Electric Muscle Stim Article by Charlie Francis

[T-Slow]

Thank you for the article reference. Perhaps you can confirm that my understanding is correct, hopefully I am not way off here.

Even if fast and slow twitch fibres are recruited equally when using EMS, it's still useful because voluntary contraction of muscle preferentially recruits slow twitch fibre, while EMS recruits equally and thus probably more fast twitch fibre than can be done voluntarily. (If you can contract more fibre with EMS overall, then you are very likely contracting more white fibre overall) Thus in the end, even if you are not preferentially contracting white fibre, you are still contracting more white fibre simply because you are able to contract more fibre overall.

Is that correct or am I not understanding?

[gciriani]

... can confirm that my understanding is correct,
.... you are still contracting more white fibre...
Is that correct?

T-Slow, I think you are basically correct. But remember that happens only in the fibers that fire (i.e. that are triggered by the EMS). So you have go high enough with current intensity.

In addition you cause more muscle fatigue in those fibers, than you would with voluntary efforts. Finally, EMS done for a sufficient number of weeks would convert some fibers I and IIx fibers into IIa fibers (also shown by research published by Maffiuletti).

[jamirok]

Number Two (aka Derek) and I developed the new programs. The impetus came from Number Two who believes that there are many things lacking in the stim units currently available, particularly for application to high performance sports. He and I reviewed the literature of the last couple of years on EMS research. We poured through many articles, several coming from the ISEK 2010, The XVIII Congress of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology, which had a section dedicated to: Electrical stimulation for testing and training in exercise and sports. This knowledge was bootstrapped to the library of close to 1000 programs that Globus has built in its machines in the course of several years.

Number Two has an interesting review of a very recent article:
Girold S, Jalab C, Bernard O, et al. Dry-land strength training vs. electrical stimulation in sprint swimming performance. J Strength Cond Res. 2012;26(2):497–505.

This article seems to confirm the direction we have undertaken. In his words:

Thank You...