Jeon W, et al. - Researchers carried out this study to investigate the effect of pulse duration modulation for reducing muscle fatigue and pain. During neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), the use of 1ms pulse durations reduced fatigue and pain for moderate-level contractions compared to 200 μs durations.

• The researchers applied two 2-minute stimulation protocols to the knee extensors of 10 healthy individuals.
• They applied a long pulse duration (1,000 μs) and a low current amplitude (LL) set to evoke 25% maximal voluntary contraction at 30 Hz in one session.
• Except that a short pulse duration (200 μs) and a high current amplitude (SH) were used, the other session was identical.

• For LL, muscle fatigue was lower than for SH (p < 0.01).
• For LL, force recovery rate was higher than for SH (p < 0.05).
• Moreover, pain scores were lower for LL than for SH (p < 0.05).