What is EMS?

How EMS works?

Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) is used successfully in medical rehabilitation and all levels of sports. Professional athletes all over Europe use EMS as a complement to regular training. EMS produces intense, effective muscle contractions for training, or vibrations for relaxation. Cefar stimulators offer a complete range of sports and fitness training programs that provide sophisticated training.

Normal muscular activity is controlled by the central and peripheral nervous systems, which transmit electrical signals to the muscles. EMS works similarly, except that it uses external electrical impulses transmitted through the skin. They go via the nerves into a specifically targeted muscle, which reacts by contracting just as it does with normal muscular activity.

In sports and fitness, EMS is used for various kinds of muscular exercises, such as:

• Warm-up
• Maximum force
• Resistance force
• Explosive force
• Endurance
• Recovery
• Capillarization
• Lipolysis
• Drainage
• Firming
• Toning
• Sculpting
• Body building
• Relaxation

The main objective of EMS is to create muscle contractions or vibrations. Place the electrodes on the muscle you want to activate. Increase the amplitude until the muscle contracts or vibrates, depending on the type of stimulation, (read more under EMS Program Structure). Contractions should be powerful, but not painful. Contractions caused by electrical stimulation are often experienced as more powerful than voluntary contractions. Increase the amplitude gradually.

Make EMS a part of your regular training program by stimulating specific muscles in between or during your training sessions. A Personal Trainer is programmed into all of our stimulators, which suggests training programs and how often they should be used.

EMS program structure

Different parameters cause different effects in the stimulated muscle. All the parameters are preset in CefarCompex stimulators, but we would like to explain how different frequencies and pulse duration settings work.

The warm-up, recovery, relaxation and capillarization programs use low frequencies, usually 1–10 Hz. This stimulation should cause muscle vibrations, not contractions. These programs improve the circulation, which enhances toxin elimination, oxygen supply and metabolism in the muscle.

The endurance programs use medium frequencies, usually 15–30 Hz, and the contractions should be visible. The endurance programs are long, submaximum sessions that induce the slow fibers to work and improve the aerobic capacity.

High frequences, 50–120 Hz, are used in all kinds of muscle strengthening programs to achieve maximum muscle contractions. These programs boost muscle strength and mass. There are different types of strengthening programs, depending on the purpose of your training: maximum force, resistance force, explosive force,etc. and so on.

Each pulse lasts a specific time, called the pulse duration. This is a way of regulating the amount of the energy sent to the muscle. A shorter pulse duration is usually used on smaller muscle groups while longer durations are used on larger muscle groups.

CefarCompex stimulators have preset modulation settings. During the work phase, the stimulation frequency varies between two defined settings to make the stimulation as effective and comfortable as possible.

Gradually increasing and decreasing pulse durations over a set time also ensures greater comfort. Serial contraction programs stimulate muscles to contract one after the other in a series, which makes the session more effective. The serial contraction programs are especially comfortable for massage, recovery and relaxation.

Some CefarCompex stimulators let you run two programs at once. So you can run a recovery program on a thigh muscle while massaging your neck.