I want to try out an EMS unit and the one I have access to has a knob that controls pulses per second (from 2 to 140). What do I want to set that at?
This will depend on the individual and the machine. Between 80-120 has been recommended previously.
You want to set it high enough that you get a good strong contraction. If the pulses/second get too low, the muscle will rapidly twitch instead of solidly contract.
However, as you get to higher frequencies, you will eat up the battery in your machine quicker and some people find higher freqencies more uncomfortable.
That said, I have often wondered if playing around with the lower frequencies, specifically threshold where your muscle is twitching as fast as possible before hitting full contraction, would be of any use. Could this be a methodology to help teach the muscle to contract and relax more quickly (like is needed in sprinting) or would this be ineffective since EMS bypasses the nervous system?
Thoughts? Charlie or others?
I’m no expert on EMS Xlr8 but it is somthing I’ve been trying to learn more about over the past few months …
… would higher frequencies for a very short period of time <5 secs on opoosite muscle groups assist in teaching the muscles to relax and contract faster like you describe?
Also, I’ve been trying (ok - well messing around with…) various pulsing methods while stretching.
I’ve been using medium pulses for short periods - 5 secs - on both the actual and antagonistic muscle groups and then going straight into a 2 sec stretch. I’m trying to see if the EMS can assist in preventing the reflex contraction and if it’s as effective or more eefective than simple AIS techniques.
I’m not sure there’s any scientific purpose to my meddling - but we’ll see.
As they say necessity is the mother of invention - I have a little calf tightness that is quite hard to stretch out or make any real improvements - Charlie advised me to get some therapy or ART. Sadly my finances aren’t in a healthy enough state to get good therapy at the minute - so rather than go to a poorer physio I’ve been trying alot of stretching techniques to see if I can get some improvement. (My therapist should be back next week and hopefully I’ll get it sorted then anyway.)
Thoughts guys?