Pump all your muscles in 30 minutes: How I tried EMS workouts
My fitness regime includes about six workouts per week: Thai boxing, yoga, running and functional training with its own weight. All this gives a satisfactory effect, but dinners at three o'clock in the morning and a nagging pain in the body because of the sedentary work has not been canceled. In search of new sporting sensations, I visited the site of the EMC training studio several times, and each time I was discouraged by photos of people in retro-futuristic costumes, frozen by the simulator in a half-ride. Their wild smiles, the phrase "fitness of the future" and even the design of the site itself caused skepticism, but I decided to test the new method in practice.
The effect does not depend on the applied efforts, but on the trainer's knowledge of biomechanics, the correct body position, frequency, depth and strength of the impulses received from the simulator
EMC workouts are different from a regular gym trip. During classes, exercises are accompanied by electromyostimulation — current pulses in order to reduce muscle fibers and increase the tone of the entire body. Their innovativeness is questionable for several reasons. Firstly, in electrical muscle stimulation, when the current is transferred from the myostimulator to the human body through electrodes, there is nothing innovative. In the 1960s, Soviet scientists began to use it for the rehabilitation of astronauts, whose muscles atrophied during space flights. In the 1970s, the Germans had already used the method in physiotherapy and accelerated recovery of athletes: the players of the Munich club “Bavaria” use it to this day.
Secondly, I don’t understand why a healthy person should bash the body with electrodes if it is possible to run ten kilometers. But they tried to make her curiosity and the story of her friend. She didn’t play sports for about a year, and after a couple of 30-minute EMC workouts she noticed tightened skin and muscle tone. Another factor in favor of EMC was that among categorical contraindications to classes on this simulator, only a prosthetic in the heart (if you have cardiologic diseases or a pacemaker is installed, you need to consult a doctor) and pregnancy - and that is because no one else He did not dare to conduct research in this area. That is, even if electrical stimulation does not benefit, it certainly does not hurt.
I came to the training session on Sunday, having a good drink on weekends - frankly, not the best solution. You only need to have socks and sneakers with you - everything else, namely disposable pants and completely clean - but not disposable - a black cotton breeches suit and long-sleeved T-shirts are issued on the spot. I change clothes, I warn the trainer named Peter about the two-day repetition and stand on the scales, measuring the level of metabolism and the ratio of water, fat and muscle mass in the body. Peter promises that the impulses from the simulator will accelerate blood circulation and the removal of alcohol from the body. Scales estimate my metabolism for twelve years, they report that in the body there are seventeen percent of fat and too much water - as much as sixty percent.
Peter leads me to the mirror and notes that with a general thinness I have a swollen stomach and sides, and also there is "excess fat" in the area of the triceps and the inside of the thighs. According to him, if one EMC training per week is added to my sports schedule, these “problems” can be solved in two months. In general, trainings are recommended to attend twice a week (the break between them should be at least 48 hours) and to add an electrostimulating massage. 30-40 minutes of EMC workouts are 5-6 hours of full-time work in the gym, but do not replace it. The simulator stimulates muscles, their contraction and growth, but for proper motility, coordination, heart, joints and the hormonal system, traditional physical activity is necessary.
In the gym you need to go out of your comfort zone, in the EMC-training studio you should stay in it. The effect does not depend on the applied efforts, but on the trainer's knowledge of biomechanics, the correct body position, as well as the frequency, depth and strength of the impulses received from the simulator. Since the signal is sent to the muscles is not the nervous system, but the apparatus, there is no need to jump above the head. If you substitute the body for impulses, like a surfboard for waves, antagonists, protagonists, stabilizers and internal muscles - for example, the vagina - are used at the same time, which are difficult to work out on your own. There are several types of EMC simulators in the world. The most common ones are the German company Miha Bodytec, which was the first to use electrostimulation for widespread use for fitness purposes and continues to develop direction, and the Hungarian X-body, in which I was engaged. Both are represented in the studio: Miha Bodytec is used for massages and rehabilitation after injuries, X-body - for training. The difference lies in the depth and strength of the impulses they produce, but for fitness purposes it is not critical.
Wearing a suit from a vest, sleeves and overlays, sprinkled with warm water for better impulse permeability, I usually expect to jump, crouch and lunges. The day before I watched a video on youtube with Useyn Bolt, connected to the EMC simulator, the world's fastest sprinter, who easily and quickly makes curls on a press, and thought that I would behave as well. The fifteen minute cardio stage begins. The trainer, asking about my feelings, exposes the power of the pulses in the zones - from the buttocks to the trapezium. I bravely ask you to increase the power, but when, after a minute of adaptation, you need to sit on the exercise bike and just pedal, it does not work out easily and quickly.
It does not hurt me and not as hard as running ten kilometers, but the internal vibration in the body and the realization that the muscles work, and I do not, knock out rut. All this is ridiculous and so strange that it is even difficult for me to speak, and when the trainer intensifies the impulses in the buttocks zone and they get bruised, I just start screaming. Cardio is followed by ten minutes of deep muscle work. I lay on the floor, round my hands in the first ballet position and hold my fingers on the wooden ring. I do not move, but the electricity, which comes in short pulses with a break of a few seconds, causes the buttocks to rise, the muscles of the perineum to contract, and the spine to stretch. I get tired in the fifth minute and even begin to sweat, and my back muscles squeezed from boxing relax as if after a massage.
I do not move, but the electricity causes the buttocks to rise, the muscles of the perineum to shrink, and the spine to stretch.
Then fifteen minutes of interval pulses. This stage of training is divided into the power and functional part. It includes work both in statics and in dynamics - if the available driving speed can be called that. I start with outrageously slow squats, lunges and rolls from one foot to the other. Then the trainer asks me to imitate punches and kicks, which I usually perform in Thai boxing, but things don’t go further: the body does not obey, and I curl the letter “Z”. Then I take a wooden stick in my hands and do extensions for biceps and triceps. A pair of too active movements reveals the meaning of the words “stay in the comfort zone”: the hands cease to move at all. At the end of this phase, fatigue of a particular kind is felt. Bored with the movement, as feeble, to listen to the body, so as not to miss the insufficient (or excessive) power impact on a particular zone, and just want to run in a free mode. From this possibility, I am separated by the last phase, called the “gap”. The body is in a static position for a minute and is subjected to a continuous pulse with increasing power. This is done in order to evenly distribute the load, and gives a charge of energy.
In the final I have a wet T-shirt, the suit is less tight, some of the swelling from alcohol has gone, and my mood has improved, but there is no emotional satisfaction that gives me an hour of running or doing Thai boxing. Despite the pleasant effect, it is difficult for me to call what happened training. Rather, this manipulation is akin to a massage, which is useful to use from time to time to keep fit and work out those muscles that cannot be used otherwise. Electrostimulation is a godsend for those for whom motor activity is contraindicated. Muscles actually come to tone in just ten minutes, but sports excitement, endurance, and endorphins are best sought in those loads where they are commanded by the brain, not the apparatus.
Photo: Personal archive
