General blood flow increases around all tissue increasing heat available, which can lower elecrtrical resistance.
Increases in heat can also be generated by increasing density, which might possibly help explain why the fastest individuals often find it so easy to warm-up and why they can maintain it for so long when they’re really ready to fly (they aren’t so far off the critical threshold temp to start with ??)
This may be a lot to ask, but where is the evidence that this actually occurs with your tempo training, and that it brings these specific benefits? I’ve had trouble verifying it on my own.
I seem to remember Charlie citing research that seemed to show that capillarisation and the increased warming of the motor units allowed faster nerve transmission?? I to would like to see a reference so I can prove all the aerobic haters wrong… (including my coach :eek:)!
I have come across an article that discusses among other properties, shortening speed and temperature: Human skeletal muscle fibres: molecular and functional diversity; Bottinelli, Reggiani; Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2000.
You can buy it on-line (I got a copy from my local University). It’s above my level, so I’m not able to really explain it. But it does say, I quote: “Vo of human fibres shows a very striking dependence on temperature.” Vo is defined as Unloaded shortening velocity. I’m not sure if this applies to this discussion, but I may reread the section and try to report it in here if you are interested.
I seem to recall reading (it may actually be one of Charlie’s East Germany stories) about inducing fever before a sporting event. The question; is more (body temperature) better or is there an optimal temperature? If there is an optimal, then is capillarization necessary to achieve it?
I have a question on the timing of EMS recovery modes. In CFTS, it says, “according to Waldemar, an EMS session is never followed by massage. The massage is usually done the next day.”
What is the reasoning behind this? There was another thread about the timing of massage, and it seemed the consensus was to put deeper massage on low intensity days, but I never figured out the exact reason why. Reduced protein synthesis perhaps?
Also, do EMS active recovery modes count as “massage,” and therefore be avoided after an EMS strength session?
I ask because if I use active recovery immediately after doing EMS, the next day my legs feel great, but if I wait until the next day to do the Active recovery mode, it doesn’t seem to have the same effect on recovery, and my legs will often still stay sore.
I have heard the same feedback from other users of EMS Active Recovery programs: to achieve a recovery result, one has to perform AR within the first 12 hours, the closer the better. One (traditional) massage therapist actually commented that he obtained better results with EMS-AR than by using his hands. The reason being that hand manipulation cannot effectively reach deep muscle tissue; instead EMS-AR if cranked sufficiently up, can reach deeper muscle fibers.
Perhaps Waldemar’s rationale came out of the reasoning that it’s muscle soreness that creates muscle adaptations. Therefore, still according to the same line of thought, no pain no gain. But mine is only an interpretation.
Can you tell us if, when your muscles are less sore you feel that your muscles have adapted less?
The abstract reports that the stimulus used is:
a series of 20 contractions at the maximum of individual tolerance
frequency: 75 Hz,
pulse duration: 400 mus,
on-off ratio: 6.25-20 s
What is the closest globus program to this?
Also, is there a list somewhere of these characteristics for each one of the globus programs?
Thanks,
J
In the European version (which I think is the one you have), the closest programs are: [ul]
[li]“Max Force”, 70 Hz, 450 microsec, 8/16 sec on/off
[/li][li]"Explosive Force, 80 Hz, 450 microsec, 4/16 sec on/off
[/li][/ul]
If you have a Globus with programming capability, you can reproduce that protocol exactly. However, I wouldn’t worry, because the study only shows that with those stimulation parameters you obtain that hGH effect. They only experimented at 75 Hz, and it doesn’t mean that they tried all frequencies around that value, obtaining the best hGH response at 75. That is at 70 or 80 Hz you probably obtain about the same effect.
Regarding a table with all the parameters, it’s not made available to the general public, because you either are knowledgeable about EMS parameters, or you’re not. If you are knowledgeable enough to try your own programs, then you are better off with a programmable machine. If you are not, then you are better off with picking from a list of programs labeled for specific goals.
think of wave recovery. you don’t want to diminish the normal downsweep, but rather accelerate the upsweep to enhance the supercompensation.
That said, Massage was done daily by us in varying degrees- deeper on tempo days. EMS was done last thing in the evening at home by the athletes. This could enhance the HGH response and, of course, massage wasn’t available then anyway.
Charlie,
A write up on massage I found recently*, reported guidelines by Russian sport-massage specialists: [ul]
[li]wait 2-2.5 hours after the sport event;
[/li][li]30-40 minutes of massage;
[/li][li]very robust kneading for 40-50% of the time.
[/li][/ul]
I consider the EMS Active Recovery program found on machines like Compex and Globus, a very effective form of massage (even more in my opinion). However, I was wondering how much the above guidelines apply to EMS Active Recovery. My rationale is that EMS seems more efficient than a massage therapist to reach deep tissue, and to deliver the massage twitches at a more frequent pace (continuously variable between 2 to 8 Hz).
As a matter of fact an Ironman competitor at Lake Placid this year, came to borrow my Globus machine on each of the three days preceding the competition, to recover from damage inflicted by his massage specialist 15 days earlier: this guy had pushed too hard with his elbow against his calf, causing a deep contusion. After three days of EMS the athlete was feeling back almost 100%. My anecdotal experience has been that people find EMS Active Recovery fully satisfactory with as little as 15 minutes for younger subjects and 20 for older subjects, all done anywhere between a 15 minutes to six hours from a race.
I was wondering what your experience has been with athletes.
Note*: by Ross Turchaninov, M.D., Ph.D., Boris Prilutsky, M.A. and Oleg Bouimer, M.A
In Charlie’s EMS article on TNation it said:
Maximal Strength Enhancement
EMS is the single most intense strength building method and has the briefest improvement period of all training modalities. Kots’ literature describes a maximum strength gain plateau after twenty-five treatments (which could be administered over four to seven weeks); however, in my experience, most of the benefits available were achieved within ten treatments and strength gains beyond fifteen treatments were negligible. And since ten to fifteen treatments maximize recruitment velocity, it seems logical to work between these numbers…
What is the nature for such a rapid tolerance being built up to EMS strength stimulus?
Any idea or guesses if this would apply to hypertrophy adaptation (protein synthesis) too, or is it purely a plateau on maximum strength?
Thanks,
J
IMHO what sets EMS apart is the much higher recruitment. When you workout voluntarily, you recruit muscle fibers according to Henneman’s principle: first less strong ST fibers, then stronger FT fibers, and up to 60 % of them at the same time, according to the literature. EMS instead recruits all fibers at the same time, and if you crank it high enough you get theoretically up to 100%.
I don’t know the answer regarding hypertrophy, but I guess the stimulation frequency for hypertrophy may be different than that for explosive force. I hope Charlie can help you here.
Do you believe that the gains from the difference in recruitment cannot be sustained by the CNS during voluntary contractions, after a certain point (coinciding with the plateau in strength gains)?
Also on a point related to my previous questions about globus wave characteristics, do you know the characteristics of the mass/hypertrophy program?
Thanks,
J
I’d have several thoughts:
1: The Globus would always be better than a lousy masseur- usually bruising is the result of lazy clowns who just stick an elbow in and leave it for a while rather than doing the work required.
2: Massage, when done by an expert, will probably be superior in removing waste products and comparable in re-setting tone.
Massage can be doubled up post training, with manual post training and Globus at home last thing at night (preferably separated by 4 hrs) .
3: Massage will be far more expensive than a Globus unit in fairly short order.
4: There is no reason not to use both if you have access to both. I created a chart showing the priority of therapy options, based on budget etc., which you can find in several of my products. most people will never have the budget to get past 2 or 3 manual therapy sessions per week, let alone twice a day, every day, but they could do the manual work in the order suggested as far as they can and fill in as much of the rest as time permits with the Globus.
5: Deep tissue bruises caused by trauma (football etc) respond very well to the Globus treatment protocols in my experience and this could not be done as early post trauma with any sort of manual therapy.
Anyone else with thoughts about this?
I agree with all of Charlie’s points.
From my personal experience, if I have the time and energy, I am doing massage whenever I can. I just find it more effective overall and I can tangibly feel the changes that I effect throughout the treatment.
However, there are many instances where I am using the Globus EMS or similar devices (particularly when I’m trying to help numerous athletes at once):
-
I have lots of people to work on and I need to prioritize who needs hands-on work and who can benefit from use of EMS.
-
Someone is so locked up (extremely high tone) that it would take me an extremely long session to bring the tone down. I can hook them up to the EMS to do some initial tone reduction while I’m working on someone else.
-
After a hands-on session (maybe 2-3 hours later) where we have loosened up the muscles and restored resting tone, we can use the EMS unit to work on re-educating the muscles in question. This is very common with the Vastus Medialis, where the entire quad was locked up and knee pain was present. When we loosened everything up, there were still problems firing the VMO, so EMS helped to jump start the situation.
If you have access to both (massage and EMS), by all means use both tools.
Additional to point two, which appears to contradict Waldemar but W was referring to EMS for Str development and not treatment or pre-treatment.
Nothing compares to EMS for VMO re-education/re-development.
I recently had a look at a talk by Maffiuletti (in Italian), who published some good works on EMS for atheltes, and his experiments did not show a significant effect of active recovery protocols on number of functional parameters. I think he was using a Compex.
I continue to use the Compex, but…
Are you referring to the following?
Maffiuletti NA. The use of electrostimulation exercise in competitive sport. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2006;1(4):406-7.
If not, could you please give me the bibliographic reference?
Here is the link (aggiornamenti elettrostimolazione, it means “updates EMS”), 4 power points, very interesting!
I think it can be read also by english speaking people.