Authors:
Ritwik Raj Saxena, Ritcha Saxena, Akash Patel

Addresses:
1Department of Computer Science, University of Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota, United States of America. 2Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, United States of America. 3Department of Clinical Sciences, Medical University of the Americas, St. Christopher and Nevis, United States of America. saxen130@d.umn.edu1, rsaxena@d.umn.edu2, apatel@mua.edu3

Abstract:

This review aims to evaluate how far functional electrical stimulation (FES) can serve as a replacement for training to improve muscle strength and hypertrophy metrics in people who lack the time to attend gym training sessions. We conducted a Preferred Reporting Systems for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) review to identify those documents that provide relevant information about our objectives. We isolated seven relevant documents in this regard. We studied them, specifically their results, to identify pertinent points that assisted our understanding of FES as a tool that can improve fitness. Our study demonstrates that FES can augment many of the factors that motivate individuals to go to the gym and engage in workouts. FES serves to improve contractile strength, hypertrophy, endurance, muscle mass, and overall functionality of muscles in individuals. Science offers a positive outlook on FES and its ability to improve voluntary muscle activation. However, FES suffices to fulfill such functions in an adjunct capacity and is better suited for people who, due to old age or physical reasons like paralysis or other reasons leading to weakness or immobility, cannot go to the gym or engage in adequate strength or hypertrophy exercises. We found that while FES offers strong opportunities to improve muscle mass contractile strength and combat muscle fatigue in workout-deprived individuals, its effectiveness compared to actual gym workouts fails to reach the levels where we could term it a worthwhile replacement to gym training.

Keywords: Functional Electrical Stimulation; Contractile Strength; Hypertrophy and Endurance; Muscle Mass; Muscle Fatigue; Bioelectric Impedance; Neuromodulation and Neuroplasticity; Bioelectronic and Duty Cycle; Maximal Voluntary Contractions.

Received on: 05/06/2023, Revised on: 16/08/2023, Accepted on: 29/09/2023, Published on: 23/12/2023

FMDB Transactions on Sustainable Energy Sequence, 2023 Vol. 1 No. 2, Pages: 94-106

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