An 11 stone man will burn approximately 100 calories an hour sitting working at his desk¹.  That’s only about 50 more than sleeping! 

Using a standing desk improves things a little (typically an extra 6-20 calories an hour²).  The muscles still aren’t very active… but at least you have to fight gravity a bit more… using your postural muscles and returning blood to the heart.  But it is obviously not enough and has down-sides; ‘walking desks’ are better but impractical for most. 

Doubling your metabolic rate while working… now that would soon add up!  Once you’re used to it you can easily use BionicGym at a low level that will cause a slow burn of calories.  For instance, just an extra one or two hundred calories per hour… not enough to make you sweat or be breathless (only equivalent to walking or less) … but cumulatively enough to make a big impact.  Calorie counting tends to be counter-productive but, in simple terms, an extra 3-4 hours of low-level exercise per day may be just what you need to tip the balance.    

Sped Up video of using BionicGym working.  Second half is at high intensities ... not for most!  At lower levels you can do this for hours with no sweat.  

[To continue watching the full video ...using it at high intensity click here ]

Much more important than the calories is the glucose (sugar) consumption.  We mostly control our blood sugar levels by either sinking it in muscles or turning it into fat.  Let’s encourage the muscles to soak up the sugar.  If you are sitting, standing or doing low intensity exercise you tend not to use up much sugar.  Due to a quirk in the physiology and how we target particular muscle fibers, the stimulation – even at low levels – happily soaks up more sugar than equivalent ‘normal’ exercise³. 

MEDICAL Note:  Type 1 diabetics may need to adjust their insulin levels. You should discuss this with your doctor.  Pre-diabetics / Type 2 diabetics should also be aware that this may affect your glucose levels.  Before undertaking vigorous exercise of any sort, including BionicGym, you should check with your doctor that this is safe and appropriate for you. 

Forget calories… think of your health!

“Sitting is the new smoking”… while possibly not quite that bad… hours sitting everyday has very serious health effects.  For instance, a big Dutch study showed “an extra hour of sedentary time was associated with a 22% increased odds for type 2 diabetes and a 39% increased odds for the metabolic syndrome.”⁴

We appear to need to contract our muscles and keep moving them during the day.  It seems that even going to the gym a few times a week can’t counteract the deterioration that occurs in between.  “Even when adults meet physical activity guidelines, sitting for prolonged periods can compromise metabolic health. TV time and objective-measurement studies show deleterious associations, and breaking up sedentary time is beneficial.”⁵

 Tips for exercising at work:

Get used to it:  when you first put on your shirt in the morning you feel it.  Then after a while you don’t… your nervous system begins to shut it out.  Same with BionicGym.

Use it at levels you will use it!:  If you find it too intrusive at intensity 20 try 15.  People usually find they can increase the intensity with time. 

Try the zones:  different people like different BionicGym-Zones depending on the position, and even intensity.

Some people find the workout “Less Cardio more Discreet” more suitable for the workplace.

Stand too! Most people can happily work at higher levels standing.  Note the laptop and in particular the screen should be high – you don’t want to be hunched over. 

NOTE: If you only intend using BionicGym at work / low intensities you only need the STANDARD product (Click here to ORDER)
If you want to push yourself and train hard too Get the PRO-HIIT (Click here)

Myself, I sometimes use BionicGym at work just to perk myself up.  Sitting all day I often feel groggy… so a bit of BionicGym helps me there too. 

1. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities
2. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2047487317752186
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23368829
4. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-015-3861-8
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404815/

Now it is possible, work out while watching your favorite show!

No need to skip your favorite show to make a date with the gym… now you can exercise at home watching a movie. 

The time commuting to the gym is time wasted.  Enjoy your screen-time while exercising with BionicGym, no commute… you want to watch that movie anyway...  In fact, we recommend it!  At low levels you can work, at medium levels even play games but at high intensity it is best to have something really good to watch.  Hard exercise is HARD, obviously, so you’ll need a distraction.  Besides at high-intensity you’ll sweat too much to do the crossword! 

If you find cardio boring this is the way to do it… watch something and happen to be exercising – intensely we hope, because that is how you’ll train and get fitter.  But you can also just tip away at low intensity to burn calories as you gorge on the shows. 

Binge-watching and feeling guilty?  You know what to do!

 ORDER 

We mimic shivering!  Nature’s hack..

Nature’s way of creating heat or burning calories is to shiver.  As you get colder you shiver more intensely but at the same rate (7-8Hz).  This is because the energy consumption is not related to the force or tension generated but rather the shortening and lengthening of the muscle fibers.  What happens is that more muscle fibers contract and relax at this magic rate.

Impulses through the BionicGym Wraps stimulate the motor-neurons [nerves-to-muscles] in the legs and gluteal muscles [bum] telling them to contract repeatedly.  (They relax or lengthen by themselves). This underlying technology, NMES, also known as EMS and TENS* has been around for 60-70 years but has not been sufficiently effective to induce cardiovascular/calorie burning/aerobic exercise before.  

If we can induce enough muscle to actively contract at optimal rates they will shout out for blood to supply the oxygen and energy.  Your cardiovascular system [heart and blood vessels] works harder to deliver this blood, i.e. it trains.  You’ll become more breathless and in time heat up – even sweat… after all it’s nature’s way to warm up.

I, Dr Louis Crowe, have done thousands of mini-experiments to optimize the technology.  I’ve done larger studies with wonderful colleagues in universities, hospitals, in three countries (even in zero-gravity with the European Space Agency!).  I’ve suffered for and been elated with the science. Please visit our website and read the peer-reviewed scientific publications.

*NMES stands for neuromuscular electrical nerve stimulation.

EMS stands for electrical muscle stimulation.

TENS stands for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.