Planet Fitness Total Body Enhancement vs a Red Light Panel at Home

Planet Fitness Total Body Enhancement is the red light booth you find at many of its clubs, and it is included with the PF Black Card. You stand in it for 12 minutes on a vibrating plate while red lamps light you from every side. There is no UV, so it will not tan you. The one sizeable trial of this kind of booth found smoother skin and denser collagen after 30 sessions. What the booth gives you is red light only, at a fairly low level, across the whole body at once. A panel at home works differently: less of the body per session, far more light where you point it, and near-infrared, which the booth leaves out. Below is what the machine is, what the evidence says, how to use it, and when a panel makes more sense.

What is Total Body Enhancement at Planet Fitness?

A stand-up red light booth with a vibration plate in the floor. Planet Fitness describes it as "a UV free application of red light" paired with vibration.

It is one of the Black Card perks, listed alongside the massage chairs, HydroMassage and tanning, so a Classic membership does not include it. Not every club has one. Planet Fitness marks it as available at participating locations only, so check with your home club before you sign up for it. The booths are made by a German salon-equipment group, and the manufacturer's own specification card lists a 12-minute session and a built-in vibration plate.

What light does the Planet Fitness booth use?

Red light from tube lamps, roughly between 610 and 680 nm. There is no near-infrared and no ultraviolet.

The light comes from fluorescent red tubes. In the 2014 trial described below, the red-only booth put out mostly 611 to 650 nm at 13.3 mW/cm² for 12 minutes, which works out at about 9 J/cm² per session. Planet Fitness does not publish figures for its own units, but independent measurements of the gym booth show a similar picture: a peak in the low 600s and almost nothing beyond about 700 nm. That last point matters for muscles, because near-infrared is the part of the spectrum that gets past the skin. We cover the difference in 660 nm vs 850 nm.

Because it is UV free, the booth does not tan you. Tanning is a separate Black Card perk with separate beds.

Does Planet Fitness red light therapy work?

For skin, there is one controlled trial of this kind of booth, and it was positive. For recovery or weight, there is nothing on the booth itself.

The trial appeared in Photomedicine and Laser Surgery in 2014. Researchers recruited 136 volunteers aged 27 to 79, put 113 of them into four treatment groups using whole-body booths and kept 23 as untreated controls. The treated groups had two sessions a week, 30 in all. At the end they scored better than the controls on skin complexion, skin feeling, roughness and collagen density measured by ultrasound, and the broadband booths did no better than the red-only one. Full paper. Two things to keep in mind: the trial was fully funded by the company that makes these booths, one author worked for it, and the authors themselves say long-term results still need studying. It also did not use Planet Fitness's machines, though one of its devices was the same kind of red-tube booth run for the same 12 minutes.

So if you go twice a week and keep it up for about four months, the skin result in that trial is a fair thing to hope for. It took 30 sessions to get there. A few visits will not show you much, which is why "before and after" posts after one week tell you very little.

The vibration plate is a separate question. A 2021 review in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation pooled 23 studies of whole-body vibration in 884 people with overweight or obesity. Fat mass fell by 1.07 kg, which the authors judged not clinically significant, and weight and BMI did not change. Leg strength did improve. Study summary. Twelve minutes of standing on the plate will not slim you down.

How do you use Total Body Enhancement?

Check how your club runs it, strip down to shorts or swimwear, protect your eyes, and stand still for the 12-minute cycle.

1. Ask how your club handles it. Some run a sign-up sheet at busy times, others are first come, first served, and clubs set their own limits on how often you can use it.
2. Wear as little as you are comfortable with. Fabric blocks light, so shorts and a sports top, or swimwear, get more of it onto skin.
3. Protect your eyes. The manufacturer recommends eyewear because the lamps are very bright. If your club has goggles, use them; if not, keep your eyes closed.
4. Take off skincare with active ingredients first, as you would before any light session.
5. Wipe the booth down when you finish, with whatever the club provides.

To copy the trial, go twice a week and count sessions, not weeks. Thirty sessions is the number the study measured at.

Is Planet Fitness red light therapy safe?

For most people, yes, but the manufacturer lists people who should not use it, and the vibration plate has its own list.

The booth's documentation rules out pregnancy, epilepsy, illnesses that make you sensitive to light and medication that does the same. It also says to skip the vibration after surgery or if you have a heart, hip or bone condition. That is close to what we list for our own devices on our precautions page. If any of it applies to you, ask your doctor before you step in.

Planet Fitness booth vs a red light panel at home

The booth covers all of you with a modest amount of red light. A panel covers one area at a time with much more light, including near-infrared.

At 6 inches, the panel's red channels alone give about as much red light as the trial booth, and the near-infrared comes on top. That is useful for the muscle recovery studies, which used wavelengths between 655 and 950 nm on the muscles that had just been trained; what the research says about light and muscle recovery has the details. The booth, with nothing past about 700 nm, was never tested for recovery at all.

Which one makes sense for you?

If you already hold a Black Card and want to try red light on your skin, use the booth. If you want light on specific muscles, near-infrared, or sessions that do not depend on the gym, a home panel is the better tool.

Cost is the booth's strongest argument. A good home panel costs more than several years of Black Card, and the card comes with the rest of the gym. Where the booth falls short is control: the same light for everyone, a fixed 12 minutes, no near-infrared, and a queue at busy times. People who train at home, want to work on a knee or the lower back, or just want the session to happen when it suits them, tend to end up with a panel. Are red light therapy panels worth it goes through that decision properly.

What does the Kivorla panel do that the booth cannot?

It lets you choose the wavelength, the dose and the timing, and it puts near-infrared on the area you are working on.

Each of the nine wavelengths has its own dimmer, from 1 to 100 percent, so a recovery session can run the near-infrared channels at full with the visible ones turned down, and a skin session can do the reverse. The irradiance is published at 6 inches, so the dose is a number you can set against the studies. Sessions run from 1 to 30 minutes, and if you forget to set the timer the panel stops after 5. It measures 640 by 230 mm, mounts on a wall or on a floor stand sold separately, and comes with goggles, because near-infrared is invisible and your eyes will not squint away from it.

You can see the full specification on the Kivorla 9-Spectrum Red Light Therapy Panel page. Read the precautions first, as some people should not use the panel at all, and bear in mind that returns within 30 days carry a restocking fee: 10% if the panel is unopened with its seals intact, or 20% if it is opened but undamaged and complete. Standard shipping to the US, UK and Germany is free.

Kivorla devices are general wellness devices, not medical devices. Planet Fitness is a trademark of its owner; Kivorla is not affiliated with Planet Fitness.