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How diPulse’s wearable fitness tech takes your workouts to the next level
The Swedish brand combines smart textiles with neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) — a technology that uses electrical impulses to create muscle contractions.
By OLIVER DAHLE
11 Jun 2021

NMES is a simulated manoeuvre that biologically occurs when the brain is sending signals through the central nervous system to the specific muscle. With diPulse’s technology, the signals are instead sent directly to the muscles from the company’s modules.  

— So what we are specialized in is smart textiles, Dr Vikki Sparkes, head of marketing and communication. We have produced a dry nanocarbon membrane which is rendered into the compression garment, and activated by stimulation modules, improving circulation, and muscle development. It works through the warm-up, the workout, and then the cool-down phase, in any exercise that is performed. The advantage of it within sports and fitness is that you can gain additional extra muscle fibre recruitment during training, so you get a better muscle contraction than with exercising alone reducing your training time because you are utilizing additional muscle capability in a shorter period of time.

NMES is not a new technology but has been used within medicine for a long time. diPulse, on the other hand, makes it easier to use it, in a more innovative, efficient, and smooth way. Their technology is lightweight, completely wireless, and the hardware is much smaller than ordinary NMES-products. It is app-controlled, and you can choose between different programs and workouts as well as monitoring your heart rate.

— It gives everybody the freedom to go to the gym or workout at home and use it during their regular training. But at the same time, it is facilitating a better performance through improved muscle activation, Sparkes explains.

With over 25 years of shared experience in smart wearables, the brand has managed to come a long way in a short period of time. In their founding year, 2017, they were awarded one of the newcomer prizes at ISPO — one of the world’s biggest sports fairs — and just won this year’s FIBO prize for technological innovation.

diPulse is part of, and the first launched brand from, the NMES Group. Currently, the group is developing other divisions where the technology will be applied, for example within medicine, gaming, and law enforcement, including the military.

— We’re currently in the market for sport and fitness, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. We have very senior influential industry specialists getting on board who are very interested in the technology. So, basically, watch this space, Sparkes concludes.