Empower Your Fitness Journey: Unlocking Muscle Growth Through Electrical Muscle Stimulation Training!

Staying fit, healthy, and in shape is a dream that everyone wishes to achieve. But with a busy and fast-paced lifestyle, finding time for regular exercise can be a challenge. However, with the development of technology, new ways of achieving fitness and wellness are emerging every day. One of the latest and most promising options is the use of electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) devices. These devices aid muscle contraction by sending electric impulses to the body.

Body Reform Fitness, located in sunny Sarasota, FL, is the ultimate destination for fitness enthusiasts looking to take their workouts to the next level. Specializing in Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) workouts, this cutting-edge fitness center has developed unique programming that harnesses the power of EMS to help clients achieve their fitness goals.

In this blog, I'll direct my attention solely to how EMS can be an excellent tool for adding lean muscle. We'll explore the ways and techniques our studio implements to achieve this goal. We won't be discussing other important factors like nutrition, sleep, recovery, and supplements in this post, but don't worry, we'll save those juicy topics for another day. Assuming you've already covered all those bases, let's jump right into the last and vital aspect of muscle building: working out. Here, our focus will be on the technology itself and its game-changing potential in the muscle-building department.

• Enhancing our ability to monitor and evaluate muscle hypertrophy.

Body Reform Fitness is leading the way in utilizing EMS to promote muscle hypertrophy.  At Body Reform Fitness, we don't rely on guesswork. Utilizing state-of-the-art scanning technology, each client's body fat percentage, muscle mass and measurements are accurately assessed. This initial scan serves as a baseline for their fitness journey, allowing for progress to be tracked effectively. Approximately every four weeks, clients undergo follow-up scans to measure any changes that may have occurred - and believe us, the results are nothing short of impressive.

• Why is muscle hypertrophy such a crucial aspect of fitness, and should it be prioritized?

It is my belief that prioritizing muscle growth and combatting sarcopenia should be the top goal during training. Sarcopenia, which refers to age-related muscle loss, is an inevitable consequence of aging. Once we reach the age of 30, we typically experience a decline in muscle mass between 3% to 6% per decade. This decline becomes even more pronounced after turning 60 years old. Having less muscle mass leads to increased weakness and decreased mobility, elevating the risk of falls and fractures. According to a 2015 report by the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, individuals with sarcopenia face a 2.3 times higher risk of low-trauma fractures caused by falls, such as those involving the hip, collarbone, leg, arm, or wrist.

• Research on Electrical Muscle Stimulation and muscle hypertrophy and strength.

This provided study outlines the benefits of functional electrical stimulation (FES) and other exercises for individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI). FES has been found beneficial in increasing muscle mass, promoting muscle hypertrophy, and increasing lean mass in SCI patients. The therapy also showed positive effects on skeletal muscle blood flow. On average, the muscle cross-sectional area increased by 26%, and changes in lean mass ranged from -4% to 35%.

This research paper concludes that percutaneous electrical stimulation (PES) can enhance muscle contractile qualities under isometric and dynamic conditions in healthy subjects. The study acknowledges that the improvements observed vary due to differences in experimental procedures such as stimulation methods, training and testing protocols, pretraining status, and individual variations. The study suggests that PES can stimulate fast-twitch fibers preferentially and provide more intense muscle contractions, leading to greater adaptive responses than voluntary training. This can be particularly beneficial when PES is applied during eccentric muscular actions, potentially increasing torque by an average of 21–24% above the voluntary level. From a practical standpoint, PES training could be beneficial for muscle groups with a higher proportion of fast motor units on their surface. The study suggests that PES could be a valuable addition to voluntary training because it causes unconventional spatial recruitment of motor units, increases metabolic demand, provides more intense muscle-specific tension during eccentric actions, and allows athletes to practice with their changed neuromuscular system.

• To Fail and not to Fail?

To begin, let us delve into some research to determine whether muscle hypertrophy can solely be attained through reaching the point of failure (The point of failure in a workout refers to the moment during an exercise when your muscles are so fatigued that they can no longer complete the current repetition with proper form) or if alternative methods exist.

This research investigates the effects of resistance training to muscle failure with high-load (HL-RF) and non-failure with high-load (HL-RNF) on muscle hypertrophy, strength, and activation in trained individuals. The study found that both HL-RF and HL-RNF are similarly effective in promoting increases in muscle mass, pennation angle (PA), fascicle length (FL), strength, and muscle activation. Both protocols resulted in significant and similar increases in muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), with no significant differences in electromyographic signal (EMG) amplitude between HL-RF and HL-RNF protocols. This suggests that muscle activation can be maximized without reaching muscle failure, even in trained individuals. Additionally, HL-RF and HL-RNF protocols led to significant and similar increases in leg press and leg extension 1-repetition maximum (1-RM) loads. These findings suggest that both RHL-RF and HL-RNF protocols have potential benefits for trained individuals in terms of muscle hypertrophy and strength gains. Results also showed that 1-repetition maximum (1-RM) changes were significantly higher for HL-RF and HL-RNF in the post-test when compared with the repetitions to failure with low load LL-RF and repetitions with not to failure with low load LL-RNF protocols.

So, if a client is aiming to gain muscles using EMS, they must be prepared to put in a considerable amount of effort, much like during a traditional strength training session. In both scenarios, the muscle must be subjected to significant stress in order to stimulate growth.

• Intensity

It is clearly apparent that intensity matters, that's why some of our muscle-building programs emphasize reaching muscle failure during the final sets of the workout, pushing the muscle fibers to their limits. This approach mirrors the effects of traditional muscle lifting and going to failure principle, ensuring that muscle growth is not compromised. To promote muscle growth, it is crucial for trainers to guide their clients on implementing an effective and safe protocol that includes going to muscle failure in certain situations. By doing so, hypertrophy is stimulated through the creation of micro-damage to the tissue.

Another way we use to build muscle in EMS training is high volume training working a chosen muscle group for a large number of sets and repetitions at a higher intensity without going to failure. High volume training stimulates muscle growth by causing more overall damage to muscle fibers and it depletes them, which triggers the body's repair and rebuild mechanisms.

• Split routine

In the realm of resistance training, Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) has conventionally been employed as a tool for comprehensive, full-body workouts. However, my inclination leans towards the utilization of a split routine when the primary objective is to augment muscle hypertrophy. The rationale behind this approach is to concentrate each training session on specific muscular groups, thereby optimizing the efficacy and yield of each hypertrophy-inducing technique. An illustrative instance of a highly effective training session would encompass focusing on both the upper and lower extremities, namely the arms and legs. The intensity levels for each group can be fine-tuned in real time, thus allowing for an increase in the challenge quotient during the exercise phase, and a decrease during the recovery period. Every exercise within the session is executed in a superset fashion, with no interlude between sets. However, it's crucial to note that during these so-called 'rest' periods, the muscles are still being stimulated via electrical impulses, contributing to the gradual exhaustion of the muscle fibers. Both the upper and lower muscle groups are subjected to a higher range of repetitions, typically between 20 and 30. This high-load workout strategy ensures that the muscles are pushed to their limit, thereby triggering the physiological response of muscle building or hypertrophy.

In both intense and high-volume training, we frequently include negative repetitions, which involve elongating the targeted muscle during the eccentric phase of a lift. When we combine this with Electric Muscle Stimulation (EMS) and execute slow negative reps, it produces a beneficial outcome. This approach requires the muscle to gradually stretch and battle against both the resistance from, for instance, a resistance band, and the simultaneous EMS contraction.

• Time under tension

In each EMS session, our muscles endure prolonged periods of tension. It is well-known that the time under tension principle greatly benefits muscle growth. Time under tension refers to the duration that a muscle is placed under stress during resistance training exercises. It has been suggested that the time the muscle spends under tension during exercise may play a role in optimizing muscle growth and hypertrophy. One study conducted by Mitchell et al. (2011) aimed to investigate the effects of muscle time under tension on protein synthesis responses in men. The study found that a prolonged time under tension during resistance exercise stimulated differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses, suggesting that the duration of tension applied to the muscle during exercise could influence muscle growth. This study adds to the growing body of evidence highlighting the importance of controlling time under tension in resistance training programs for maximizing muscle hypertrophy.

• Now, I am going to showcase scans of three distinct clients who shared a common objective, apart from their other fitness goals - to achieve lean muscle weight.

Client # 1

Increased bicep size

He experienced a significant increase in his bicep measurements, going from 13.3 inches to 14.8 inches. This indicates muscle hypertrophy, which resulted in an increase in bicep circumference.

Decreased abdominal circumference

He experienced a decrease in his waist measurements, going from 34.6 inches to 33.4 inches. This indicates fat loss, which resulted in a reduction in waist circumference.

Increases right thigh size

He experienced an increase in his right thigh measurements, going from 22 inches to 13 inches. This indicates muscle hypertrophy, which resulted in an increase in right thigh circumference.

Client # 2

Decreased body fat

Client #2 has achieved an impressive fat loss of 10.6%.

Increased bicep size

Despite significant fat loss, Client #2 achieved notable gains in lean muscle, with an increase in bicep circumference of just over half an inch.

Client # 3

Increased fat-free mass

Client #3 completed a total of 10 EMS sessions between 2/23/2023 and 4/11/2023. During this period, he gained a remarkable 4.6 lbs of fat-free mass, including lean muscle. This shows a notable increase in fat-free mass and further highlights the effectiveness of EMS training.

Decreased body fat %

Client #3 has accomplished an impressive feat by simultaneously shedding 1.8% of body fat and building lean muscle mass.