Electronic Muscle Toners....

[xcakid]

.... do they help??

If so what should I look for? What's a good brand? Any first hand expereince using them?

[Becca]

Tens units (proper name for those devises) are theiputic only. they don't tone the muscle, they help keep someone from atropying after an injury or durring a hospitle stay.

[SevenStar]

I used to get electro-stim treatments from my chiropractor. they helped my back muscles to relax. it was used as prep for my adjustments.

[IronFist]

It will not do what you are thinking it will do.

They are used to give stimulation to comatose patients to prevent atrophy (muscle decay).

Selling them as legitimate exercises tools is a joke.

The only way you will get "toned" is by changing your diet. You need low enough bodyfat to see your muscles. It has nothing really to do with how you train, what exercises you do, or anything else other than adjusting your diet such that your bodyfat is low enough to see your muscles.

And it won't give you enough stimulation to make you stronger or promote muscle growth or endurance, either.

Sorry.

[Adventure427]

Hey iron fist.....got a question about what you said...i could be wrong....but i read from a couple places including www.thetruthaboutsixpackabs.com that while the diet is extremly important...its also important to do "multi joint" exercises like Clean/press, deadlifts, squats ect... because they work you're body more because you use more of it, and it revs up your metabolism better and produce more HGH, while single joint exercises (leg extensions, bicep curls, calf raises) only move the weight a small distance and thus require less "work" (distance x weight, or something like that) and thus rev your metabolism less. Any truth to that? (although he does emphasize that the diet is the single most important thing to focus on in order to see sixpack abs)

[cjurakpt]

Tens units (proper name for those devises) are theiputic only. they don't tone the muscle, they help keep someone from atropying after an injury or durring a hospitle stay.

TENS (transcutaneous electical nerve stimulation) will not prevent atrophy, as TENS does not actually cause muscle contraction; TENS uses the "gating theory" to basically overide pain signals coming from a specific area by "filling up" the nerve fibers with electrical "noise", leaving no room left for the pain signals to travel to the brain; once you turn off the machine though, the pain comes back


I used to get electro-stim treatments from my chiropractor. they helped my back muscles to relax. it was used as prep for my adjustments.

NMES (neuromuscular electrical stimulation) is designed to get an actual contraction; it can be very effective for reducing pain (acute or chronic), spasm, congestion etc.; there are many different protocols for available parameters (freuency, duration, amplitude, etc.), such as sustained tetanic contraction, or intermittent / pumping; BTW, the idea of "prepping" someone for an adjustment is kinda lame (although it's a good way to justify billing for stim, and allows you to treat several people at the same time) - if want to relax someone who is in muscle spasm to be able to adjust them, there are several much more efficient ways of doing this manually, like in under a minute - considering how long it takes to set someone up on stim plus run the machine, it just makes no sense (I haven't used NMES in over 10 years and never missed it)

as far as using NMES to actually build muscle, there has never been any clinical evidence to support this in a normal healthy muscle; for atrophy prevention in clinical settings, I think there is research that shows it helps prevent it, but to what degree I am not sure; anyway, you can't just plug yourself in and watch your muscles grow...if you want to have muscle hypertrophy, you need to train against a level of resistance high enough to cause adaptive changes, pure and simple; if you see someone exercising while stim is running though, the stim can be useful to help someone re-train a muscle that they haven't used due to injury or whatnot - but again, that's not increasing muscle mass per se

[BlueTravesty]

While it would be ultra-cool to be a freak of nature with bodyfat measured in increments prefixed with "micro" or "nano", I'll settle for being strong and not being ungainly looking.

As for six pack abs, I'll settle for just having strong, hard abs. I'll get there...

[Becca]

cjurakpt - Thanks for the info! You explain better than most people for us who are interested but not so smart.:p

.... Aleast I got the name right. ;) :D

[xcakid]

I guess I should have given a background on why I am researching this.

I got pattelar tendonitis after a month of starting MA traning again. I still have some remnants of it. Knees are stiff after stance training or working out the quads, hams and calf muscles. I am about 80-90% healed. It has been close to 6months now. I have read on various sites that muscle stimulators help with this problem by strengthening the muscles without stress to the tendon. So that's pretty much my thought process, not to get all buffed about it. I know Bruce Lee was a big fan back in the day, and since we have had some advances in science....

[IronFist]

Hey iron fist.....got a question about what you said...i could be wrong....but i read from a couple places including www.thetruthaboutsixpackabs.com that while the diet is extremly important...its also important to do "multi joint" exercises like Clean/press, deadlifts, squats ect... because they work you're body more because you use more of it, and it revs up your metabolism better and produce more HGH,

Yes, big multijoint exercises do work your body more than single joint stuff. Squatting causes the body to produce more HgH, etc. However, in the context of "trying to get a sixpack," it's not going to make much difference. Squatting, Clean and Jerk, etc., none of these exercises burn enough calories to make a difference in reducing your bodyfat. That advice you read sounds like it was just overall good advice for someone trying to become fit. Big compound movements are the best things you can do, for the most part. Of course, there's no reason you shouldn't also include single joint exercises like curls or whatever, too.


while single joint exercises (leg extensions, bicep curls, calf raises) only move the weight a small distance and thus require less "work" (distance x weight, or something like that) and thus rev your metabolism less. Any truth to that?

Yeah. Like I mentioned above, that part is true. However if your goal is to lose fat and get visible abs, it's not really going to make a difference either way. I had a six pack before I ever did my first squat (I'm naturally skinny, tho). Look at runners who are really skinny. Most of them have visible abs and most of them have never touched a weight in their life.


(although he does emphasize that the diet is the single most important thing to focus on in order to see sixpack abs)

It's the most important, by far.