I Sing the Muscle Electric by Jerry Brainum 4/26

 

 

Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) involves being hooked up to a machine that sends electrical impulses to muscles, activating muscle fibers. EMS has been a staple of physical therapy for years, offering the key advantage of triggering involuntary muscle contractions — making it especially valuable for patients who cannot contract muscles on their own. A common example is a person with an immobilized limb, such as after a bone fracture. Without regular contractions, an immobilized muscle will atrophy. By placing electrodes on the skin over the target muscle, therapists use EMS to deliver a controlled electrical current that contracts the muscle and preserves its tone — even when the patient cannot move the limb. This same mechanism also accelerates recovery from injury by promoting circulation and preventing muscular deterioration.

The notion that EMS could contribute to increased muscular size and strength was first proposed by Soviet sports scientists in the late 1970s, who published studies claiming that EMS enhanced muscle and strength gains more effectively than exercise alone — reporting strength increases of up to 30% over conventional training methods in elite athletes. As a result, athletes from the Soviet Union and East Germany regularly incorporated EMS machines into their competition preparation and injury rehabilitation programs. Not long after the Soviets disclosed their use of EMS, a few bodybuilders began experimenting with the technology. One was Mike Mentzer — winner of the Mr. America and Mr. Universe titles, a noted proponent of high-intensity resistance training, and a top professional competitor. Mentzer first encountered EMS while working as a physical therapy assistant, which led him to seek out Soviet research on its athletic applications. In conversations with Mentzer about his experiences, he credited EMS with contributing to his muscle and strength gains, while maintaining that it functioned best as an adjunct to — rather than a replacement for — traditional resistance training.

While EMS found serious applications in elite sport and physical therapy, it also found a far less rigorous audience. The appeal of passive exercise — the promise of results comparable to or better than traditional training, with minimal effort — has long been compelling to the general public. In the 1980s, late-night infomercials promoted EMS devices as a shortcut to sculpted abdominal muscles, often claiming that a brief session equaled thousands of repetitions of traditional abdominal exercises, a notion rooted in the powerful muscle contractions the machines can produce. What those commercials overlooked, however, was that fat loss depends far more on a caloric deficit than on exercise alone. EMS machines, like conventional exercise, can strengthen the abdominal muscles — but without a calorie- and carbohydrate-controlled diet, visible fat loss will be negligible. This same misconception persists today. Longevity advocate Bryan Johnson, who describes his goal as living to 200, recently posted a video demonstrating his EMS abdominal training, claiming the device produced the equivalent of 22,000 sit-ups in a matter of minutes. The basis for that figure is unclear — but the more . . .