WTF?? anyone used anything like this? whats the verdict?

[PTinCHCH]

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Sports/Exercis ... 518602.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical ... timulation

Electrical muscle stimulation devices (EMS) have been advertised to increase muscle strength, to decrease body weight and body fat, and to improve muscle firmness and tone in healthy individuals. :?

[nate225]

These were advertised like crazy about 20 years ago! Some rehab functions I believe (seem to recall physio's having similar machines along with TENS).

Might be worth a play in conmjunction with resistance training, I had wondered if squatting on a vibratrain might be of use in terms of recruitment???

[Peachy]

Apparantly tests and stuff have shown that the muscle doesn't fatigue as quickly when stimulated by the electrode thingy than when stimulated by the nervous system. Makes you wonder if muscle fatigue is actually from the brain.

[PTinCHCH]

Apparantly tests and stuff have shown that the muscle doesn't fatigue as quickly when stimulated by the electrode thingy than when stimulated by the nervous system. Makes you wonder if muscle fatigue is actually from the brain.

awesome.

the brain gets tired so tells the muscles they are.

love it.

[HumanPerformance]

As nate225 stated these things were "the latest thing" around 20 years ago. Everyone had one (i even had one myself). They heve actually been around for 40 years as one of the first athletes to experiment with them was Bruce Lee. Loads of research was done on them and some studies showed that it increased strength as much as regular weight training. But in all the studies they did none were found to increase muscle size at all and one even showed that it lead to muscle loss! My friends and I used them for a few months (along with regular training) and never noticed any benefit, so stopped using it.

[ThePman]

Electrostim stuff is good for several purposes, mainly as a way to stimulate the muscles in between workouts as a restorative method, but apparently there's some use for it as a training method in itself. There's a whole big section on it in Supertraining, which I haven't read in quite awhile, but Siff spoke favorably of the idea as long as it was used properly.

Makes you wonder if muscle fatigue is actually from the brain.

Oh much more than you know.

[rose]

Apparantly tests and stuff have shown that the muscle doesn't fatigue as quickly when stimulated by the electrode thingy than when stimulated by the nervous system. Makes you wonder if muscle fatigue is actually from the brain.

I understood this was the rationale behind using tyrosine in pre-workout supps, and why it's best to avoid foods high in tryptophan pre-training (as it has the reverse effect).

Tyrosine

[ThePman]

Any stimulant will tend to positively affect exercise performance (at least on low-skill stuff, like lifting a heavy thing or keeping up endurance), by messing w/ dopamine and norepinephrine levels (which both govern motor output and fatigue, along w/ peripheral SNS activity like HR and such).

Tyrosine is an NE precursor, caffeine increases NE levels, etc etc.

[rose]

Yep, that was my understanding.