By Liz Hilliard
Eighteen years ago, I launched Hilliard Studio Method in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis. I was in my early fifties, deep in menopause, stepping into an industry dominated by twenty-year-olds. Everyone thought I was crazy. I thought I was ready.
I was right.
Now, at 72, I’m doing it again.
This July, I’m launching Power 20, a new fitness concept built around one of the most exciting, scientifically backed training technologies I have ever encountered: EMS and EMA. Electrical Muscle Stimulation and Electrical Muscle Activation. Twenty minutes. Full body. And results that defy everything most of us were taught about how long a “real” workout must take.
If you haven’t heard of EMS and EMA yet, you’re about to. And if you’re over fifty and you think your best fitness days are behind you, I’m here to tell you with every ounce of the conviction that carried me through menopause in spandex that you are wrong.
What Is EMS/EMA Technology?
EMS, Electrical Muscle Stimulation, is a technology that has been used in physical therapy and rehabilitation for decades and has now crossed into the mainstream fitness world in a serious way. But the Visionbody system goes a step further, combining EMS with EMA: Electrical Muscle Activation. Together, they form a dual-action approach that is more complete than either technology alone.
Here’s how to think about the difference. EMS sends electrical impulses directly to the muscle fibers, triggering powerful contractions, building strength, improving endurance, and accelerating recovery. EMA works differently: it targets the nerves that control the muscles, optimizing how those muscles are recruited and coordinated. If EMS tells the muscle to move, EMA tells it to wake up and work properly. One builds the muscle; the other teaches it to fire more efficiently.
In practice, this means the Visionbody system isn’t just making your muscles contract harder; it’s improving your neuromuscular function, the communication between your brain and your body. Better coordination. Smarter movement patterns. More complete activation.
And that activation is extraordinary: while traditional exercise typically recruits somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of your muscle fibers, the combined EMS/EMA approach activates up to 98 percent simultaneously. Your entire body, deep stabilizing muscles included, works at once. In just 20 minutes, you get the equivalent of what researchers describe as a 90-minute conventional workout.
It sounds almost too good to be true. I thought so too. And then I tried it.
The Vision Body PowerSuit: Technology Meets Real Life
Power 20 will use the Visionbody PowerSuit, and I chose it because it is, in my opinion, the most sophisticated and user-friendly EMS/EMA system on the market today.
The Visionbody suit is completely wireless, controlled via Bluetooth, and requires no pre-moistening or spray before training, which anyone who has tried older EMS systems will appreciate. It’s a slim, form-fitting one-piece suit made from breathable, antimicrobial fabric that goes on in under 30 seconds. No cables. No clunky equipment. No setup ritual that takes longer than the workout itself.
What sets Visionbody apart technically is its use of a finely tuned combination of low, medium, and high EMS frequencies simultaneously. Most EMS suits use only one or two frequency ranges. Visionbody’s multi-frequency approach penetrates deeper into the muscle tissue and stimulates both slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers, the full spectrum, for a more complete and effective training result.
The system offers 8 main programs and 64 subprograms, customizable to each person’s goals: strength, endurance, fat-burning, core stability, posture correction, and even recovery and relaxation. It integrates heart rate monitoring and gives trainers real-time control over intensity levels, so every session is precisely tailored. No two bodies are the same, and the Visionbody system treats them accordingly.
Why This Matters So Much After 50
Here is a fact that should be on every wellness page, every doctor’s wall, every conversation we have about aging: starting around age 50, we lose between 1 and 2 percent of our muscle mass every single year, and muscle strength declines even faster, at up to 5 percent annually. This process, called sarcopenia, is one of the primary drivers of weight gain, falls, frailty, bone loss, and loss of independence as we age.
The research on EMS for older adults is compelling. Studies have shown that whole-body EMS training increases skeletal muscle thickness by up to 20 percent in older adults, reduces abdominal fat, and significantly improves balance and mobility. For women over 70 with age-related muscle loss, EMS was shown to safely and effectively increase both muscle mass and functional capacity, results that protein supplementation alone could not achieve.
Just as importantly for those of us with decades of wear on our joints: EMS is low impact. The electrical impulses create resistance without the need for heavy weights, dramatically reducing stress on joints, tendons, and ligaments. You get an intense, transformative workout without the pounding.
For anyone managing arthritis, a previous injury, or simply the accumulated aches of a life well-lived, this is not a compromise. This is a breakthrough.
Power 20: Reinvention Is the Point
I am not launching Power 20 despite being 72. I’m launching it because of it.
Every year I stayed in this industry, trained bodies, studied research, and watched women and men in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and beyond discover what they were still capable of, I understood something more clearly. The greatest barrier to fitness after fifty isn’t the body. It’s the belief that the window has closed.
It hasn’t.
Power 20 is built on the same philosophy that built Hilliard Studio Method: that fitness belongs to every body, at every age, at every stage. The name says it all: 20 minutes, twice a week, with the Visionbody EMS/EMA system, guided by trained professionals who understand how bodies change over time and how to work with those changes rather than against them.
Because here’s what the research keeps confirming, and what I have watched with my own eyes for nearly two decades: it is never too late to build strength. Never too late to change your body composition. Never too late to feel powerful in your own skin.
I started over at 53. I’m starting over again at 72.
Power 20 launches this July. Come find out what 20 minutes can do.
Follow along @lizhilliardhsm for the latest information.
