Can Electricity Really Tone Your Muscles?

If someone offered you a way to get "rock hard abs," firmer thighs or slimmer hips -- all without breaking a sweat -- would you sign up or ask, "what's the gag?"<IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0710/31797.gif" WIDTH="125" HEIGHT="116" ALT="The truth about electrical muscle stimulation " ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0"><P>Late-night cable commercials for electrical muscle stimulation or EMS promise that and more. EMS devices come with electrodes that people put over various muscle groups they want to stimulate. The device sends periodic burst of electricity through the electrodes, which cause the muscles to contract, supposedly giving them a "workout" while the owners of the muscles watch TV or read. <P>But a loud chord of skepticism is being sounded by an exercise scientist at the <A HREF="http://www.acefitness.org">American Council on Exercise</A> who tested five of the devices, which sell for $519 each. The researcher wanted to see if the devices could live up to their claims to passively increase the user's muscle tone and overall physical fitness. <P>Conclusion: The machines are useless. <h3>Based In Fact</h3> <P>The theory behind EMS is perfectly sound, experts said, and the devices are used in physical therapy for injured athletes and for other medical uses. But as a substitute for real exercise, they're an expensive flop, said John Porcari, a faculty member at from the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse.<P>Porcari published his results in the magazine of the American Council on Exercise, ACE FtnessMatters.<P> "In-home EMS has little practical significance or carryover benefit," Porcari said. <P>"People need to realize that these units are going to provide very little health benefit as compared to aerobic exercise or a regular resistance-training program." <P>Porcari recruited 29 college-age volunteers to get hooked up to the devices to test their effectiveness in promoting fitness and weight loss. <P>At the start of the study, Porcari weighed the volunteers and took photos of them. He also graded them on a 10-point scale for their fitness levels. <P>Seventeen volunteers got hooked up to an EMS device three times per week for eight weeks. Twelve volunteers were connected to machines that resembled real ones but delivered no electrical current, according to Porcari. <P>At the end of the study, the volunteers who got the "real" EMS had no changes in muscle strength, weight or body-fat percentage, Porcari reported. <H3>Get Real</H3><P>The best way to get fit is to start a regular workout program of aerobic and weight-resistance training, Porcari said. <P>For an exhaustive listing of Web sites keyed to fitness and working out, go to <A HREF="http://www.atozfitness.com">www.AtoZFitness.com.</A>. For fun, take <A HREF="http://www.atozfitness.com/quiz/fitquiz.html">the site's fitness quiz.</A> <P>To find a certified trainer to help you get fitness, run this <A HREF="http://www.acefitness.org/profreg/index.cfm">search engine on the Web site of the American Council on Exercise</A>.<P>