I’ve seen them sold everywhere and, being terminally lazy, I am strongly attracted to them-- but I don’t know if they are reliable products. I think everyone has seen these contraptions: they appear to be machines that pass a current to muscles through electrodes or dermatrodes and thus stimulate them.
I would like to know:
How are they supposed to work?
Do they cause any damage?
And do they really produce results?
I can imagine nothing better than sitting in the sun reading a book while getting a vigorous hour of exercise at the same time.
I haven’t seen anything like this advertised as an exercise machine, but what you describe sounds like a TENS unit, a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator. I had a friend who used one for chronic back pain. The theory is that the electrical charge either a)blocks the pain by jamming the nerves through over-stimulation or b)eases pain by stimulating the release of endorphins. They work for some people.
The unit does cause the muscles to twitch, and I think I may have seen a reference to its use with bed-ridden patients, as a way to slow muscle deterioration due to non-use. But you don’t get anything like a full extension of the muscle and it isn’t weight bearing, so unless the machine you describe is very different, I can’t imagine it would replace a “vigorous hour of exercise.”
The local TV station does product tests/reviews. I don’t know how detailed the tests are but the station concluded that the electrode things don’t work.
I personally think it’s a joke. Just another sucker product for the ignorant. IMHO the best way to get into good physical shape is hard work. The thing seemingly doesn’t produce powerful enough contractions to produce results. My thought is that the product causes a stimulated release of beta-endorphins–hence people feel good when they use this silly thing. I burst out laughing every time I see the commercial. What will they come up with next?
Many years ago I broke my arm rather badly. The radial head of the ulna was shattered and I dislocated my elbow. My orthopedic surgeon sent me to physical therapy.
I had a chicken-and-egg problem. I could not move my elbow because the bones had locked up and my muscles had atrophied and were very weak. To get me going, one of the things they used was electric shock therapy. They put electrodes on my arm on a big one on my back. My arm would twitch during the session and afterward, it did feel like had a work-out. It seemed to me that it was working. I eventually got back well over 90% of my mobility. I attribute that to the electric shock therapy and the exercizes.
On the other hand, just cuz my physical therapist used it does not prove it is valid I guess. The first thing he did was place my arm in a big vat of water with a gismo that splashed the water around. Hydro therapy he called it. This was a crock…in both senses of the word. There is no way that my ulna could even detect the splashing water, let alone heal from it. I demanded that we move on to something useful and he complied.
Anyway…despite the hydro therapy which I am sure was bogus, I do believe in the electric shock therapy.
BTW, my surgeon said that in addition to the benefit to my muscles, for some reason passing an electric shock through broken bones induces to heal faster.
Its been documented that you can get a decent buzz from TENS and CES devices, if I had some cash to spare I’d get a CES (cranial electro stimulator) is a second.
They should work, in theory. Electric shocks can make your muscles contract, considerably harder than you can contract them voluntarily. (Ever been “thrown” twenty feet by an electric shock? Your muscles did the actual work - electric shocks don’t dissipate enough power to throw you.) So then the usual “overload” principle of weight training applies - make your body work harder than it’s accustomed to and it responds by becoming stronger.
Nothing’s that simple however! Weight training works best when the muscles contract through their full range of motion, whereas these devices just give you a bit of a twitch. Weight training also gives better results with mental focus and visualisation, something absent when using these gizmos. Finally, if you contract your muscles too hard by zapping them, you stand a good chance of serious, permanent injury. (Like ripping a tendon clean out of its anchorage, for example.) So the manufacturers of these things tone the level of stimulation down to the point where they’re almost useless.
I have read of electroshock being used to improve the performance of professional weightlifters (from “The Millennial Project”, by Marshall Savage) but this was as a supplement to ordinary training, under highly controlled conditions. I’m afraid you’ll just have to put the book down and get the frisby out - exercise doesn’t have to be grim and miserable!
I tried one. It was crap. A friend loaned me one because I was curious. After carefully reading the instructions I propperly applied the electrodes and fired the sucker up. I was expecting my muscles to contract and relax… what I felt instead was a periodic stinging sensation. It felt like getting poked with a bunch of needles. My muscles never contracted. I called the help line to see if I was doing something wrong. They confirmed that I was using them right. I was able to finally get some muscle contraction if I pressed on two electrodes very firmly, but it was irregular and when it missed, the zaps hurt quite a bit.
Conclusion: In theory, it could work. In practice, it probably doesn’t.