James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

I’ve tried a lot of strange workouts in the name of science, but there was no experience quite like seeing myself in an EMS suit for the first time. It’s all black, with straps and buckles everywhere. A long wire is about to connect me to a computer. I feel like I’m suiting up to operate a spaceship or a giant robot. Instead, I’m about to do lunges and pushups while being told that I’m getting a much better workout than those suckers who just go to a regular gym.

To try it out for myself, I accepted an offer of a free session at BODY20, a growing chain of EMS fitness studios. Its workouts are pricey, at $40 to $100 per session, depending on where the studio is located and what kind of membership you sign up for.

So, is an EMS workout any better than the regular thing? Probably not. (We’ll get into the details in a minute.) But after seeing myself in the mirror, I kind of get the appeal.

What is EMS? 

Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) workouts are having a moment—not for the first time, and probably not for the last—based on their futuristic vibes and the fitness industry’s constant quest to sell you newer, cooler workouts than what everyone else is doing. 

Electrical muscle stimulation is a family of techniques and technologies that trigger your muscles to contract by passing a mild electric current through your body. You may be familiar with some of the other uses of passing electric current through your body for health and fitness purposes, so I’ll describe them for comparison.

If you’ve used a TENS machine for pain relief, you know one type. You’ll put sticky electrodes on your skin, and turn on a handheld machine that’s connected to them by wires. TENS uses a mild current that feels like tingling, but it doesn’t make your muscles twitch or contract. The idea is that the tingling feeling interferes with pain signals. TENS stands for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, meaning that the electrical current crosses the skin and the sensation is picked up by your nerves, but it’s not designed to contract muscles. 

.

Credit: Shendelle Gleim

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

.

__________________________________________