ELECTRO-STIMULATION: COMPREHENSION AND THE CORRECT USE OF ITS PROGRAMMES

 Frequency, amplitude, impulse duration and rest time, all in themselves contain such a variety of possibilities as to practically paralyse us when faced with such a magnitude of options. For this reason, electro-stimulation equipment incorporate a series of programmes which make our life easier, and which allow us to achieve results in a simple and uncomplicated way. This means that we should organise our training with EMS, keeping in mind the programmes which the equipment has; organise a programme which is, above all else, logical, which meets our needs, and which is objective in respect to the amount of time available. It should also establish a gradual rise in training difficulty and intensity. In the same way that we would not go from running 20 km per week to running a marathon the next week, we shouldn’t get over-excited and begin to happily raise the intensity without allowing a physical adaptation to the training with electro-stimulation.
The equipment available today has changed a lot. In the past the training moved at a mechanical rhythm; when starting they would commence the elected programme without warming-up, for example. The good, present-day equipment, normally divide the different phases. For example, in a training session we would start an ‘explosive strength’ programme on the lower limbs; such a programme would begin with doing a brief warm-up and then train with an impulse frequency duration or even cycles within the programme, in which the frequencies alternate in order to achieve better results. If we had to manually change the frequency and impulse duration in each phase, we could not carry out effective neuro-muscular training.

In addition to the aforementioned, there are certain simple, logical but easily forgotten considerations to keep in mind. For example, if I want to increase muscular strength, and therefore the size of the fibre, I shouldn’t begin with the explosive strength programme, because the results obtained will be weaker than if a programme of base strength were begun with first. After two weeks, I move to a stamina strength programme, and after another two or three weeks, I would move to a programme of explosive or speed strength. It is something that any physical trainer knows and applies to training his or her athletes, and it is also what experienced athletes use to train by themselves. There are some sports training principles which we should keep in mind, which we will now describe so that the best results will be achieved from our efforts.