What is electrical muscle stimulation, exactly?

If you've ever attended physical therapy, you could have experienced EMS or "e-stim" to greatly help loosen your tight muscles for them to recover. When used therapeutically, these devices are designed to stimulate nerves which make muscles contract, ultimately relaxing and loosening any tight spots.

There are actually plenty of these pain-alleviating devices available over-the-counter and online (also called TENS — transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation units), which will run you around $200. But, again, they're designed to work with a specific area, not your system, and are typically used under professional supervision. Although these units are usually "safe and user friendly," using them throughout a workout isn't advised and, if anything, should only be introduced "for pain-relief effects following a workout," recommends Fulop.

Okay, just how is that different than an EMS workout?
Instead of focusing on a particular body part as you'd do in physical therapy, during an EMS workout, electrical stimulation is usually delivered to larger regions of the human body using a suit, vest, and/or shorts. As you exercise (which is engaging your muscles), the electrical impulses force muscle tissue to contract, which may bring about more muscle recruitment, says Dircksen.

It might sound simple enough, but it's no walk in the park. As the pulse actually acts as resistance, the movements feel much harder and make you fatigued much faster. Just as with other training, you may be sore: Overall, how sore you are after EMS training depends upon multiple factors, including the "intensity of the task, the weight used, the quantity of time, simply how much eccentric load was done, and if any of the movements were done in new ranges," says Dircksen.

So, does EMS workout training work?

When exercising normally, neurotransmitters in the brain tell muscle tissue (and the fibers within them) to activate and engage to be able to perform each movement. With time, consequently of factors such as for example injury, overtraining, and poor recovery, muscular imbalances can occur and limit your muscle fibers' activation during moves when they will normally be recruited. (See: How to Activate Underused Glutes aka Dead Butt Syndrome for a typical example of how this will play out IRL.)

However, when pulseperformancestudio EMS is put into the equation, you're in a position to call upon more muscle fibers (including those that have remained dormant). To be safe — which means you don't overdo it and risk muscle, tendon, or ligament tears — opt for "the minimal effective dose. Meaning, once you obtain a muscle contraction from the stim, that is enough," says Dircksen.

"By actively participating in an EMS workout class (rather than sitting and passively letting the e-stim activate your muscles), you're finding a good workout in, which will be chock-full of health benefits," says Dircksen. So long as you don't exaggerate, this upsurge in muscle engagement could end up in strength gains. (

The Biggest Mental and Physical Great things about Working Out
If you are using e-stim in tandem with movement and weight, muscle tissue should get more powerful than if you did the moves alone, according to some research. In a 2016 study, those who did a six-week squat program with EMS had greater strength improvements in comparison to those that didn't use EMS.

So yes, the thought of EMS workouts seems to make sense, and, yes, some studies do support claims of boosted strength. However, research (of which there is very little) ranges in sample size, demographics, and findings. Case in point: A 2019 review of e-stim research actually found it absolutely was impossible to produce any conclusions on EMS training's effects.