Through every human fiber runs a current of electricity.
(Source: imgur.com)
I know, right?
Measuring that current in your muscles is as simple as using skin surface EMG devices. This is what MPower does, telling you exactly how well those muscles are doing their respective jobs.
The goal is simple; make you stronger. All you have to do is strap on the Mpower devices, then workout. The companion app will tell you what happened.
EMG
(Source: veritymedical.co.uk)
We’ve seen this wearable tech before. It reminds us of Notch, but works more like Athos apparel.
Whereas Notch measures how the body moves, Athos measures strength outputs. Like Mpower, Athos uses EMG, short for electromyography.
You may recall from when we first reviewed Athos, EMG measures electricity below the skin. The folks at Mpower prefer to call it sEMG. The “s” stands for skin. It’s the same thing as EMG.
The medical field uses electromyography. You may have had electrodes placed on your skin for some reason or another. They’re pretty harmless.
The trick is to get EMG devices to stay on your skin. We’ll come back to that in a minute.
Once they’re there, EMG can tell you a good deal about what’s happening below the skin. If you have one muscle firing sooner or harder than another, EMG can tell you that.
It can tell you which types of fibers are firing, when they fatigue or if they are stronger than before. This data has tremendous ramifications for strength development.
MPower
(Source: tlife.guru)
Whereas Athos apparel is clothing, Mpower a pod, more like how you wear Notch. You wear the Mpower Pod over any muscle you’d like to observe.
You can strap the Pod, similar to a chest strap heart rate monitor or you can adhere it, like a stickable. This puts Mpower at an advantage.
Athos’ EMG technology mandates the user wear the compression shorts and top where their device lives. You may not wish to wear compression clothes.
Once Mpower is on your body, it starts measuring your muscles. You can measure up to four at once. The pod can even separate fast from slow twitch muscles fibers.
In this way, Mpower allows you to get very specific about your feedback. You can determine exactly which of your exercises are getting you the results you want.
Strength
(Source: sporttechie.com)
Strength is a vague term that could mean different things. Brute strength or force production strength is the usual implication. This is where we concern ourselves with how much weight a muscle can move.
Sometimes we’re talking about endurance strength when we’re talking about how a muscle can contract over a long period of time.
Other strength metrics land somewhere between these two, like stabilization strength or explosive strength. Some would argue these other forms of strength are more about the ways in which we employ the first two.
With Mpower you can learn more about force or endurance, compare sides of your body to see the whole picture, then leverage that data to get stronger however you wish.
(Source: sportswearable.net)
The device is not currently available for purchase, but you can contact the manufacturers to be first in line.
The only thing we don’t like about Mpower is the lack of iOS support. After searching their site for OS compatibility we found our answer in the owner’s manual PDF download. The only OS mentioned is Android.
A quick search of the App Store confirmed, no Apple support.
Also, the site for Power has no FAQ, which is odd in 2016, especially for an emergent technology. Perhaps we are asking too much too soon, but these are things consumers will want to know before getting excited.