Interview with Dr Marco Prümmer and physiotherapist Christian Foulds-Saupe on the topic: ‘The conceptual use of microcurrent to accelerate recovery and optimise performance’.

Physiotherapist Christian Foulds-Saupe has been using frequency-specific microcurrent therapy in his therapy and training centre for many years. Among others, he was trained by Dr Carolyn McMakin (USA), who pioneered microcurrent therapy in the United States as a frequency-specific treatment.

Dr Marco Prümmer studied at the universities of Aachen, Münster and Cologne and was awarded his doctorate ‘summa cum laude’. His work in conventional medicine initially focused on the specialisms of orthopaedics and surgery. Since 1991, he has been practising as a specialist in general medicine, sports medicine and chiropody.

Dr Prümmer has been conducting intensive research and working in the field of complementary medicine and naturopathic treatments for 25 years now. His personal professional development and further training have also focused, amongst other things, on osteopathy.

00:00:00
LuXXaMed Intro/Outro: Welcome to a new podcast, a new episode from LuXXaMed GmbH – the podcast for microcurrent therapy, frequency-specific microcurrent and, of course, BCR (biological cell regulation) therapy. This week, in this episode, as I’ve already mentioned, I’ve brought you an interview – or rather, a conversation – with Dr Marco Prümmer, a specialist in general practice, and physiotherapist Christian Foulds-Saupe. Christian Foulds-Saupe runs a large therapy centre and is now collaborating with Dr Prümmer, particularly in the field of sports therapy, sports medicine and recovery in sport – and they’re doing so within a holistic approach. Now, the word ‘holistic’ isn’t really my cup of tea, but I’ll just call it that for now – a holistic approach that’s not just about treating athletes for sports injuries, but also about offering a programme to enhance performance, improve recovery and so on, and of course putting that into practice. Microcurrent therapy, specifically the LuXXaMed, is a key component of this, and this podcast – this episode – is also about how the whole thing is structured and integrated; but in this instalment, I’d rather focus on what the concept actually looks like. How can athletes be treated or supported within a conceptual framework for recovery and performance enhancement? That’s what this episode is about. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy this episode, and as usual, we’ll check in briefly again at the end of this interview.

00:01:58
LuXXaMed: Thank you very much for having me here with Dr Marco Prümmer and Christian Foulds-Saupe at the ‘Fit durch Physio’ centre; today we’d like to have a chat about sports medicine, specifically the topic of regenerative sports medicine. So let’s move away a little from the traumatological approach – which is always just ‘pain management, pain management’ – and take a truly holistic view, where microcurrent therapy and LuXXaMed form part of a wider range of techniques, including orthomolecular medicine and so on. And I believe I have two brilliant experts here with me who can tell me – and not just me, but our listeners too – a bit about what the whole picture looks like. So I’d say let’s introduce ourselves very briefly for the listeners: Dr Prümmer, would you like to start?

00:02:46
Dr Marco Prümmer: I’d be delighted! A very warm welcome here at the centre. Yes, my name is Dr Marco Prümmer; I’m a specialist in general medicine, sports medicine and chiropractic therapy, and I use complementary and holistic approaches in the care of elite athletes as well as ordinary patients. And yes, I’ve been working for many years with other professionals – here with physiotherapists, coaches and, ultimately, nutritionists – to ensure a holistic approach to care.

00:03:20
Christian Foulds-Saupe: Yes, my name is Christian Foulds-Saupe, owner of the ‘Fit durch Physio’ centre in Stolberg, and in future, Dr Marco Prümmer and I intend to work more closely together so that, for the benefit of the patients, we can achieve better results for the athletes. I’m a physiotherapist, yes, but you probably don’t know that I’ve held a DFB A licence for football since 1990, and I regularly attend the BFL congresses, so naturally I pick up a great deal about what’s happening in elite and grassroots sport – we’re now also talking about the competitive level of mid-level and top-level amateur sport, which is also a very interesting area.

00:03:59
LuXXaMed: Okay, and how does that work in practice? Let’s say we’re talking about either an ambitious amateur athlete or someone who’s perhaps simply interested in sport. How would you describe what such a programme looks like? How are athletes supported there, conceptually speaking, and what are the first steps involved?

00:04:21
Dr Marco Prümmer: The holistic support we provide here begins with an analysis of the current situation, to assess the basis on which we can support the athlete in question. We carry out analyses of vital substances, for example, and muscle function diagnostics; and, of course, we also carry out a manual examination of the athlete in question – or perhaps a patient – and take a very holistic approach, naturally checking the relevant vital substance parameters as well; in other words, we examine highly individual performance parameters to gain an accurate picture. Of course, we also need information from the athlete themselves – their subjective data – to see, ‘Where are they at? How do they feel, where do they want to go, where do they ultimately see themselves, and what are their personal goals?’ And, naturally, we record all of this as hard data.

00:05:15
LuXXaMed: And in an area like this, from a physiotherapy perspective, what are the first points of focus?

00:05:23
Christian Foulds-Saupe: Yes, the movement patterns. We work closely with the coaches. For example: recently, a track and field coach came in with his protégé, a runner, who arrived at our clinic for an assessment. We analysed his form and realised he lacked core stability. We carried out some training in that area, and lo and behold. he improved his running time by 30 seconds without changing his athletics training. Adjusting these parameters in this area – working together with doctors to holistically help the athlete progress towards their goals, or to help the coach implement their training plan more effectively – is key.

00:06:04
Dr Marco Prümmer: Of course, it’s also important that we focus on injury prevention here, as this is very often a major sticking point, particularly in club sport or in football, where the number of players suffering muscle injuries within a club is high; and this can, to some extent, be addressed preventatively or, indeed, the rehabilitation period significantly shortened by taking a holistic approach to care. On the one hand, as I said, we have various forms of therapy available to a certain extent, but it’s also important to adjust the diet accordingly; as there are very often huge shortcomings in the field of orthomolecular medicine, particularly regarding deficiencies in vital nutrients in the body – the so-called mitochondria – and if we try to address all of this holistically through fine-tuning, we achieve much better results.

00:06:53
Christian Foulds-Saupe: Well, I can give an example from last season – not the season that was cut short, but the one before that: Here in (unv.), they were constantly suffering from muscle injuries, and the assistant manager approached us and said, ‘Say, can’t you help us out with that?’ So we developed a programme for the team, and they really took off and went on to win the league. And why? Because they had no injuries; the manager was always able to field his players, his first-team squad, and if anyone was injured, they were fit to play again in a much shorter time; and if it was something more serious, it could be assessed by the medical team – which is, of course, also important. The short lines of communication and quick response times are simply the downside: if a player goes to the doctor now, the doctor writes a prescription, but there’s very little information for the therapist about what’s actually going on. Or the doctor might want certain aspects to be prioritised and wonder why things aren’t being done the way he envisages?

00:07:49
Dr Marco Prümmer: So close communication between the doctor, the therapist and the coach is also absolutely, absolutely vital. And unfortunately, this is often neglected even in mainstream medicine. In other words, the doctor issues a prescription, perhaps refers the athlete to the coach or a physiotherapist, and everyone just does their own thing. Here, however, the approach is integrative; we communicate very closely, which is why a holistic approach to care is guaranteed.

00:08:16
Christian Foulds-Saupe: In the professional game, for example – whether it’s at Bayern Munich or in Dortmund, and the doctor can tell you more about this as he’s well versed in the professional scene – the coach only gives the players the green light and selects them after consulting with the doctor and the therapist. So, whilst he might take a player off, he’d say, ‘Hold on, my doctor, my team therapist.’ That’s why we’re seeing ever-larger support teams; it’s becoming increasingly bloated because the work is getting more specialised, and not everyone can handle it all anymore. We already have specialist sports coaches who are integrated into the support staff to deal with recovery – but where is that in the mid-level and top amateur leagues? It’s missing there because there’s no budget and not enough specialists, and that’s where we want to offer something in future – so that whether it’s a basketball player, volleyball player, footballer, handball player or whatever sport they play, they can say, ‘I want to do something for myself. I know how important my body is; I want to keep playing sport at a high level for a few more years.” And that’s where we see our approach in the future.

00:09:31
LuXXaMed: Okay, that would have been my next question: are specific sports involved – ball sports, for example – or does that matter?

00:09:40
Dr Marco Prümmer: Well, in principle, it doesn’t matter at first. There are certainly various sports that have their own sport-specific muscular imbalances – this is the case in football, basketball and also volleyball, because training often focuses solely on the specific sport and complementary exercise is neglected. That said, in my view, the situation is actually worst in football: There are scientific studies on this which actually show that, when it comes to team sports, footballers are the worst trained in terms of balance – looking at all teams as a whole – and that’s naturally where we focus our efforts, trying to provide very, very personalised support.

00:10:25
Christian Foulds-Saupe: It’s interesting – we’ve recently had an intern on our team who comes from a dance sport background, specifically carnival dancing, and many of these girls have problems with their knees. But the interesting thing is, the problem isn’t actually the knee itself, but rather either the feet or pelvic and core stability – though Dr Prümmer will be able to say a few more words on that, as his specialism is rhythmic gymnastics, isn’t it?

00:10:54
Dr Marco Prümmer: Well, yes, that’s certainly true. I worked in Cologne for a while, amongst others with Dr Peter Schäferhoff, who was also my senior registrar for a time, so in that respect I’ve got a pretty good grasp of this Rhineland aspect here. Of course, there are the so-called ‘Tanzmariechen’, who have to perform in rapid succession in the evening, moving from one dance hall to another at the drop of a hat, without warming up properly – and that’s just how it is. And the crux of the matter is always this: someone thinks they’re experiencing pain in a particular joint – say, the knee – and then automatically assumes that the cause must lie where it hurts – but that is by no means the case; rather, the entire musculoskeletal system must be thoroughly examined. Then you can – and indeed must – explain this clearly to the athlete: the cause of the problem is not always to be found where the pain is felt. So that brings us back to the concept of holistic care.

00:11:46
LuXXaMed: Yes, yes, that actually brings me straight to the next part of this episode, namely: what role does microcurrent therapy play in such an approach? Because that’s also a rather holistic approach; we’re trying to move away from the symptom and towards the system as a whole, rather than simply treating the knee joint because it hurts, for example. So within such a concept of athlete care and therapy, what role does microcurrent therapy play?

00:12:15
Christian Foulds-Saupe: Well, I can speak from experience here again: a few years ago, I had a football goalkeeper who dislocated a finger during a cup match a week before the start of the season; normally, that would have meant an eight-week break before he could play again. As I’d been working closely with the team, the player came straight to me on the Sunday he’d been injured, and we carried out microcurrent treatments. He came every day – which was, of course, a bit of a hassle for him as an amateur to come every day, but naturally he wanted to be fit for the first match of the season, and we managed to get him playing on the opening day – a week later – with tape and reinforced gloves. That would have been unimaginable for him in such a short time, because the usual procedure is: You go to hospital, they X-ray it, nothing’s broken, then they apply an ointment dressing, and the whole thing takes four to eight weeks – and microcurrent therapy shortens the healing process. It’s not that I only use microcurrent; I also have to incorporate the other therapies, but it helps me, as a therapist, to reduce the recovery time to a minimum. Dr Prümmer, too – that’s how we got to know each other better – has experienced first-hand the benefits of working with microenergy, which is part of my practice.

00:13:50
Dr Marco Prümmer: Yes, indeed. So I first became acquainted with microcurrent treatment – or therapy – here, at the centre, and I must say quite honestly, I was thrilled: I’d had a sports injury around my ankle for months and just couldn’t seem to shake off the pain – and anyone who knows me well knows that I absolutely love going for a jog, even over longer distances. I used to do quite a lot of it in the past, but as I said, I still keep fit with it to some extent today and just had to switch to mountain biking – it’s nice, but it’s always been a bit of a secondary sport for me. Then Christian Foulds-Saupe introduced me to microcurrent therapy here at the centre, and lo and behold, I felt a significant improvement and relief from my symptoms relatively quickly. And as I do have a background in sport, I know my body very well and can pick up on any changes very quickly, and I’m absolutely thrilled: I think after about five or six sessions of microcurrent therapy here, I was practically symptom-free and was able to go jogging again.

00:14:52
LuXXaMed: Yes, perfect, perfect. And I don’t know, we’ve now installed the new software version for you: Are we now also in a position – to move away a bit from the topic of pain management, i.e. traumatology – to focus specifically on the area of regeneration, that is, systemic regeneration, well, I actually had a chat just today with a naturopath near Cologne – she’d also like to take part in the podcast – who’s focused a bit on the area of autoimmune diseases and general regeneration of patients using microcurrent – what’s your impression of that? Do you find yourself saying, “Right, we’ve essentially got several options available with microcurrent therapy anyway”, but what’s your experience, in quite a traditional sense, in the field of regeneration and, by extension, to some extent, prevention? Because if the system – the metabolism – is functioning well, you can of course also use it preventatively.

00:15:44
Christian Foulds-Saupe: Well, I’d just mention the key words ‘stress’ – including stress for athletes – and the doctor can add a word or two on what happens when the body is under stress and how healing processes then proceed much more slowly. This means I have to take a holistic view of the athlete; I first need to restore autonomic balance and mental stability – in other words, focus more on these areas to prepare the body for the healing process. So it’s not just a matter of looking at and treating localised (unv.) trauma; rather, as we’ve already heard from colleagues in one podcast or another, we should first consider holistic meridian treatments along these lines and only then address the problem locally, in other words, to first accelerate or support the regulatory mechanisms as a whole.

00:16:36
Dr Marco Prümmer: Well, what I can certainly add is this: I once came here for the relevant microcurrent therapy after a night shift – and naturally you’re a bit knackered the next day – but the side effect was that I actually felt less tired during the treatment, which was definitely very important to me. On the other hand, the immune system plays an immensely important role in elite sport, and this is particularly well known in endurance sports, as athletes in these disciplines are very susceptible to infection – especially marathon runners, triathletes and so on – and I think that can also play a very significant role in the area of recovery.

00:17:14
LuXXaMed: Yes, something else just occurred to me: I once – this was quite a few years ago – spoke to a sports scientist, and the topic of HRV, heart rate variability measurement, came up; that must have been over ten years ago – and we looked into it in more detail for a while, just to see whether autonomic balance – be it in athletes, during recovery in athletes, or in the general public – let’s call it that for now – is, of course, always a very subjective assessment, logically speaking, and we did try to see okay, how we might perhaps visualise this using an imaging technique, and so we used HRV – and it was actually phenomenal, the differences we could see in the interaction between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems – well, HRV doesn’t work during microcurrent treatment because we interfere with the ECG signal using the microcurrents, but at least taking a snapshot before and after and seeing the differences is incredibly fascinating. Perhaps that’s also an idea, a topic – I’m not sure if (unint.)?

00:18:10
Christian Foulds-Saupe: Yes, I can certainly confirm that; through microcurrent treatments, we manage to lower the resting heart rate and, above all – and this is absolutely crucial in competitive sport – the ability to recover, that is, how quickly the athlete can bring their heart rate back down from their maximum to a normal level, and microcurrent therapy has shown very good results in this regard – I can only recommend it to any athlete who wants to work on this aspect, naturally in conjunction with a tailored training programme, so this must be done in consultation with a coach; it’s no use carrying out micro-energy treatments for recovery whilst the coach is just giving run-of-the-mill training, like the well-known coaches of the past – Max Merkel, Werner Lorant, Werner (unidentified) – who used to train athletes to the absolute limit; that achieves nothing.

00:19:03
Dr Marco Prümmer: Yes, we’re of course measuring heart rate variability here as well, and I’m keen to see the results. I haven’t had any experience with this yet, but the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems plays a very significant role in ultimately being able to deliver top performance.

00:19:20
Christian Foulds-Saupe: I’d like to add that here at our centre, we work with Polar. We’ve chosen Polar because, with their chest straps, they’re the only company to hold medical approval – meaning their data is ECG-accurate. This means we monitor our trainees – that is, our patients as well as our athletes – using heart rate, and this is, of course, evident in the professional sphere too. In the Bundesliga, most coaches – if not all – are already working in this area with heart rate-controlled training, or load-controlled training based on heart rate.

00:19:58
LuXXaMed: To conclude, I’d like to touch on the topic of recovery once more; we once – quite a few years ago now – worked specifically with Robert Stieglitz; he was the super-middleweight boxing world champion and was looked after by a small team of sports scientists who drew up his training programme and so on, we then said, ‘Right, let’s do a test; let’s try this out’ – this was in preparation for the next world championship – and we decided to provide him with additional, independent microcurrent therapy. We didn’t change anything – the sports scientists carried on with their work and recorded the results. He treated himself every day. He personally stated that he felt he was recovering much more quickly. So this really wasn’t about injury or pain, but purely about recovery. And what the sports scientists measured, based on the (unv.) and lactate levels over the relevant period – I believe it was six or eight weeks – was that an adaptation had actually taken place in the (unv.) range with the addition of microcurrent.

00:20:59
Dr Marco Prümmer: Well, as I said, from my practical experience I can only confirm this; I cannot provide scientific evidence, but I can only pass on what I’ve heard, because this is what all the athletes, without exception, tell me. They don’t just mention my injuries, but say, “I simply feel fresher and I don’t get tired as quickly anymore.”

00:21:15
LuXXaMed: Great, well then I’d say that’s a good topic for our next podcast – perhaps to explore the whole subject in a bit more detail, looking at HRV in conjunction with microcurrent again, once we’ve got some initial empirical data on this area, so to speak. It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you very much for your time, and I’m looking forward to the next episode as an update on the topic of ‘recovery, professional sport’ – performance optimisation, that’s a brilliant term – precisely the topic of ‘performance optimisation for athletes’; that would certainly be brilliant. Well, as I said, thank you very much, and see you next time.

00:21:56
LuXXaMed Intro/Outro: That was the interview with GP Dr Marco Prümmer and physiotherapist Christian Foulds-Saupe. I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ve gained a few useful insights. There’ll certainly be another, if not several more, episodes or interviews with the two of them, because the very concept of collaboration between physiotherapists and doctors is relatively new in this specific field; in other words, I’m very keen to find out how the treatments are carried out and how microcurrent is used, particularly in their respective areas of expertise. And Christian Foulds-Saupe has, of course, been using frequency-specific microcurrent for many years now; he was trained by Dr Carolyn McMakin from the USA and, as I said, has been using this therapy for a very long time. Well then, thank you very much for tuning in to this episode and this podcast. As usual, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to us. Give us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to us, and look forward to the next instalment, the next episode. Until then – thank you very much and see you soon!

Podcast interview:

Microcurrent therapy beyond orthopaedics and sports medicine