Recovery from training takes longer as one gets older, thereby posing yet another limit to the amount of sustainable training besides work and family commitments. Pro teams may have massage therapists traveling with them for daily aftercare (even though research seems split about effect on performance beyond relaxation and softening hardened muscles). What options does one have if one is neither pro nor married to a massage therapist?
Electronic Muscle Stimulation (or EMS) is advertised as being an answer to this. That’s the things you attach to your body to stimulate the muscles under them to vibrate independently from your will and which you see on ads as the holy grail to get a six pack while lying on your couch and watching stupid TV series. For some weird fairness ideal I somewhat resist using them to gain an edge in performance but that ideal isn’t as high as to deny them as a recovery tool. And some of the manufacturers claim to have research on their side as evidence and pro users as customers. So what’s the truth behind them?
The two brands that are most dominating are Compex and Marc Pro, so I grabbed one model from each that seemed to be characteristic for their technology. So, here is a summary of my experience, subjective and totally not scientific, but at least based on real usage over several month and not just comparing their spec sheets or citing press releases.
The common science behind them: Small electrical pulses move your muscles without tiring you (!) and without requiring your conscious involvement, helping with flushing them out and softening them while you are doing something else. The trade off: You are moving your muscles with electronic shocks, so the amount your muscles move is a trade off with pain from the shocks.
Compex SP 6.0
Specifications:
- 4 channels of 2 electrodes each, giving 8 electrodes in total, meaning you can use them for example on both calves and both thighs simultaneously.
- Wireless, which means you could in theory use them under your pants at work or while commuting (though they measure more than 15mm in thickness and won’t fit under your jeans) – or actually even during workouts for some additional stimulation. I haven’t tried the latter yet as it is not the aim I bought them for and it also sounds and looks kinda perverse, and I have no idea how that would synchronize with my body movements – but that’s just my prejudice.
- Rechargeable.
My experience:
- It let’s the user choose from many specific programs that include Recovery, Relaxation, Capillarisation etc, but I felt unsure about how scientificically well engineered and proven those programs are.
- It has an automatic protocol running through different intensities at the beginning of a session to determine the recommended strength, which could be totally useful I imagine if someone was using this on me to stimulate my muscles in order to avoid degeneration while I’m in a long coma, but maybe not really necessary as long as I am awake. From a technological viewpoint, it would of course be interesting to learn how it determines the appropriate strength from the electric pulses and resistance alone, without other means to measure the muscular response.
- Automatic switch off after the chosen program has finished, which is potentially useful if I’d happen to fall asleep while using it.
- Visibly similar seeming amount of muscle motion – assuming that that is an indicator for similar effectiveness – feels more painful than with the Marc Pro.
- Slight changes in body pose can affect the amount of motion more than with the Marc Pro. It happened to me that if moved around while using it, muscle motions sometimes almost completely stopped (which doesn’t kill you) or that they became painfully and funnily large, which still doesn’t kill you but is less nice.
- Ability to dial intensity in from a lot of steps, but the range of steps seems too large and the steps too far apart for small intensities – like 7 being way too weak but 8 being way too strong – so sometimes I end up with either not much motion or something way too painful. On the other hand, for other muscles I sometimes dial up to over 30, so I am not sure how much engineering effort was spent there to get that right.
Marc Pro
Specifications:
- Only 2 channels, meaning I have to have two sessions, say one for both thighs, before doing both calves, or even three if I do front and back of the thighs separately.
- Wired to a rather large main unit.
- Rechargeable.
My experience:
- Just one program, but seems to work: less painful than Compex for the same amount of muscle motion. Therefore seems more effective in the same amount of time, somewhat canceling out the disadvantage of having just two channels.
- Steps are small enough to find the appropriate strength, and is easily operated by dials for either quick or fine adjustments.
- The maximum intensity is, depending on where you place the electrodes, often below pain threshold. A stronger intensity might be more efficient to reduce time needed.
- No automatic switch off, so it’s not recommended to fall asleep while using it.
Summary
- In my opinion, they both seem to do what they are promising with respect to helping with regeneration and loosening my muscles. I don’t have any measured results to back that impression though.
- They are quite different and if possible I’d recommend trying them both before choosing one. I am having fun with both of them, although, in my subjective opinion, the Marc Pro seems more effective and the Compex more geeky. It’d be nice if Marc Pro came up with a more compact, 4 (or more) channel wireless version, with thinner wireless electrodes.
- To be honest, both seem totally overpriced compared with less sports-oriented EMS devices from manufacturers like Omron or Panasonic, which might not have the sports-related research evidence but whose electronics seem trustworthy enough to not kill me. Unluckily I didn’t have any to compare at this moment.
- On the other hand, both seem at least to be way more effective and more durable than other massaging devices I tried so far like some that work with electric air pumps and airbags built into sleeves. Those designed for medical usage might be better but are prohibitively expensive.
Video
Marc Pro (right) with its only recovery program in intensity 6.4 out of 9.0 max versus Compex SP 6.0 (left) in one of its typical recovery settings. Both were dialed in to a subjectively similar pain level. The muscle motion of the Marc Pro is less frequent but seems more intense and felt to be more effective to me.