What is Electrical Muscle Stimulation and what are the benefits?
Electro Stimulation in the fitness industry is the new revolutionary method of training that is creating a sensation across Europe: in just a 20 minute session of intense training you work your entire body and it is the perfect complement to the gym or outdoor workouts. But how does it work? We will explain what happens in your body and the benefits…
Where does Electrical Muscle Stimulation come from?
Electro Stimulation is not in fact all that new! It has long been used in the field of physiotherapy, both for rehabilitation after injuries and readapting to regular exercise. Imagine that you had to wear a cast on your leg for several months; it would prevent you from exercising. You would certainly lose some strength in your muscles and afterwards, would need to rebuild the strength.
Well, that is why electro stimulation is useful: it generates electrical impulses that cause your muscles to work passively.
Electro stimulation in physiotherapy, applied to a single muscle group – for example rebuilding muscles in your leg – electrodes are applied in some key points on your leg to reach the electrical pulse sent by the machine, and the muscles would work without moving.
How EMS Fitness Norwich use the Electrical Muscle Stimulation?
When we apply the Electro Stimulation into fitness training or into a full body workout, we are applying the same method to different parts of your body at the same time. The Electro Stimulator vest has electrodes which target different body parts: pectorals, abdominals, high, middle and lower back. Also, we include straps around your arms, legs and buttocks to stimulate all big muscle groups in your body.
When we want to make a movement, our brain sends a message to our muscle: this message travels around our nervous system as an electrical impulse until your muscle, where the fibres receive the message and make the movement. By using the Electro Stimulation it bypasses this message having to be sent and forces the muscle to move: the message or electrical stimulus has been sent form the machine and arrives directly to your muscle, this is what we call “passive training”.
But… Am I working out while I wear the Stimulation vest?
YES, because what we aim to do in the Electro Stimulation session is to combine ‘passive training’ we get using the EMS machine and ‘active training’, that we make ourselves. At the same time that our muscles get stimulated from the machine, we also want to make our muscles work voluntarily. It is in combining these two methods of training we create a doubly intense workout and that is why the sessions are only 20 minutes long.
Now you know how electro stimulation works, do you want to try it?
Visit out website: EMS Fitness Norwich