On the Upper East Side, in a historic brick building whose shingle bears
an intriguing glyph of a lightning bolt, a fitness studio called Shock
Therapy has just opened. The studio offers classes that don’t merely
engage the senses but assault them from all angles, with the aid of
electronic muscle-stimulation technology, or EMS. Typically used in
physical-therapy settings to increase blood flow to the muscles and heal
mobility issues, EMS has attracted a smattering of perfection-seekers
who see it as a way to tone their bodies without expending the usual
time and energy. (The financial expense is another story: fifty-five
dollars for thirty minutes at the Manhattan studio.) The workout
involves being strapped into an electrode-studded bodysuit that
attaches, by cable, to a mini power station and activates hundreds of
the body’s muscles all at once. While sessions are traditionally
one-on-one, classes at Shock Therapy can accommodate as many as six people. The gym boasts wireless
technology, so, however numerous your worries may be as you submit to
pulses and zaps, tripping on a cord will not be among them.
If the notion of being shocked while you work out sounds unsettling,
consider the other offerings springing up on the wellness scene. A SoHo
yoga studio called Woom Center uses scented oils along with a “3D sound
system” so that people can feel the vibrations of the music as they attempt
crow pose. Next week, Adidas by Stella McCartney will be converting the
exercise studio at the Flatiron athleisure boutique Bandier into a
ChromaYoga pop-up, with colorful light therapy and live instructors to
be beamed in from London. For those who prefer a more homespun sort of
sensory manipulation, YouTube is a gold rush of
videos devoted to an emerging specialty of creating gentle sounds aimed at
triggering relaxing brain tingles, known as autonomous sensory meridian
response, or ASMR.
Our multisensory craze may be traced back to ancient times, when
Egyptian, Greek, and Roman doctors placed ailing patients in baths
filled with electric eels. Man-made electrotherapy devices entered the
picture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a popular form
of nerve therapy called “Franklinization” was named after Benjamin
Franklin, the inventor of a spiffy electrostatic machine that used a
belt-and-pulley system. More recently, the therapy has come back as a
form of pain relief and sports rehab. NASA currently uses EMS to
counterbalance the muscle atrophy that is a professional hazard to
astronauts who spend long periods in outer space. Usain
Bolt has
reportedly been shocked; so have Heidi Klum and
Madonna.
On a recent visit to Shock Therapy, an attendant handed over a suit of
long underwear that was pre-dampened, in order to conduct electricity,
and sealed in a Mylar pack, much like a sanitized tool kit at a fancy
nail salon. After the underwear, on went the Power Suit: a heavy, black
garment that called to mind a paratrooper uniform. It had countless
clips and adjustable straps, and pockets bulging with
electrodes—roughly the size of cigarette packs and aligned to the body’s
biggest muscles. When activated, they send impulses to the nerves that
cause the muscles to contract, causing them to fire just as they do when we lift weights or
jog. Proponents of the technique say that the effect is equal to that of
old-fashioned, will-powered exercise, with benefits including increased
tone and metabolism. What’s more, nearly every single muscle under the
suit is engaged, so even when you’re doing leg lunges your abs,
shoulders, and biceps are buzzing. “Thirty minutes of this is the same
as two to three hours of traditional exercise,” Ural Huseyin, a
certified EMS trainer, said. He recently moved from Turkey to New York in
order to lead all the classes on the studio’s schedule.
The Food and Drug Administration allows that EMS devices may be
beneficial to patients who require muscle reëducation, relaxation of
muscle spasms, or who have suffered a stroke or a serious injury.
According to a recent statement from the agency, however, “No EMS devices have
been cleared at this time for weight loss, girth reduction, or for
obtaining ‘rock hard’ abs.” And yet the aesthetic possibilities,
however unproven, are irresistible to a great many people.
We took our places, spotlighted from above, and Huseyin assumed his
position behind a control console. “There is nothing scary, I’m not
going to get you literally shocked,” he said with a laugh, and turned
the power on. It was true—nobody got hurt. The sensation of being zapped
was more massage chair than finger-in-socket. It produced a fluttering
feeling not unlike that of a fetus swishing around in utero, though in
this case the movement came from without. Once Huseyin adjusted the
intensity to each student’s personalized threshold, he directed the
class’s attention to “Buddy,” as he called the avatar that starred in
the wall projection. Buddy had flattened features and his own black
underwear getup (though no Power Suit), and moved through squats and
knee lifts and bicep curls with exemplary form. The class’s
strength-training portion, which included moderate-intensity standbys
like lunges, squats, and bicep curls, concluded with ninety seconds of
running in place. By this point my body was wet, though whether it was a
result of exertion or the pre-soaked suit was a mystery.
At halftime, Huseyin switched over to the metabolic program, which calls
for cardio moves. Now the shocks took on a new form—less flutters, more
jolts and pokes. Still not painful, but coupled with the loud
reggae-inflected club ballads that filled the room, the over-all effect
was somewhat assaulting. Buddy had dipped out of sight; in his place was
a video projection of phosphorescent green vapor, undulating heavenward.
At the end of each interval, the sound of air-raid horns blared from the
speakers. It was impossible not to feel frighteningly alive.
The visionary behind the studio is Esra Cavusoglu, forty-six, a
Turkish-born former restaurateur who relied on marijuana and cocaine to
maintain her life style, and has spent the past decade living in New York.
Four years ago, Cavusoglu—by this point, sober and working as an
addiction specialist—was summering with family members in the Turkish
seaside town of Bodrum when she visited a trainer who introduced her to
EMS. “I was in and out of sessions in twenty-five minutes, and, at the
end of two months, I was in the best shape ever,” she said. She
purchased a machine for her New York apartment, and ultimately decided
to share her passion with her adopted city. “I knew it couldn’t be like
the EMS studios in Europe. There’s nothing—no music, no screen. It’s
like going to a doctor’s office,” Cavusoglu said. “In America, you need
to give a flavor of something else, and I said, ‘Let’s make it
futuristic, since this technology is the future of fitness.’ ” To this
end, she hired a team of architects and a celebrity perfumer to
transform the space into a high-concept scented catacomb. (The space’s
bespoke fragrance, Concrete Future, features notes of angelica seed and
green rhubarb.) Cavusoglu’s goal is to set up similar studios throughout
Manhattan, eventually expanding to Los Angeles and Miami.
At the end of our session, Huseyin predicted that I would feel the
strongest effects two days later. Within hours, I was visited by a
slight tingling of the shoulders. The following day, a different
sensation reared up—hot and starry, radiating from the back of my neck.
Washing dishes in the kitchen sink was uncomfortable; lifting a
three-year-old into bed was humbling. At grownup bedtime, solace was to
be found on the YouTube channel of ASMR
Darling, one
of the most popular personalities in the wellness whisper network.
Speaking slowly and softly, she flipped the pages of an antiquarian book
and rubbed a makeup brush in hypnotizing circles against the head of a
microphone. I turned the volume up on my electronic device and tilted my
head back on my pillow, waiting for the sounds of crinkling and rustling
to soothe my body and mind.
Sourse: newyorker.com
