Quadriceps rehabilitation using Electric Muscle Stimulation
I would like to show you how I use the EMS while I work to stimulate my lazy quads.
| Good morning. So basically I would like to explain how to make exercises to strengthen your quads at home, because the problem essentially is that I am very lazy - I don't want to go to the gym, I find it very boring. I prefer to do exercises at home, sitting in front of computer, so I can keep working, do my own stuff, writing emails to my friends and use my brain. Essentially, if I don't use my brain I feel extremely bored. | |
| So essentially I will show you how the whole thing works. My problem is that I have both kneecaps very lateralised. So if you see here I put a tape to do - I think it is called McConnell taping, McConnell patella taping - which is meant to keep the kneecap a bit more in a medial position, rather than a lateral position. So I normally go around with 2 layers of tape. One is a layer of anti-allergic tape, and the other is a tougher tape, because the anti-allergic tape is very brittle, it doesn't hold a big tension. So normally I go around with these tapes on my kneecap. |
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| And so essentially I am going to use an ELECTRICAL MUSCLE STIMULATOR. This one is specifically a COMPEX - I believe there are hundreds of models on the market. This one surely is the most expensive, the COMPEX. So the COMPEX comes with 4 channels, and the 4 channels are attached to electrodes. There is a wide electrode and 2 smaller - which make 2 channels, and another wide and 2 smaller which make the other 2 channels. | |
| So in order to fix the electrodes to your legs, I use...actually I have tried many strategies to attach the electrodes to the skin. Normally the electrodes have an adhesive gel which will last you three times, then it becomes quite expensive to buy new electrodes all the time, so I simply use elastic bands, which is normal elastic braces which are also quite expensive, but they last you for a lifetime...so I wear 2 elastic braces, and they help me... these are only to keep the electrodes in the right place. After some time when you use the electrodes they lose conductivity. Normally they come with a gel, which is a conductive gel, and they sell you products - actually they sell you also spare parts of new electrodes, they only waste your money, and then they sell you special gel, which is conductive gel. |
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| Honestly I find the most effective and cheap way simply to use your saliva, it's not a very clean way but it works perfectly! So normally I lick the electrodes, I put them on the inner side - there you are, the 2 others... because my aim is to strenghten the vastus medialis, which is this muscle here, the inner part of the leg, because the kneecap it goes outside this way, so the stronger I keep these muscles the more medial we keep the kneecap, so it tracks better - and it does work. Now that I have a much stronger vastus medialis my kneecap is tracking much better than before. so hopefully I will be able to postpone the dreaded knee replacement. | |
| And the other 2 electrodes, lick, lick, h'ra! I put them more or less at the same height of the kneecap, but in a medial position, inside. So I am going to do the same on the other side but, never mind. So at this point you choose the right program for the COMPEX, or whatever electrical muscle stimulator you use. I use the COMPEX Body, which is the cheapest and I use the active recovery program, so normally it lasts 24 minutes, but I do twice every day, every evening, I sit like 45 minutes doing exercise - and it really helps a lot, I tell you. |
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| So basically now I am not going to do the right thing, but simply the position to stay is sitting in front of the table. I grab the table, I push it towards me, and when I get the stimulus, hop hop hop hop hop, so I am strenghtening all the muscles, because I am doing this exercise like this. I don't move much, because I don’t want to put a lot of pressure on the kneecaps while they are in a bent position, this is not particularly good. So I do a minimum movement, just like this, but still I am definitely exercising a lot the muscles, all the quads, that is the vastus medialis, the vastus lateralis, the rectus femoris..and there is the... inner vastus medialis... quads they are 4 and I never remember the fourth...but given the EMS this one, the VM, is going to work more than the rest - which is my objective. I want to strenghen all the muscles with a particular intensity on the VM, so nothing I do this or even without grabbing the table simply sitting like this and I keep working on the computer. |
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| And many times I also use this ball, this is an inflatable ball, which is good so that I can carry her around around the world, and I simply sit like that, and while I do this exercise I press the ball between my legs, and it's quite good, I am really happy about this exercise. I am doing it for the last one and a half months and it's working really well. And that's all for today, bye! |
Quote - "Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself."
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Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 8:19pm
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