Electronic Muscle Stimulation workouts
for me, time and luxury go hand in hand. I’ll go to great lengths to protect my time and create more of it to fill with the things I love. this year, I found my favorite parts of summer slipping away as my calendar was filled with obligations. the best of my summer entails late evenings at the beach with rosé, impromptu dinners with friends without changing out of my bathing suit, and spending time outside taking in the present moment. I want to savor and extend these blissful moments, and while I can’t ignore all of my obligations, I decided there was one stretch of time I could take back: I decided to trade my hours in the gym for minutes of EMS training.
in 20 minutes of low impact exercise, electronic muscle stimulation workouts claim to provide the equivalent of an intense two-hour workout. so twice a week, I’ve been getting a visit from a certified personal trainer from Casa Wellness Studio in the Hamptons who has me strap a wireless suit over my workout clothes. through an iPad, she controls the gentle-ish pulses to target muscle groups, making them contract up to 100 times per second as I cycle through lunges, squats, ab workouts, and simple pilates moves. a muscle contracting one hundred times a second is a stranger sensation than you may even imagine. it’s not painful, but the subcutaneous buzzing can be jarring at first.
and about as soon as I get used to it in one area, the workout moves to another part of the body, all attempting to target weaker muscles over stronger ones. after 20 minutes and 100,000 or so contractions, the iPad turns off my muscles for me and I unstrap the supposedly time-saving suit.
the FDA regulates EMS stimulators, and while treating some conditions with EMS is well-researched, using it for regular workouts is still relatively new. I’m still not sure what to expect in long-term results, but let me tell you: it’s hard. each session I joke about my instant abs, but I really do feel like my muscles have had a better workout than I could give them in hours at the gym.
I’m still hopeful my long-term results stick, the research pans out, and EMS can become one more secret in creating a little more time each week. but even if I’m not as consistent in suiting up, the experience is so strangely satisfying that I think it’s worth my time.
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