Our fitness guru, Rob Tynan, breaks down EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation).
Fitness Apps and Fitness Cheats are en vogue.
With easy access to fitness tips on social media platforms (like Instagram) people follow their celeb heroes and mimic their workouts.
There are pros and cons to this (mainly cons!).
The big issue is that due to all of us having different body shapes, it is difficult to follow the routine of another and expect the same results.
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There are some good fitness apps out there with strong visuals displaying the exercises modelling good form.
However, once again it can be really difficult for a person to develop good technique in every exercise without the assistance of an expert and the bummer is its much easier to learn bad techniques than it is to learn correct techniques.
Genuinely fast fitness is on the rise; with the average person having less and less ‘me time’ the idea of a fast cheat i.e. training for less time and achieving the same results appeals to the majority.
The best ‘cheat’ (cheat in time but still hard work) that is also a rising trend is Electronic Muscle Stimulation (EMS) or Body Tec!
The real life science behind this trend lies in what the experts say “If you move better, with all your muscles activating ata greater level, you will naturally find your leaner stronger self”.
Allow me to break down the reason EMS is so successful.
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Firstly, we know that to move our brain sends signals to activate the muscles of our body. As we develop in life we pick up some negative habits.
For instance sitting for excessive amounts of time at a desk, sloughing in front of our laptops, cranking our necks to stare at our phones and so on.
So what does the brain do? Our brains are on auto pilot more than we realise.
As these movement patterns (of static positions) become ingrained in our everyday lifestyle, our brain naturally tries to become better at these eventually harmful habits.
The brain makes our bodies more efficient at these things.
Our brains and bodies combine to turn off the signals to the areas that we seem not to need as much, causing havoc.
For instance, your supportive posterior muscles end up with less electricity than the dominant frontal anterior muscles, pulling us forward into a C shape much like our lovable friend Quasi Modo!
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Applying an external brain, in other words an external stimulus direct to the muscles while we do a routine and BOOM we open up the signals and turn back on these posterior chain muscles.
Allowing more efficient movement and burning more calories in the process.
Electronic Muscle Stimulation can activate the entire body simultaneously, with Ultimate Body Tec and Miha Body Tec Technology the pulses can be directed to the areas most needed!
EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation) The Science part:
Electrical impulses generate action potential (AP) on the motor neurons.
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As a reaction to this action potential the muscle fibres belonging to the motor units of the stimulated motoneurons generate a motion response, this motion is called twitching.
When various body parts simultaneously produce this high frequency twitching a very high intensity muscular contraction can be achieved (Muscle Activation).
Adding localized and specifically sequenced movement routines to this equation helps the body open up faster gateways through the neurological pathways and allowing the practitioner to aesthetically move the way we should move.
It’s a cheat in that 2 sessions for 20 minutes per week is saving you 4 hours of training in the gym with visible results in 6 to 8 weeks.
However it is not a cheat in the sense that you still have to work hard for those 2 x 20 minute sessions. It saves masses of time but done correctly it is still a tough workout!
Robert is the founder of Fitness Adventure Travel – The healthy holiday company, which focuses on the fun in fitness. More recently Rob has launched a series of micro studios called Ultimate Bodytec these studios are movement clinics that utilise Electronic Muscle Stimulation.