| A Jolt with No Juice |
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| by Diet Detective Editorial Staff | |
| Sunday, 02 July 2006 | |
The companies that sell electrical stimulation machines say you can
build muscle while lying around and watching TV. Nothing’s shocking
about the truth in that claim, because there isn’t any.You may have seen them advertised on infomercials or in the back of bodybuilding magazines: machines that are supposed to use electrical current to build your muscles while you just lie there. And while you might just lie there and maybe even give yourself a little jolt, it should come as no shock that the whole thing is a waste of your time and money. Electrical stimulation is a useful physical-therapy tool, but using it instead of actual exercise to build muscle will not work. An American Council on Exercise study produced essentially the same conclusion. In the study, 29 college-age volunteers (including 12 in a control group) underwent electrical stimulation three times a week for eight weeks. None experienced "significant changes in weight, body-fat percentage, strength or overall appearance." The fact that electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) is standard equipment in physical therapists' offices might give credence to manufacturers' muscle-building claims. But for therapists, EMS (aka stim) is an anti-inflammatory, not a body builder. They use it to increase blood flow to the injured area to help it heal and decrease recovery time. Otherwise you increase the chances of permanent damage: scar-tissue buildup, arthritis and decreased range of motion, which all add up to pain. EMS makers say their machines force muscles to contract and relax more often than you could flex them yourself. But they leave out three important considerations. One, Using stim to cause an isometric contraction cuts out the signal from the brain to the muscle. You lose that mind-muscle connection because the machine and not your mind is telling the muscle to move. So even if you could get rock-hard abs, you wouldn't have the coordination to use them effectively, which increases your risk of injury. Two, you're not strengthening the muscle through the full range of motion, because there is no motion. Without that, you'll never see the size gains you would with traditional weight lifting. Three, you need to lower your body fat to gain muscle definition. EMS might make your fat jiggle, but the only thing that will make it go away is aerobic exercise. You have to burn calories to lose body fat, and EMS won't do that. The only thing that will is regular exercise that increases your heart rate." Bookmark:            Trackback(0)
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 02 July 2006 ) |
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