EMS stands for electrical muscle stimulation. Electrodes on the skin deliver impulses that make your muscles contract.
Understand EMS01 / EMS made simple
During a voluntary movement, your brain sends signals through the nerves to your muscles. Electrical signals travel along the nerves. This allows you to lift your arm or move your leg, for example.
EMS stands for electrical muscle stimulation. Controlled electrical impulses reach the neuromuscular system, meaning the nerves and muscles, through electrodes on the skin. They can trigger a muscle contraction: the muscle contracts and relaxes during the breaks.
They deliver the electrical stimulus.
They pass the signal on to the muscle.
Contractions alternate with breaks.
WB-EMS stands for whole-body electromyostimulation. Unlike local EMS, such as an abdominal belt, it stimulates several large muscle areas in the upper and lower body simultaneously.
Sweetmyo is a whole-body EMS system: six areas are stimulated through twelve integrated electrodes, with intensity controlled individually.
02 / Muscles at every stage of life
35–50 years
Train your muscles. Build a foundation for life.
50–65 years
Stay mobile and active without heavy added weights.
65+ years
Preserve mobility and quality of life. Stay independent.
03 / What can EMS do for me?
Regular WB-EMS can improve muscle strength and mass. Training stimulus, consistency and recovery work together.
Large muscle areas are stimulated simultaneously. With Sweetmyo, you control six areas individually.
Stimulation provides the training stimulus. You can combine it with gentle movements without heavy dumbbells.
EMS adds to your options for muscle training. Endurance, coordination and movement in daily life remain important.
04 / Three important questions
You feel tingling and notice your muscles contracting and relaxing in time with the impulses. The intensity should be clearly noticeable but easy to control. It should not hurt.
If you feel pain, burning, dizziness or discomfort: stop stimulation immediately and establish the cause before continuing.
Whether WB-EMS is suitable for you also depends on your health. Certain medical conditions or circumstances rule out WB-EMS fitness training. Others require medical clearance and appropriately qualified supervision.
Before you start, check the contraindications below and follow the guidance in the user manual.
Classification based on the German WB-EMS consensus of 2024; not an individual suitability assessment. 2024 consensus
Eat beforehand, drink enough and have electrode contact and suit fit checked. Train with a qualified professional present in person.
During your first sessions, get to know the impulses and how you respond to them. Start with a low overall intensity and shorter sessions. Increase the intensity slowly: the impulses should be easy to control and must not hurt.
Then adjust each body area individually. If the stimulus is too strong, reduce it. If it feels weak or you cannot feel it, check electrode contact and suit fit first, before making careful adjustments.
During the first eight to ten weeks, train no more than once a week. Focus on familiarisation rather than high intensity. This familiarisation is already training and prepares you for more intensive sessions.
Your goal: understand how your body responds and find a training rhythm you can comfortably maintain. Increase the intensity carefully, avoiding heavy exertion or training to exhaustion.
After familiarisation, allow at least four days between intensive WB-EMS sessions.
* Muscle mass, skin sensitivity and the response of nerves and muscles vary between people and body areas. There is no single intensity setting that suits everyone. Settings must be adjusted individually; how the stimulation feels alone does not reliably rule out overload.
* Severe muscle pain, marked weakness or dark urine after training require prompt medical assessment.
05 / For those who want to know more
Open the topic that interests you.
The strength of an impulse is only one part of the picture. Its shape, rhythm and breaks also determine how stimulation works and how it feels. EMS can therefore be used in different ways: with longer contraction phases or shorter, alternating impulses.
Discover how Sweetmyo controls these impulses on our technology page.
Explore Sweetmyo technology
Understand the signal
Choose a term to see what changes in the signal.
Simplified schematic · not a recommendation for device settings. Source: FDA
Study: A meta-analysis of 16 studies involving 897 adults who were not athletes.
Findings: Statistically significant improvements in muscle mass and maximum leg and back extension strength. The analysis did not establish a statistically significant overall effect on body fat.
Training conditions and participants differed between studies.
Read the meta-analysisStudy: 48 healthy, untrained men aged 30–50 trained for 16 weeks using WB-EMS or intensive strength training.
Findings: Both groups improved lean body mass and leg extension strength. For these measures, there was no statistically significant difference between groups.
This does not establish general equivalence. The findings apply to the groups and training protocols studied.
Read the comparison studyStudy: The TEST-III study followed 76 women aged 70 and over with low bone density for around one year.
Findings: Compared with the control group, the WB-EMS group showed favourable changes in lean body mass and grip strength.
These findings concern a specific group of older women. They do not establish a general claim about treating osteoporosis.
Read the TEST-III studyThe two individual studies provide concrete examples alongside the meta-analysis; these are not three independent bodies of evidence. The studies concern WB-EMS under defined conditions and supervision. They do not provide product-specific evidence of Sweetmyo’s effectiveness or guarantee individual results.
Electrical muscle stimulation is not a new idea. Research into nerves and muscles led to different applications in medicine and training.
| Period | Development |
|---|---|
| 1780s–1790s | Galvani investigates the relationship between electricity and muscle movement. Source |
| 19th century | Duchenne develops electrical stimulation techniques for medical applications. Source |
| 2000s | Whole-body EMS becomes established as a commercial training option in Germany. Source |
| 2016 | The first joint recommendations for safe WB-EMS use are published. Source |
| 2023 | An international expert group updates the application recommendations. Source |
| 2024 | The German consensus updates absolute and relative contraindications. Source |
Selected professional sources on EMS. Updated: 6 October 2026.
OpenStax · Nerve–muscle illustration · CC BY 4.0. Galvani / Wikimedia Commons · public domain. Product images: Sweetmyo.
EMS with Sweetmyo
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