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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Natwijesinghe, Alexancj4764.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
The study cited in the reference section clearly states that EMS is ineffective. The article sounds far more like an advertisement than an unbiased encyclopedia entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.202.109 (talk) 21:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
According to the study cited in the reference section:
"The stimulation group had a 58% increase in abdominal strength, whereas the control group did not change. The stimulation group also had a 100% increase in abdominal endurance versus a 28% increase in the control group. Waist circumference decreased by of 3.5 cm in the stimulation group compared to no significant change in the control group. All 24 subjects in the stimulation group felt that their midsections were more “toned” and “firmed” and 13/24 (54%) felt that their posture had improved as a result of the stimulation. None of the control group subjects reported changes in these parameters. There were no significant differences in body weight, BMI, or skinfold thickness over the course of the study in either group. NMES, as used in the current study, resulted in significant improvements in the muscular strength and endurance of the abdominal region, as well as subject’s perceived shape and satisfaction of the midsection."
Furthermore:
"This study found that the use of the Slendertone FLEX TM belt significantly increased abdominal strength and endurance, decreased waist girth, and improved self-perceived abdominal firmness and tone. The results probably can be attributed to the strength of the electrically induced muscle contractions made possible by the quality of the electrodes utilized in the belt system, as well as the stimulator itself."
Investigation by the FTC (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/05/projectabsurd.htm) has shown that quite a few of these belts are more or less totally useless. However, Slendertone Flex - and, presumably, Slendertone Flex Max - clearly shouldn't be lumped in with them.
Only glass (talk) 13:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with the edit of June 13 by Mojo-chan. This is done by a person who has no familiarity with sports medicine, and therefore is not qualified. Whole references to scholarly written and peer-reviewed articles, which were the results of research, were deleted. In place of these deletion, a pseudo rationalization going against that article has been written by a person who has no familiarity with sport-medicine and training.
In addition, this article made references to FDA-certified devices, which having withstood the scrutiny of the FDA, implicitly portray valid research.
The editor also deleted entire portions of the article without paying attention to references or other entries. For instance one entry reference was left, but the content of the entry was eliminated. This is incorrect protocol and demeans the seriousness of Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gciriani (talk • contribs) 02:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
The article didn't make reference to rock hard abs. The FDA certifies some devices with the understanding that they improve muscle properties, such as strength, explosive strength, endurance, and recovery. These claims are part of the documentation submitted for devices that have been certified. But worse of all was the corrections that replaced basically the whole article with explanation on EMS by Mojo-chan based on thin air. You have to be qualified to make a statement, or you must have read scholar research and counteract it with other scholar research. Any CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) can tell you that you can exercise muscles just applying force statically (i.e. isometrically). Therefore the analogy with push-ups is completely wrong. If you do not understand that, then you shouldn't engage in a discussion on the rest of research on EMS. I have now added a number of research references to the article. If you want more, I have 100 more, and they are all from people with PhD. But I don't think that Wikipedia is the place for research articles, and too many references would confuse the regular user. If you have doubts or want more references, please contact me or buy one of the books referenced at the end of the article and read it for yourself. Do not arbitrarily change the article with pseudo-rationale.Gciriani (talk) 17:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
It looks like there is a double standard here. The uneducated rationale written previously by Mojo-chan didn't need any citation to be posted; on the contrary the article that I distilled from books and research papers written by scholars of this subject, needs to have citations sentence by sentence. Who is doing a disservice to Wilkipedia? In addition if one read only a few of the references already contained in this article, those referenced articles would answer all of the additional citations requested. It seems very unfair that one separate citation is requested for each of several sentences, when just one at the end of the paragraph should suffice. Also the two books referenced cover by themselves, each one alone, all of the content of this article. You cannot be incredulous against science, then not read supporting material, and then post publicly to a community of readers that the supporting arguments still need further evidence. Gciriani (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
How about that for double standards: you didn't verify with any expert that your uneducated statement on push-ups was correct. I have here a link to some papers and abstracts. They are not the same I referenced in the article, but they contain plenty of evidence for the training effects of electro muscle stimulation. I have more articles, but I have not obtained authorization from the publisher to post them; how can I upload them to Wikipedia please?
P.S. I didn't harrass anybody, I was looking for a person with your username to open a adialogue, and I sent a message asking if this person was the Mojo-chan who had posted entries in Wikipedia. My name is by the way Giovanni Ciriani. You can find me in the website.--Gciriani (talk) 19:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I had a further idea. I'm sure that you are a nice person; I just need to educate you on the subject. I have copied one paragraph from chapter four of the book that gave me some of the citations. By reading it you will probably find the origins of your incredulity. I also will also allow you to download the book from an not public page of my website: once in it click on textbook.
Chapter 4 of Textbook - When looking at Electrical Stimulation (sometimes known as ES, or EMS, or NMES) and its applications, a primary focus must inevitably be on the development of reliable and readily available machines that can deliver biologically appropriate impulses to living tissue. Since the 1950s, with the emergence of mass produced circuit boards and battery controlled devices, a variety of systems have not only been made available to research scientists, doctors and therapists, but also to the general consumer. Indeed, the launch of one of the very first commercially available battery operated stimulators for the general public was in the UK. The small four channel units were safe, portable battery operated systems that used carbon graphite embedded in rubber pads (electrodes) as a way to conduct the signal safely. The operating instructions were simple and designed for individual home use as a method for figure control and body shaping. As a consequence, electrical stimulation entered the world of the consumer before being generally used or accepted by the majority of the scientific research community. This has been both a help and a hindrance to the development of electrical stimulation. On the one hand, good market potential for stimulation devices has assured a steady flow of high quality and reasonably priced machines that offer more and more sophisticated and safe applications. On the other hand, the scientific community has perhaps viewed electrical stimulation with a certain amount of disdain and suspicion, as some health and figure shaping benefits have been over emphasized to maximize the selling potential of these machines in a highly competitive market. We are in the unusual position of having a vast choice of stimulators available to us, both for therapists and home users, yet the question “does it really work” is still uppermost in many people’s mind.--Gciriani (talk) 01:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
There are journals with advertising and journals without; it depends on the choices of the publisher and the if circulation can sustain the journal. What is important is whether the panel of peer-reviewers is independent or not. --Gciriani (talk) 15:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The textbook I referenced is published by Verlag, a large publisher with a good reputation in scientific publishing. The textbook was published for colleges in sport-medicine. --Gciriani (talk) 15:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I recognize that my English is far from perfect, and that I'm inexperienced at Wikipedia. I took a look at the style and tone guide, but I would sincerely appreciate if you pointed out a couple of the most important style and tone guidelines I'm deficient in.--Gciriani (talk) 15:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Eliminating the list of authorized uses (which by the way appeared only in a note), and adding a whole section Precautions section seems a bit of an overkill. I don't think it does anything for NPOV, actually it expresses a negative POV of EMS. The paragraph added comes from the FDA guidelines. FDA asks manufacturers to list precautions, warnings, contraindications in the user manual, which is done for any drug or device in the market. I have not seen this standard applied to drug articles in Wikipedia. I propose instead to mention that there are precautions without writing a whole paragraph.
In addition the phrase used as prescribed by a practitioner is a caution label, not a precaution, and is incorrect: it misrepresents a whole category of EMS devices that are authorized by the FDA for sale without prescription and without supervision from a practitioner. Overall, I have the impression that the various corrections by NJGW were done without knowledge of this subject. I prefer to discuss it here rather than entering into a correction war. We can discuss this by e-mail giovanni dot ciriani at gmail dot com.--Gciriani (talk) 15:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
First of all you took away the list of approved indications for use, which are far more important than the precautions to understand EMS. So your editing did a disservice to Wikipedia. The FDA Guidance Document for Powered Muscle Stimulator, which you consulted, is a guide for manufacturers for what should be included in the manual of devices sold to the public. It is not a guide to advantages and risks of using EMS. If you look at what this article was, before I completely revamped it, it was a turf war between biased marketeer on one side, and biased Wikipedia police on the other side. It took me quite some effort to rewrite a balanced article, looking up bibliography, reading material and research on EMS. I understand your good intentions, but it takes more than reading the FDA document. For instance you put precautions together with things that are not precautions. You mislead the reader into thinking that Non-Prescription devices do not need precautions. The list could go on, but I'm just trying to make the point that you need to better understand the subject. I hope that you let me make later on some changes including precautions, but with a balanced approach, not by having an out of proportion section by itself.--Gciriani (talk) 15:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Electro Muscle Stimulation → ? — The article should not stay where it is right now, because a) "electro" is not a word in this context but an abbreviation, b) the capitalisation is ugly to say the least c) the whole title sounds a bit off to me. A better place would probably be neuromuscular electrostimulation as this type of stimulation by neccessity (I think) stimulates nerve endings (at least this is what is stated in my Cefar-Compex NMES device manual), or perhaps electric muscle stimulation, electromyostimulation or just anything that looks more sane than the current title. — Where next Columbus? (talk) 17:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.I second what Xasodfuih wrote: that lay users are familiar with EMS and not NMES.--Gciriani (talk) 02:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
This is the best (or only) top flight coach folks could come up with? That is kind of like saying Hitler used a particular kind of Krupps oven (OK, over the top example, but you get my drift). Almost any other named coach would be better.--Fizbin (talk) 23:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I came to this article seeking basic information on the subject and general validity of medical and physical therapy claims. The material presented reads like several competing points of view mashed together with "neutral" language. Information and tone is conflicting. I briefly looked up the various articles cited as references and the majority of them are poorly-cited (often fewer than 15-20 other papers make reference to the cited article). While citations alone are not a measure of quality, it does lend weight to the interest the article has generated within it's field. It also is a good measure of how many peers have reviewed and possibly validated the research presented.
I understand this article is marked for low priority and not being knowledgeable I cannot offer any useful edits myself. Can an editor at least clean out the alternating bias and perhaps make it just a simple encyclopedic description of what EMS is? It certainly couldn't be any less useful than it is now. TJW (talk) 08:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
More information is needed on the machines that use electrical pulses to stimulate muscles to grow. These use pads fixed to the skin. How effective are they, and what are the disadvantages of using them compared to weight training and strength training? Are they safe to use? Do they sometimes damage muscles or disfigure them? Wsmss (talk) 11:15, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm proposing to remove the Globalize/US tag. This tag was introduced by User:UltraMagnus on May 30, 2010, suggesting a discussion in the talk page. Nobody ever did that until now, not even the proponent. After reading the article, it seems that citations used in the article come from many different places around the world. The only section that is exclusively US, is the one on the US FDA regulatory aspect. That section has been counterbalanced by a perspective on European regulations and views.--Gciriani (talk) 18:37, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
New talk topic from User_talk:Billinghurst/Archives/2013/January#Electrical_muscle_stimulation_deletion, copied into this talk as it is relevant to this article.
I agree with you about the deletion in the Electrical muscle stimulation article of the spam link to the Russian company. However, I think the other link to the EMS Digest is not spam. I'm not sure if you went through the document, but it is a useful and complete guide for those who want to learn more about the use of that technique in sport training.--Gciriani (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
“ | Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority. (This exception for blogs, etc., controlled by recognized authorities is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for people.) | ” |
Hello, I wanted to comment on the opening statement of electrical stimulation. I'm in a physical therapy program and everything I have been learning contradicts the opening statement about NMES and EMS being the same thing or referred to as the same thing. From my understanding EMS and NMES are not the same type of treatment and should not be referred to synonymously. Neuromuscular stimulation uses the peripheral nerve to stimulate muscular contractions with parameters that affect the motor fibers. Whereas, electrical muscle stimulation is used in treatments of denervated muscles with parameters that surpass motor-level stimulation.I would be happy to provide more specification and/or known parameters to elicit these effects if interested.--Hob10 (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
The external link "Casting New Energy onto Broken Limbs", doesn't seem to fit the article and out of the blue. It smells of indirect advertising, and I propose to delete it.--Gciriani (talk) 23:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Done.--Gciriani (talk) 12:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion, popular culture should be a paragraph with citations rather than a section. It also seems that the use by Bruce Lee is a legitimate use rather than popular culture; however, I don't have a citation available to be able to do so. Further ideas on how to modify this section or absorb it into the main text?--Gciriani (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand why you Cherrin5 deleted so much material from the Use section of the article. I think you need to broaden your understanding of the subject before doing something like that. You could for instance read some of the references cited in the article. I'm giving you here the link of one resource that I hope will help you understanding why I'm reversing your edit: Maffiuletti NA, Minetto MA, Farina D, Bottinelli R. Electrical stimulation for neuromuscular testing and training: state-of-the art and unresolved issues. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2011;111(10):2391-2397. The article was leading a cluster of presentations at the XVIII Congress of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (ISEK 2010) that took place in Aalborg, Denmark on 16–19 June 2010.--Gciriani (talk) 03:25, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
I do not know how similar FES Functional electrical stimulation is to EMS Electrical muscle stimulation, but they seem the same to me. A merge of the two articles may be necessary.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 14:45, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
As poorly reffed
"===Popular culture ===
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:49, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
I was looking at the Relax-A-Cizor portion of the article, and it seems to me disproportionate compared to the content of the original article on Electrical muscle stimulation. There are several other devices that have been routinely taken off commerce or warned against by the FDA. Policing the market place is one of the things they do, and that device is one of many they pursued. I would like to propose to drastically remove most of the Relax-A-Cizor content. It even sounds as reverse-advertising by substitute products that see EMS as a detrimental to their own market niche. I would even eliminate the Slendertone paragraph of the section, if there is support.--Gciriani (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2017 (UTC)