Lebby Eyres, a long-distance rower, admits that the first time she tried working out in a gym while wearing a whole-body electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) suit, “it felt strange.”
“I got into the suit, and then trainers sprayed me with water, and strapped these things around my arms, legs and glutes (buttocks),” says the 51-year-old. “I thought to myself, ‘am I really going to be able to exercise wearing these?’
The machine’s electrical stimuli then caused me to experience the strangest sensations. Mrs. Eyres claims that even though she had only exercised for 20 minutes the day before, her muscles were as sore as they always are when she wakes up at home in London.
Doctors have traditionally employed EMS to help patients with various medical conditions, such as those recuperating from a stroke or those suffering from multiple sclerosis, regain their mobility.
In the form of a piece of apparatus known as a tens machine, it is frequently used by mothers during childbirth to attempt and relieve the pain by stimulating muscles and nerves with modest currents of electricity.
This involves the woman attaching sticky pads to her lower back and controlling the amount of electrical charge they generate with a handheld controller.
While those health applications normally concentrate on a single body part, whole-body EMS suits—which typically consist of a short-sleeved top and shorts—are currently experiencing rapid growth in popularity in the fitness and gym industries.
The theory is that by electrically stimulating your muscles, you can strengthen and exercise more quickly. Thus, a 20-minute workout can be accomplished in the same amount of time as a 90-minute workout if you weren’t wearing the body suit.
Although many of us may find this fantastical, the number of gyms that offer EMS has been growing significantly. After establishing more than 100 studios in France over the last five years, one such provider, American chain Iron BodyFit, is now expanding further in Europe.
It opened its first UK location in London last year, and over the following 12 months, it wants to open a dozen more. Feel Electric and Surge are two further EMS-focused chains that are growing in the UK.
According to one research, the global market for EMS would increase by 51% from $122 million in 2020 to $184 million in 2030 as a result of this rise.
According to Phil Horton, UK director for German company Miha Bodytec, one of the biggest producers of EMS body suits, “We are bypassing the brain.”
“We can trigger the muscle in a smarter and more efficient way compared to the way the brain would tell the muscle to move.”
The modest electrical charge, he continues, more readily penetrates deep muscle tissue. The suit is frequently misted with water to increase conductivity.
Studies on whether EMS fitness works are quite inconsistent, and even the ones that are favorable frequently use phrases like “might,” “could,” or “may.” This presents a challenge for the EMS fitness industry.
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