What is electrical muscle stimulation, exactly?

If you've ever visited physical therapy, you may have experienced EMS or "e-stim" to simply help loosen your tight muscles to allow them to recover. When used therapeutically, these devices are made to stimulate nerves that make muscles contract, ultimately relaxing and loosening any tight spots.

You can find actually plenty of the pain-alleviating devices available non-prescription and online (also called TENS — transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation units), that will run you around $200. But, again, they're made to work with a specific area, not your entire body, and are generally used under professional supervision. Although these devices are generally "safe and simple to use," with them during a workout is not advised and, if anything, should only be brought out "for pain-relief effects after having a workout," recommends Fulop.

Okay, just how is that different than an EMS workout?
Instead of concentrating on a specific body part as you'd do in physical therapy, during an EMS workout, electrical stimulation is normally delivered to larger areas of the human body with a suit, vest, and/or shorts. As you exercise (which is already engaging your muscles), the electrical impulses force muscle tissue to contract, that might result in more muscle recruitment, says Dircksen.

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

So, does EMS workout training work?

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

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

"By actively participating within an EMS workout class (rather than sitting and passively letting the e-stim activate your muscles), you're obtaining a good workout in, that is chock-full of health advantages," says Dircksen. Provided that you don't overload, this escalation in muscle engagement could end in strength gains. (

The Biggest Mental and Physical Benefits of Working Out
If you use e-stim in tandem with movement and weight, parts of your muscles should get more powerful than in the event that you did the moves alone, according to some research. In a 2016 study, individuals who did a six-week squat program with EMS had greater strength improvements compared to those who didn't use EMS.

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