Dr. Jeffrey Gladden discusses research on the NUBI electrical-muscle-stimulation device. Two studies found that NUBI produced the same muscle cell swelling and growth as heavy lifting, but with far less joint strain. The device could make strength training safer and more accessible.
they looked at comparing activation, muscle activation, with the NUBI device compared to traditional resistance exercise. And we did— there was the first study was looking at the acute effects, and the second was looking at muscle growth over a full 8-week training cycle. In terms of, in terms of acute effects, as you know, Dr. Gladden, one of the precursors to hypertrophy is actually muscle cell swelling. So they, they image muscles on ultrasound, and, and my understanding of it is essentially that The muscle cells are, are sort of slurping up blood plasma because that, that's where the nutrients are and the raw materials to rebuild and replenish after they're depleted by exercise. So this muscle cell swelling is one of the precursors. And we saw in the acute study similar swelling, similar movement of fluids from extracellular to intracellular in the muscles that did traditional resistance exercise with 70 to 80% of one rep max, compared to the ones that were stimulated by the NUBI device without any external load. And then in the subsequent of the follow-on study, there was a, again, finding where it was very similar in terms of muscle growth measured over a full 8-week training cycle using traditional resistance exercise compared to this electrical stimulation with, with little to no external load. So you can, without as much strain and load on the joints, you can get as much activation of the muscle. So it can make training safer, more accessible, more time efficient, perhaps in some ways more effective.
