Quick Overview

Twenty-eight elite soccer players. Three groups. Seven weeks.

The result? Only the whole body EMS group improved — recording a 15.1% leg press strength increase (p=0.009) and 8.5% leg curl increase (p=0.026). Muscle biopsies confirmed 8.9% growth in Type II muscle fibres (p=0.023) — the exact fibres behind muscle tone and definition. The group that trained identically without EMS? Absolutely zero significant gains.

 Published in Frontiers in Physiology by German Sport University Cologne — the EMS difference simply could not be any clearer.

We always provide direct links to the original research at the end of every article so you can review the evidence yourself.

Scientists Discovered Something Remarkable When Elite Athletes Added Whole Body EMS to Their Training

Seven weeks. Twice a week. And the results only happened in one group.

There is a question that sits at the heart of every serious fitness goal: can you build more muscle and get stronger without simply training longer and harder?

For elite soccer players, already among the fittest people in the world, that question is particularly loaded. These are athletes training up to four sessions a week, playing competitive matches every weekend, already pushing their bodies to the limit. The idea that anything could produce measurable results on top of what they already do seems almost unreasonable.

And yet, that is exactly what a team of researchers from some of Germany's most distinguished scientific institutions went and found out.

The Scientists, the Institutions, and Why This Matters

This research did not emerge from a student experiment. It was conducted by a team of sports scientists from the German Sport University Cologne — Germany's most prestigious sports science institution, internationally recognised as a world leader in exercise and performance research — alongside colleagues from Ruhr-University Bochum and the University of Hildesheim.

The study was funded by the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft — Germany's own Federal Institute of Sport Science, the government body responsible for funding elite performance research across the nation.

Their findings were published in Frontiers in Physiology — a leading international peer-reviewed journal in exercise science, with editorial oversight from scientists across the globe.

Germany, of course, has a scientific tradition that needs little introduction. The country that gave the world some of its most transformative advances in chemistry, physics, and medicine applies the same rigour to its sports and exercise science. When German sports scientists publish in a peer-reviewed journal, the international community takes notice.

What They Actually Did

Twenty-eight trained male soccer players — competitive athletes, not beginners — were divided into three groups.

The first group added Whole Body EMS to their regular training schedule. Wearing a Full Body EMS System, they performed squat jumps while electrical impulses activated muscles simultaneously across their entire body — twice a week for seven weeks.

The second group performed the exact same squat jumps, the same sets and repetitions, on the same days — but without Whole Body EMS.

The third group continued their regular soccer training as normal, with no additions whatsoever.

Before and after the seven weeks, researchers ran every participant through identical strength tests — and, crucially, took muscle biopsies. Real tissue samples, examined under laboratory conditions using immunohistochemistry and western blotting. This is not guesswork. This is cellular-level evidence of what actually happened inside the muscles.

The Results That Couldn't Be Explained Any Other Way

Here is where the study becomes genuinely compelling, because the numbers do not just tell a story — they tell it three times over.

The Whole Body EMS group showed a 15.1% increase in leg press strength (p=0.009) and an 8.5% increase in leg curl strength (p=0.026). Both results carried large effect sizes — not marginal, not borderline, but clearly meaningful improvements in measurably stronger muscles.

The jump training group — who did the exact same exercises, at the same intensity, for the same duration — showed no significant strength improvements at all.

The control group, who continued their regular training, also showed no significant changes.

The conclusion is difficult to argue with. The only variable separating the groups was the Whole Body EMS. The jumps alone were not enough. The soccer training alone was not enough. The Whole Body EMS was the difference.

What Happened Inside the Muscle

This is the detail that elevates the study from interesting to genuinely important for anyone focused on muscle gain and toning.

The muscle biopsies revealed that the Whole Body EMS group experienced 8.9% growth in Type II muscle fibres (p=0.023) — the fast-twitch fibres most responsible for power, strength, and visible muscle definition. This was a statistically significant result with a large effect size.

The jump group? No significant fibre growth. The control group? No significant fibre growth.

Type II muscle fibres are the ones most associated with the lean, defined physique people work toward — the fibres that respond to intensity, contribute to visible muscle tone, and are typically the hardest to fully engage through conventional training alone.

The Whole Body EMS group showed measurable growth in these fibres. The other groups did not.

The Detail That Changes Everything

There is one element of this study that deserves its own moment.

Each Whole Body EMS session lasted just 8.5 minutes. The effective stimulation time per session was 2 minutes.

These were already elite athletes — people whose bodies had long since adapted to demanding physical training. And across just 14 training sessions over seven weeks, totalling under ten minutes each, their muscles grew and their strength increased in ways that the same exercise without Whole Body EMS simply could not replicate.

The Bottom Line

This study — conducted by leading German sports scientists and funded by Germany's Federal Institute of Sport Science — demonstrates that Whole Body EMS can produce meaningful changes in muscle strength and muscle fibre growth in already-trained individuals. Changes that identical training without Whole Body EMS failed to produce.

For anyone working toward stronger, more defined muscles — whether pushing past a plateau or looking to get more from every session — the research points in one clear direction.

This article summarises findings from Filipovic et al. (2019), "Superimposed Whole-Body Electrostimulation Augments Strength Adaptations and Type II Myofiber Growth in Soccer Players During a Competitive Season," published in Frontiers in Physiology. Whole Body EMS devices are fitness and wellness accessories. Individual results vary.

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Research Summary

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