Can electrostimulation replace sport?

This is the question, is seeing muscles move a sign that we are doing sport or just a reflex action of the muscle that receives an electrical impulse. For 20 years we have seen beautiful athletes move their muscles thanks to sport-elec, Compex, slendertone. What is the reality of these visual effects if we compare them to physical movements carried out during a sporting activity?

There are clinical tests that prove the effectiveness of electrostimulation but can we really talk about sport? The tests show results on muscle strengthening, on active recovery after efforts, on pain relief by tens currents which counteract the cerebral message of pain, but nothing proves that one does sport with an electrostimulator.

For some time now the fashion for myabodyteck and movement associated with the electrical impulses of the generators has changed the situation, now we talk about sports activity by associating movement with electrostimulation. Is it really sport?

Doing an EMS session (electro muscle stimulation) which is nothing more than an electro-stimulation session. There is no doubt that if you try it you will have the sensation of having done a physical activity because you will have accompanied the electrical contractions with voluntary contractions of your muscles and this will have amplified the reciprocal movement of the two voluntary and involuntary phenomena. Your muscles will have worked, it is certain, and they will have developed or awakened due to the effect of the contractions that you would probably never have done without the associated electro-stimulation technique.

But is it sport? I would say no because sport is something else. Sport combines the work of the body with a physical activity supervised in a sporting discipline which will combine the body and the mind which will allow a physical expression which can be associated with an objective of performance, of well-being, of surpassing oneself, whether it be in athletics, gymnastics or horse riding in which the association with the horse will come into play. So electrostimulation associated with movements is not sport, it is a means of preparation and efficient muscular development to do sport or simply to maintain one's physical form, muscle tone and vitality, but it is not sport.

Moreover, the new ranges of Sportelec electrostimulators which combine electrostimulation accessories or clothing with movements do not talk about sport but about sports preparation.