StimSure®

“Even if “all roads lead to Rome” proverbially, building up muscle mass in body contouring increasingly seems to be the ultimate way to achieve a shapely appearance. In an interview with Qualified Ectrophologist Sarah Schretzmair we talked about the extent to which electromagnetic muscle stimulation can be helpful in aesthetic practice and why an increase in muscle mass also contributes to reducing fatty tissue.”

The energy per unit of time that an organism needs to maintain the balance of its physiological body functions (homeostasis) as well as basic functions such as breathing, heartbeat, temperature regulation or digestion is called the resting energy expenditure (REE). Other factors that influence our basal metabolic rate are not only our age, gender and height and weight, but also the existing muscle mass. These have to be maintained both during the training itself and at rest. In our muscles we oxidise or “burn” fatty acids (FS) that are transported from the blood into the muscles. They are either stored there as intramuscular triacylglycerol (IMTAG) or transported into the mitochondria. Added to this, there’s our total daily energy expenditure, which is the sum of all our activities.

One kilogram of muscle mass consumes about three times as many calories as one kilogram of fat. The metabolic rate of muscles is about 10 to 15 kcal / kg per day, the literature often quotes 13 kcal / kg. These estimates were made by measuring specific oxygen concentrations, first done by Elia in 1992.
Our muscle tissue accounts for approximately 20% of our total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). The contribution of our fatty tissue, on the other hand, is only about 5%, if we assume a person with about 20% body fat. With an increase in muscle mass, the number of mitochondria also increases at the same time and therefore our daily balance too. However, our muscle mass is regressive in adulthood, so we lose approximately 1% of muscle mass per year from around the age of 30, which tends to slow down our metabolism. To maintain muscle mass, it is therefore important to pay special attention to appropriate training, especially with increasing age.

Localised, particularly persistent fat deposits can of course still be best tackled with targeted measures such as laser lipolysis using the SculpSure® system. In terms of a holistic approach though, muscles have become even more exciting than fatty tissue. According to the latest scientific knowledge, it can be assumed that trained people’s improved ability to burn fat is not due to the adipocytes’ ability to release fatty acids. According to the literature, both the breakdown of fat for the release of fatty acids (lipolysis) and their release from the adipocytes do not necessarily differ between trained and untrained people (cf. Horowitz and Klein, 2000). This difference is more likely to be due to differences in the muscles’ ability to absorb and use fatty acids.

This is to be assumed. Measures that improve fat burning are, on the one hand, to improve fatty acid transport and therefore the availability of fatty acids for the muscles and mitochondria, and, on the other hand, to improve the ability to oxidise fatty acids. According to Shaw, Clark and Wagenmakers (2010) training can lead to changes in the intramuscular lipid droplets which contain IMTAGS.
According to studies by Horowitz and Klein in 2000, an increased release of fatty acids into the muscle is also made possible by increasing the number of capillaries around the muscle through training.

Afterwards too. The increased calorie consumption after the actual training is generally referred to as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption and is due to the physiologically necessary regeneration of the muscle cells as well as the glycogen exchange with the muscle. From a scientific point of view, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption means an increased metabolic rate. According to Ormsbee et al. in 2009, an increased excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or increased fat oxidation rate is observed, especially after high intensity training and strength endurance training, such as HIIT or Tabata.

Yes, it can be assumed that a muscle-stimulating treatment will also result in the patient using additional energy to return the contracting muscle cells to their pre-training level. However, more precise correlations between electromagnetic stimulation and EPOC still require intensive research.

Seriously restricting your calories for your daily intake, the basal metabolic rate is about 1,500 kcal per day, is not a recommended method for weight reduction from a nutritional point of view. The metabolism usually slows down as a consequence of a radical reduction in calories (cf. Hill. 2004, Bernardot and Thompson, 1999). For fat to be burned by the muscles in the long term, the recommended approach is rather to promote long-term muscle building using weight training and electromagnetic stimulation. Thanks to StimSure®, this is now also possible in the aesthetic practice.

Ästhetische Dermatologie