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):
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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.
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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.
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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.
Svincenz, thank you for the link. I agree the four-part presentation is very interesting indeed. I had received an abridged version from Nick Maffiuletti last year, but this one is an excellent summary of all previous and more current findings, with many many supporting charts that speak for themselves. I’m sure Number 2 and Charlie will find them interesting. I mention in the 3rd presentation the charts on Creatine Kinase (slide 5) and the original charts (I suppose) of the results obtained by Kots (slide 16). Regarding active recovery, since the date of the presentation (2006), new research on the subject has emerged. The 2006 article by Maffiuletti I had mentioned above* concluded:
Additional research is necessary to verify … the effectiveness of low-frequency ES as a recovery modality…
However, subsequently in 2007 and 2008 new research has been published on the very subject of recovery, which verifies the validity of EMS as a recovery modality, and clearing the reservations Maffiuletti had:
[ul]
[li]Tessitore A, Meeusen R, Pagano R, et al. Effectiveness of active versus passive recovery strategies after futsal games. J Strength Cond Res. 2008;22(5):1402-12.
[/li][li]Tessitore A, Meeusen R, Cortis C, Capranica L. Effects of different recovery interventions on anaerobic performances following preseason soccer training. J Strength Cond Res. 2007;21(3):745-50.[/ul]
[/li]
I think we have to keep in mind that EMS is still a very young science, and new results keep popping up. Many important researchers, especially on the medical-rehab side Ifound, still publish results that are not able to replicate previous findings. Once I read the whole study, I see they compare apples to oranges, do not apply the correct parameters, or do not have the necessary background in exercise physiology to schedule the tests appropriately (as Charlie has attested in this forum).
Note*:
Maffiuletti NA. The use of electrostimulation exercise in competitive sport. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2006;1(4):406-7.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but EMS does stimulate GH production both locally and universally in individuals even at extremely low intensity overnight in CP children and this would seem to suppport the concept of using the Muscle Building programs at night just before bed as well as the idea that exercise itself (of any kind) is poorly understood and that concepts of minimum intensity and duration levels to constitute exercise are misguided.
I remember when you wrote about your work with children with CP. This is very interesting. Could you please elaborate more on the second part of your post, that is how little we know about exercise?
My point there is that so many argued you need a minimum amount of exercise to do any good- remember the old saw 20min per day 3 times a week for the average person. Why not 10min 6 times a week? They argued not enough int and vol. I don’t believe that at all and the incredibly low level of stim used with the CP children and the results they got would seem to dispel this myth.
Results in diseased children hardly apply to healthy adults.
As well, the hormonal response to exercise is fairly irrelevant in terms of adaptation. You can hold your breath for a few minutes and get a GH pulse. That doesn’t mean it did anything.
So that 10 minutes EMS raised GH in kids with CP doesn’t really have any relevance to exercise requirements to boost fitness or performance.
I think we still owe JoshuaHardcastle an answer I couldn’t address. All I know is that EMS Resistance Strength programs work at the lower level of FT type IIa fibers (50-70 Hz); Maximum Strength EMS programs work between 75 and 100 Hz to activate all fibers at the native frequencies of FT type IIa; and Explosive Strength EMS programs work above 100 Hz (up to 120 Hz), to work all fibers at the native frequencies of FT type IIx. However, I’m not know much about coaching. Charlie and Number Two (and Lyle?), what EMS program would you recommend to complement voluntary training done to promote hypertrophy?
it is precisely the continuum from one end of the spectrum to the other that helps us understand what works and possibly why. It is also precisely this narrow view that kept the CP children compartmentalized and from receiving the kind of treatment athletes and the general public would expect routinely.
The GH results I’m talking about was that the treated children moved from the 20th to the 50th percentile of growth after a year ot treatment (general). We also had the case of a withered hand that grew to the size of the other hand in the same period (specific). These results were not my imagination or even suspected by me before I saw them and were carefully recorded by the medical clinic. They were treated all night, every night with low level EMS (not 10m).
I’ve figured out that tight Rectus Femoris is to blame for knee pain that I have. I’ve been using EMS to try to massage it. It is working on the left leg, but the right leg starts to spasm. I vary the frequency between 2-8 Hz, but even at 2-4 it starts locking up. I’m using a two pad placement with one at the top of the thigh, and the other directly on the muscle belly of the RF. Would it be better to do the 4 pad placement and stimulate it indirectly?
I’m also doing foam rolling, self-massage, and some stretching (not all at the same time).
Perhaps I’m missing what you mean. EMS frequencies between 2-8 Hz can only elicit muscle twitches, but not muscle contractions. I’m not a coach, but when I’ve heard from other coaches taking care of knee pain with EMS, it’s generally about strengthening a weak muscle that was causing an imbalance, thus causing the knee to work incorrectly. Read for instance the blog from coach Dean Hebert, which I’m quoting below with relative links:[ul]
[li]my quads have chronic pain- just above the knee cap. It’s a tendonitis and attachment area pain.
[/li][li]Within only 3 treatments I already felt a reduction in the previous symptoms of peri-knee discomforts due to weak quad muscle group.
[/li][li]Over the past year, my quads have chronic pain- just above the knee cap. It’s a tendonitis and attachment area pain. The initial injury (hill work in the summer of 08) has long been healed but the residual weaknesses are there. Because of this I have compensated and had other niggling injuries.
[/li][li]I no longer have ANY peri-knee tendonitis issues that I had for months. And those very knee tendon (quad insertion points) were the ones that the physical therapist told me that EMS would NOT help
[/li][/ul]
Most effective strengthening programs work at around 75 Hz. If instead your problem is not the knee, but a muscle contracture, my database of EMS programs shows that clinical Globus machines use for that condition a constant twitch at 4 Hz.
It is basically like a muscle spasm. The muscle does not fully relax. This is leading to excessive tightness in the RF which puts stress on the patella tendon. Basically I am trying to use EMS to relieve the spasm and get the muscle to relax and lengthen. I am not using it to strengthen the quads.
I am trying to do the same as “active recovery”. I have two questions:
- Will EMS possibly be effective?
- Should I stimulate the RF directly, or stimulate the entire quads (no pad directly on the RF)?
Thanks for the links.
- Likely to be effective
2)I’d go with the 4 pads, stimulating (relaxing) all the upper leg
Thanks. I’ll try that for a little while.
All of the research I find about ems seems to be about athletes or sick people. What would happen if we went toward the middle of the curve?
Say we find some weekend warriors who know how to lift weights and run with good form, but who don’t train seriously enough to really get stronger or faster or have more endurance. Then say that we hook them up to the ems, what would the results look like? Would they gain strength or endurance?
When someone is stuck in bed trying to avoid atrophy any exercise would be better than none. It makes sense to me that ems works in these cases.
For top athletes the ability to work those last few muscle fibers without risking injury from overuse could make a huge difference.
What about the average guy?
A few years back I was a fairly strong gym-rat. I managed to do some bad lifting outside of the gym and wound up with a pinched nerve. I could not run, walk, ride, lift or do anything else to stay in shape. I lost strength. My doctors found a way to relieve the stenosis and now a bad day means a backache so I am in a much better place but I am still limited in my ability to train. I need lower back strength to help avoid further injury but I fear overdoing it with the weights or cardio. That is why I ask, if a relatively normal person were to use ems would they gain strength/endurance or is this only for people at the two extremes of fitness?
You can find plenty of middle of the curve people who use EMS in this forum. If you don’t care about joining that forum, see these other links to comments by people of different athletic background.