What Does Compex Mean?

By Kathrina Jane Tiangco Written by Kathrina Jane Tiangco
Updated on April 3, 2022

People often get confused when referring to the word Compex.  Read on and learn what does compex mean to different groups of people. 

What are the two common meanings of Compex?

Before you get confused, here are the two common meanings of compex. 

  1. CompEx Certificate

The CompEx Certificate is proof that one has passed the course and qualification in explosive environments. 

  1. Compex in fitness/health/recovery

Compex is a device professional athletes, physical trainers, trainers, and people recovering from an injury use for muscle recovery. 

What is the CompEx certificate?

Candidates who have successfully completed the Core Competencies for explosive atmospheres receive a CompEx Certificate of Core Competency for the courses in which the candidate has accomplished the required standard. 

Each CompEx Certificate of Core Competence. is valid for 5 years, unless otherwise modified to International, European and British Standards. 

Workers and professionals with a CompEx Certificate need to take a refresher course to ensure skills and knowledge are kept updated and the workers remain capable to work in explosive environments. 

 A refresher course should be taken before the expiry date to retain their CompEx Certification. 

What is the CompEx course?

Landscape Photography of Factory

Competency in Explosive atmospheres (CompEx) is an internationally recognized  training or course dealing with explosive atmospheres. 

Off-shore, onshore refining and petrochemical plants, flour mills, distilleries, and fuel forecourt  sites are some locations that can have explosive atmospheres. 

The course provides training and validation on hazardous areas specializing in equipment design, selection, installation, inspection, and maintenance. It is meant for people working in a hazardous environment to improve safety in the workplace. 

The CompEx course includes theoretical and practical assessments based on the IEC 60079 Parts 14 & 17 standards. The course is divided into 12 sections. Each section covers a different phase of operating in a hazardous environment. 

Is CompEx course hard?

The CompEx course can be tough and challenging. The 5-day course crams in a lot of theoretical and practical applications. It will help anyone swift through the course if he is already involved in designing hazardous areas.   

How does Compex Work? 

Compex is a muscle stimulation device often used for pain relief, to enhance muscle strength, and to enhance muscle strength after surgery or injury. It can also be used by people recovering from neurological conditions and athletes who want to improve their performance. 

The compex device works by stimulating the nervous system (brain, spinal cord, nerves) and telling muscles to contract. Your motor nerves help you contract and move your muscles and your sensory nerves help you feel pressure and temperature. 

When you want to contract a muscle, an electric signal allows your brain to send a message to your nerve fibers. Your muscle fibers receive the signal and the stimulus will make them contract. 

A compex muscle stimulation device works similarly. The device uses electrical impulses to stimulate your nerves so they can transmit signals to your muscle fibers. When your muscle fibers are stimulated, your muscles will contract. 

The compex device stimulates your motor nerves to allow muscle contractions to improve the performance of your muscles (electrical muscle stimulation / EMS). 

The compex device can also stimulate your sensory nerves with the goal of reducing pain (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation / TENS).

Compex for Recovery Programs

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A compex device allows you to get into several compex for recovery programs including: 

  • Active Recovery. This program is ideal to use when you want to flush out lactic acid to prevent delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). 
  • Massage Program. This program aims at relaxing your muscles allowing the delivery of better blood flow to your muscles and thereby relieving soreness. 
  • Recovery Program. This program combines active recovery and massage programs. It allows for better endorphin release and blood circulation. 
  • Resistance Program. An ideal all-around program that targets your overall muscle strength . This program should be done before any strength programs. 
  • Endurance Programs. Of all strength programs with the compex device, this program takes the longest time to do.  This program trains your muscles for long-duration programs. 
  • Explosive Strength. This program trains your muscles for powerful and quick movement such as box jumps or sprints in short durations. As the load of the programs increase, rest increases, too, giving your muscles an opportunity for a full recovery. 
  • Strength Program. This program enhances your overall muscle strength. It trains your muscles to work at high intensity, on to completely recover,  and get back to high intensity. It aims to increase the frequency and rest periods at every level of the program. 

Recovery is simple and easy when you use a compex muscle stimulation device. The different levels of compex recovery and training programs have corresponding escalations in Hertz or Frequency, measured in impulses per second, determining a variation in stimulus types. 

It is important to allow your muscle mass to adjust to each level of the compex recovery programs, as well as to the expected morphological and physiological adjustments that can take place.