the frequency and the intensity of the wave, so when using that device, depending on the intensity it is set at, you can absolutely feel an intense shock moving through your body. I know that this sounds nuts, and possibly dangerous, but there are no instances of this shock hurting anyone. A trained administrator will advise you to start slow and low and then adjust depending on the situation, always within your comfort zone.
When I had my first session, it wasn’t a big deal either way. I liked the sensation of the pulse, found it relaxing, and continued to chat with the sales rep and my team as I had my session. Around 18 minutes in, I felt a very big shift energetically in my consciousness. One of my team members noticed and commented, asking “what was that?”. I just smiled and continued to chat with the sales rep, but I was in a much higher state of consciousness after that for the rest of the session and was quite high following the session. This isn’t a typical response to a PEMF session — in fact, what I have found is that there isn’t a typical response to a PEMF session other than people liking it. My team members who all demoed the Pulse that day all had varying responses — one immediately went and used the ARX afterwards and had a 35% increase in his strength across all exercises. I was barely in my body and experienced a 30% decrease in strength that day when I decided to see if my physical power had also been boosted by the PEMF. One of my team members was incredibly happy. Another day after demo I had a client who had a huge anger release (not at anyone, just getting it out, and as uncomfortable as that was temporarily, she felt amazing afterwards). And another team member who had a shoulder injury was able to work as if he didn’t afterwards.
Intrigued but by no means comfortable enough to offer PEMF as a service at HACKD since I still didn’t feel like I understood it in the least, I found a local guy who became a dear friend to help continue my learnings about PEMF. Stephan Brezinsky had a Pulse X, a travel unit from Pulse Centers that uses a tesla coil to increase intensity while slowing frequency. He agreed to come work out of HACKD a day or two a week and share his Pulse with the HACKD community. Win-win! Over those months, I experimented on myself and learned from Stephan as he did sessions on HACKD clients and amazing people that were his clients that he was now bringing to HACKD. I witnessed time and time again the strange phenomenon of people who had injuries, a wrist, a shoulder, a hamstring, report that as they sat down on the full-body pad, getting an even field of the electromagnetic energy, the energy seemed to “go” right where they were injured. They felt the muscles in the injured area “pulsing”, contracting, while they didn’t feel contractions anywhere else. My theory is that the body “takes” energy where it needs it, just like when you look at a weather map and you see the high and low-pressure areas — energy just flows where it needs it.
After experimenting with the Pulse X for over a year at HACKD I signed up for an advanced training course with Pulse Centers in Atlanta and flew down with my friend Sage Rader to go through the training program. The intention was to get my last burning questions addressed to the point where I felt comfortable offering Pulse Centers PEMF as a service at HACKD. As part of our trip, we also went in person to visit our dear friend Bob Dennis, the scientist who developed PEMF for NASA and the inventor of the Micro-Pulse device that Bob Troia had used to support the healing of his sprained ankle.
Sage had become friends with Bob when he was going through his own healing journey after a workplace injury left him with a failed C5-C6 fusion, in bed in intense pain, clinging to Bob’s A9 Micro-Pulse for pain relief. Bob was and is so generous to anyone in need of pain relief support, while simultaneously being this brilliant NASA scientist doing PEMF research on seeds growing faster and bearing more fruit!
My first long conversation happened to coincide with the week that I had an unfortunate Citibike accident resulting in a broken rib. I used his Micro-Pulse device constantly starting that first day and experienced firsthand what started as an excruciatingly painful injury with each breath softening down into a manageable pain level about 30 minutes later, and day over day improving to the point where I could do a plank by the end of the week and two weeks later was back to full chest press strength. My chat with Bob culminated in this magic moment where, after explaining his scientific process with NASA, and how skeptical he was about PEMF, and how he was as surprised as anyone to see how it worked to support life, I got to ask him the science question I had been dying to get answered this whole time: “So, how does it work???” And Bob said, “Oh, I have no idea, I just know that it does.”
So long story short, too late, I am now a huge supporter of PEMF as a general wellness device. No claims can be made about it treating, preventing, or curing any disease. It can only be said that it is a general wellness device and it supports general wellness. I believe it can be used responsibly and it can “do no harm” as long as we use it within the guidelines suggested by Bob Dennis and those like Tom Butler, another dear friend who has been incredibly supportive in my understanding of the Pulse Center units. It is worth it for anyone to try for themselves. And when it comes to using PEMF while exercising, it undoubtedly intensifies the effects of your workout. If you are working closely with a trained professional who is truly an expert in training with PEMF it is worth experiencing and deciding if it is right for you — I have in the past experienced overtraining and intense soreness that made it something that wasn’t worth it for me. Using PEMF on the rehab side, however, using a trainer facilitator on a device like the Neubie system by NeuFit, is something I definitely believe in and take advantage of whenever possible.
