{"id":684870,"date":"2026-05-21T20:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T20:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/684870\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T20:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T20:31:15","slug":"what-is-an-ems-workout-experts-explain-the-trend-benefits-and-how-it-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/684870\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is an EMS Workout? Experts Explain the Trend, Benefits, and How It Works"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated5 min read<\/p>\n

If your body is a temple, then the gym is a sanctuary. It\u2019s no longer a place to just sweat for an hour, but a third space where culture, wellness, health, physiology, fashion, science, bodies, and beauty meet. Our Working It Out<\/a> package investigates modern fitness and its increasing impact on our everyday lives.<\/p>\n

I wanted to believe in Buffy. When Sarah Michelle Gellar<\/a> told me recently in an interview that EMS was one of her new favorite things, I wanted to suit up right away. She also said the magic words: that electrical muscle stimulation was like \u201cdoubling up your workouts,\u201d getting twice the benefit from the same moves.<\/p>\n

EMS workouts are a newish trend, in which electrodes are placed directly onto muscles\u2014which thus \u201cbypasses the brain and spinal cord and causes a contraction of the target muscle,\u201d says Sarah Crawford, DPT, a physical therapist in Cincinnati. The method has long been used in physical therapy and rehabilitation for patients who are unable to activate or move muscles themselves, due to injuries or illnesses like strokes. Bruce Lee reportedly<\/a> used it in the \u201970s, it was part of Tom Holland\u2019s movie prep<\/a>, and you can find it today at the Alo Wellness gyms in L.A. and New York, schedule a workout via text with the fitness company The EMS Studio, or buy a $3,000 Katalyst suit online, which includes a three-month training system. With a full suit on, you can stimulate your quads, abs, hamstrings, biceps, and back all at the same time. Suits have intensity levels that can be cranked up or down, as you perform your workout of choice such as running, HIIT, Pilates, and weight lifting.<\/p>\n

\"KatalystCourtesy of Katalyst<\/p>\n

Flat lay image of the Katalyst EMS Suit.<\/p>\n

Many people report being able to see their muscles twitch during the workout, and even lifting five pounds can feel impactful, says Alo\u2019s lead EMS trainer, Darci Fistanic. It\u2019s hard to tell how much is hyperbole, but when Chrissy Teigen recounted<\/a> her EMS experience on The Kelly Clarkson Show, she equated the 20 minutes of working out to four hours. An October 2025 study<\/a> of 46 participants from the Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness found that EMS might have some benefits, but that larger studies are needed. Compared to participants who did 25-minute EMS workouts, those who did a 90-minute full-body resistance training program showed better improvements in strength and reduced body fat percentages after 20 weeks. But the EMS subjects showed greater reductions in BMI and body weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had mothers say to me, \u2018This is kind of like a contraction.\u2019 That\u2019s why women can take it a lot higher than men.\u201d<\/p>\n

How it feels depends upon the person and the level of intensity. Gellar said her friend said it felt like \u201clabor pains\u201d; she called this an exaggeration, but Fistanic snickers, \u201cI have had mothers say to me, \u2018This is kind of like a contraction.\u2019 That\u2019s why women can take it a lot higher than men.\u201d People do ask Fistanic if they can still get some benefits even if they\u2019re watching TV while wearing EMS, and the answer is, \u201cYou can absolutely do that. But I always tell people, \u2018If we can move, we should be moving, right?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ALOCourtesy of Alo Wellness<\/p>\n

Darci Fistanic and Alton Mason wearing the Alo Wellness EMS suits.<\/p>\n

The most compelling part might be that EMS workouts are shorter than an episode of I Love LA<\/a>. They\u2019re generally limited to 20 minutes because of the risk of overtraining. \u201cThe only downside of EMS, and this applies to any workout where you would be really overtraining, is that you\u2019re releasing something called cytokines into your bloodstream,\u201d says Anna Herrin, founder of The Studio EMS. An excessive amount of lactic acid can be difficult for the kidneys to process. \u201cI\u2019m stronger today than I ever have been in my life, and I work out twice a week,\u201d Fistanic tells me. Katalyst partner Maria Chapman, a former ballerina, and Herrin, a former model, also say they work out only twice a week now.<\/p>\n

If it sounds too good to be true, Crawford is inclined to agree. While she believes that EMS is not dangerous, according to her, the benefits are not equal to suitless, old-fashioned workouts because the actions don\u2019t coordinate with the brain. With traditional workouts, you work out your brain as you do your muscles. \u201cThere\u2019s an area in the brain that gets excited when you decide you\u2019re going to lift,\u201d says Crawford. \u201cThat message gets easier and easier to deliver the more it\u2019s practiced. When we use electrical stimulation to assist in that motion, we aren\u2019t getting as good of a circuit response. We are not enhancing cortical signaling,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"scenicCourtesy of The Studio EMS<\/p>\n

Woman wearing The Studio EMS suit.<\/p>\n

Exercise also helps the brain improve motor patterns. \u201cWhen we choose to activate a muscle voluntarily, we get improved motor cortex adaptation. That\u2019s the part of the brain that\u2019s responsible for motor activities, moving the body, improved spinal cord circuitry, and coordination between muscles that have to work together,\u201d Crawford explains, adding that EMS workouts can train a muscle to fire less efficiently. \u201cWe\u2019re turning all the muscle fibers on and all the muscle fibers off, which is not what happens in normal physiologic movement. We\u2019re retraining a muscle in a way that is not standard operating procedure.\u201d Her ideal candidate: \u201cIf you\u2019re a sedentary person, if you\u2019re somebody who has not exercised in a long time and can\u2019t tolerate load, I think the electrical stimulation exercise is a good place to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fistanic notes that those who are pregnant or have pacemakers should not use EMS suits. But she also argues that EMS\u2019s ability to bypass the brain is a plus for people unable to access their brain-body connection. There is one low setting on her suit that she compares to feeling like tapping therapy, in which connecting with or touching certain meridian points can help people relax and feel calm, and clients have said it helps with depression and anxiety. She\u2019s also found that new mothers have found EMS, used on the lower abdomen, to be a form of pelvic rehab. Fistanic used to teach prenatal and postnatal Pilates and is aware of how the pelvic floor is heavily affected after pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI turn on the EMS and they just start crying. \u2018I never thought I was ever going to be able to feel that feeling again,\u2019\u201d she has heard. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to get somebody shredded for a movie or really toned, defined bodies right before they get on the runway. But to work with people that have had injuries or with mothers who have just given birth is a gift and one of the best compliments. They deserve to feel good again.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story appears in the May 2026 issue of ELLE.<\/p>\n

GET THE LATEST ISSUE OF ELLE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 min read If your body is a temple, then the gym is a sanctuary. It\u2019s no longer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,251066,251065,2910,251063,784,407,787,84,237154,1642,195851,251062,251064],"class_list":["post-684870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-collection-in-the-magazine","tag-collection-working-it-out","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-ccf5928e-8b51-493e-acd9-44d5157824ed","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-fitness","tag-hasproduct-true","tag-health","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-5","tag-shorttitle-why-ems-workouts-are-suddenly-everywhere","tag-subsection-health-fitness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}