I have a Compex Sport, which on the explosvie strength program ,is about 3 sec contraction with 30 sec rest.
Is total contraction number or total contraction time more important? Since I can’t get a 10 sec contraction (10x10 sec = 100 sec), do I want to get 33 contractions or get 10 contractions?
Hope I make sense.
In my opinion 33 x 3 s would get your total work load to the same level as 10 x 10 s. But since 3 s cause less fatigue than 10 s, perhaps you need to increase the number of contractions even further. Hopefully Charlie can chime in a give a professional opinion on how best to compensate.
I would tend to go for lower rep numbers because the contraction intensity may wane through the latter part of a 10 sec contraction vs the initial third. I would think 15 to 20 reps tops.
Would this be the same if the recovery was shorter. I have a unit that’s only 4 second recovery I pull the lead out and wait a little. The contraction too is 3 sec
Time the breaks for 30sec and it’s the same situation.
Thanks,making this specific. How frequent can the sessions be with normal training loads. How far out or close to competition would you be doing this? Does anyone have any experience of personal use and did you see direc improvement
CF recommends using it the last two weeks of your max strength phases during SPP. See the 02 Forum review
What I find very strange is a complete lack of research based references. Can you provide, hopefully many, some examples of research that has shown positive benefits of EMS.
Why do you find it strange?
I’m pretty sure you can’t find research-based references for almost anything you see here, not just EMS.
Much of what is being shared here is years ahead of any research, representing the experience of successful athletes and coaches.
It will be up to you to evaluate what you find here now- or you can wait.
EMS is an extraordinary topic and my personal experience flies in the face of traditionally understood principles of exercise. This has caused me to look at how it, and training in general, works in a very different way. If I am right, it will draw a lot of seemingly different observations into a coherent picture.
I have presented an overview of it in the audio tapes available in the site store and I will have a lot more to say about it in the future.
Electrical Stimulation as a Modality to Improve
Performance of the Neuromuscular System.
Marc Vanderthommen and Jacques Duchateau. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 35 (4). 2007.
or
Russian Electrical Stimulation: The Early Experiments. A.R Ward, N Shkuratova. Physical Therapy, 2002 vol. 82 (10). 
I was with a company that did research run by Garhammer in LA in 1981 treating the weaker leg in conjunction with several training regimes.
In fact, this was the period when I worked with John Smith and John arranged for the test subjects. The study was flawed IMO because Garhammer ignored the recommendation to allow a 10 day consolidation period after the last EMS session for a final comparison.
Because there was no consolidation from a higher workload, the tested side showed greater strength but slower peak velocity, as any coach worth his salt would expect!
There is one study
“Effects of Electromyostimulation Training on Muscle Strength and Power Of Elite Rugby Players,” where they used a loading period and a taper period of EMS use. Just like what Charlie said, after the loading period (3 days a week EMS I think), only squat strength improved, but after a taper (where I think it was just one EMS session/week), squat jump and drop jump measurements also improved.
Thank you for posting that. Perhaps the designer of this study read my complaints about Garhammer, or perhaps he just knew something about training.
Charlie, with EMS, how would the taper change? I think you have mentioned that adding in EMS would make you peak later, or at least have to have a longer tapering period. Why exactly is this? With EMS, there is more muscular work being done, but no CNS involvement, and I was under the impression that muscles recover much quicker than CNS does, so how come the taper needs to be longer?
Two answers really:
1: Anytime you increase the workload, you lengthen the time it takes to peak.
2: EMS can work in two different ways;
A: A few EMS sessions can actually change the tone of muscles in a heavy training phase by recruiting above the voluntary capacity, thus shifting the on/off fibre proportion cycling back towards what you would see closer to the competition phase.
B: A longer EMS phase will lead to higher training loads in the muscles involved. I now feel that this type of EMS is best reserved for areas that require specific strengthening/attention.
What do you mean, lead to higher loads? Do you mean the EMS is in itself a higher load?
A number of EMS sessions will add to the overall training load and shift its role from tone setting more towards muscular work.
My original experience with EMS was in the Godfrey study in the early 70s.
I was tested at the start and again after two days and I demonstrated a HUGE increase in power on a cybex- above 50% more force. This of course should make no sense but could be explained by the fact I had been doing hard training leading in, making the ratio of fired (unavailable) higher and non-fired (available) lower.
The EMS picked up addn’l fibre I couldn’t recruit on my own from the fibres the body normally holds in reserve (especially white fibre), thus allowing more fibre to operate in unison, and when, in that same unison, this fibre shifted back to unfired, I had a far higher pool of fibre available to use voluntarily.
As the CNS was bypassed, and as the strength gain was measured after two days of EMS in a row, it seemed obvious that this fibre cycling operated over a 24hr rather than 48 hr period.
this probably sounds like a stupid question, but if ems activates fibers unable to be recruited by the body, whats the reason for even training them in the first place using the ems? Is the body able to recruit those fibers after ems?
It’s not the same fibres in reserve the whole time.
I do not understand how you comfortably do EMS on your quads with a flexed knee. If you sit in a chair and strap your ankles to the chair, the chair may break. If you sit in a chair and immobilize your foot against the wall, it will be difficult to keep your butt on down on the chair. Not to mention shearing the hell out of your knee. Given this, is it safest to just do it with the knees maximally extended? Do you have any video examples of somebody who has a high level of strength doing maximal EMS on the quads with a flexed knee?