Can muscles be “electrified” without exercise?

Passive exercise can never have the pleasure of active exercise. Exercise can promote the secretion of adrenaline and dopamine. When people are in active exercise, their sympathetic nerves are abnormally excited, which will produce a sense of pleasure that is addictive.

Is it really possible to build muscle without exercising?

What is electrical muscle stimulation

“Relax and breathe carefully. Yes, relax and breathe carefully…”

Put on a Batman-like tights, connect the electrodes, 1, 2, 3, a simple “crunch” exercise, the reporter “trapped” in the EMS (Electro Muscle Stimulation) equipment was already exhausted before the fifth one – I just felt that my body was not my own from some set of movements. After 20 minutes, I was already sweating profusely.

In the following few days, the “aftereffects” of EMS fitness came – muscle aches all over the body. The feeling was almost exactly the same as “not having exercised for a long time and suddenly having a strong workout”, and it completely disappeared after four or five days.

“The whole-body EMS fitness model uses special equipment to comprehensively and specifically train 90% of the body’s muscle groups simultaneously. The muscles and activities can be increased from 30% to 50% in traditional strength training to 90%. So only 20 minutes of EMS fitness, plus 10 minutes of stretching and relaxation, can meet a week’s training needs.

“EMS” should literally mean “electrical muscle stimulation“. EMS fitness can simulate the brain’s electrical signals and use low-frequency electrical pulses to stimulate muscle contraction, thereby making up for the “inertia defects” of the brain and nerves.

EMS technology has a history of hundreds of years, and the EU and the United States have approved its application in fitness and physical therapy rehabilitation. However, this whole-body EMS fitness has only become popular recently. “It is not only suitable for professional athletes, but also for the general public. Especially for those who are not suitable for traditional fitness methods, such as some people with back and joint problems.”

The hot discussion about “EMS” is mainly due to the launch of SIXPAD, an abdominal fitness device owned by Japan’s MTG company, which attracted a group of young sports enthusiasts. Since then, domestic brands have also launched this technology and sold it on online platforms.

For these products, soreness is commonly mentioned in user experience, but there are doubts about whether they can really improve strength.

Mainly used for relaxation and recovery

There are many factors that affect muscle strength, the main ones being myogenic factors and neurogenic factors. Myogenic factors are mainly concentrated in muscle cross-sectional area, muscle fiber type, initial length and joint angle; while neurogenic factors are mainly concentrated in central activation, central nervous system coordination and control over muscle activity and the excitement state of the central nervous system. In other words, the generation of muscle strength depends largely on the intensity, frequency and level of nerve impulses transmitted from the central nervous system.

For this reason, athletes who have trained for many years want to further improve their muscle strength by increasing the intensity, changing the stimulation method, and further increasing the frequency of nerve activation. Among them, functional electrical stimulation is an auxiliary means, which uses electric current of a certain frequency and intensity to induce muscle contraction to increase muscle strength.

Experiments have shown that electrical stimulation, traditional strength training, and traditional combined electrical stimulation can all increase strength, but traditional combined electrical stimulation training has the best effect, followed by traditional strength training, and finally electrical stimulation training. Therefore, in theory, muscle electrical stimulation can indeed help grow muscles.

However, Experts observed that this technology is not commonly used in athlete training practices, and coaches believe that its effect is not obvious.

in fact, this technology is mainly used for rehabilitation and relaxation of people with limited motor function, and electromyographic stimulation can prevent muscle atrophy and functional degeneration. If it is used for training, it requires appropriate electrical stimulation frequency and time, and the control is very complicated. If you want to effectively increase muscle strength, electrical stimulation may cause burns to athletes, which has certain risks.

However, he also pointed out that for ordinary people, if they never do physical exercise, especially strength training, feeling sore after using electromyography stimulation means that the muscles have over-contracted, which is similar to the effect of excessive training, and they may grow muscles to a certain extent.

The embarrassment of passive exercise

However, in the final analysis, “EMS” is essentially a passive exercise and is not highly regarded by professional athletes. The embarrassment of passive exercise is that when it becomes a lazy exercise, its effect is often very limited.

weight loss or body shaping, it is impossible to achieve ideal results if you give up diet control and planning as well as sustainable aerobic and strength training.

The most typical passive exercise equipment in recent years is the vibration slimming machine. Take the vibration swing machine for example. This swing machine is designed to look like a small skateboard. As long as people stand on it, it will shake slightly, allowing the user’s body to move up and down, left and right in all directions. It vibrates more than 30,000 times in 5 minutes, which can lose fat and burn calories.

In fact, its principle is also to stimulate muscle contraction through vibration, which mainly plays a role of relaxation and massage, and does not consume energy. The weight loss principle of the fat-shaking machine may reduce the size of fat cells and the gaps between them.

long-term high-frequency vibration may not only cause dizziness, but may also seriously damage the joints and spine of the human body.

Likewise, repeated stimulation of muscles through “EMS” technology can make them stronger within a certain range, but it cannot truly change muscle shape without additional planned diet and training.

In addition, passive exercise can never have the pleasure of active exercise. Exercise can promote the secretion of adrenaline and dopamine. When people are in active exercise, their sympathetic nerves are abnormally excited, which will produce a sense of pleasure that is addictive.

Conclusion

people who have higher requirements for fitness can use some passive exercise equipment as auxiliary means to improve the exercise effect to a certain extent. However, for those who try to use them to completely replace active exercise and cannot control their diet, it will always be futile.