Is This the Shape of Things to Come? – The New York Times

In June the F.D.A. cleared two more treatments for those who want a little muscle without the, er, heavy lifting. One is truSculpt Flex, which pumps up muscle via electrical current, which is similar in principle to the ab belts of those late-night infomercials except it has electrodes that can work on eight areas simultaneously.

The other is CoolTone, an Allergan offering coming later this month, which uses the same principles as Emsculpt but claims to be 50 percent stronger. (Brent Hauser, the vice president for sales and marketing at Allergan, said in an email that tests havent yet concluded how much added muscle mass that amounts to.)

Of course there is a giant asterisk next to these devices, which is that theyre designed for regular gymgoers with minimal extra weight very, very minimal, as in a B.M.I. of 25 or less, Brad Hauser, the vice president for research and development at Allergan, wrote in an email. (Brad Hauser and Brent Hauser are identical twins.) They can be used alone, if you have minimal body fat, but theyre designed so they can be paired, one treatment after another in the same visit, with the fat busters.

How well this entire category of noninvasive devices works is relative.

Liposuction is definitely the gold standard theres no question it works better, said Dr. Mathew Avram, the faculty director for dermatology laser and cosmetic training at Harvard Medical School, as well as a CoolSculpting adviser. But weve seen that patients are willing to pay a premium for modest results with no downtime.

In 2018, the average cost of liposuction was $3,518, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The average CoolSculpting treatment is $2,000 to $4,000, according to company figures, and fat-liquefying lasers like truSculpt ID are $2,150.

The muscle devices offer only temporary results (unlike the fat ones, which are permanent), though again with an asterisk: Ones weight remains the same. Clients feel the muscle firmness (and soreness) immediately, but, as with the fat zappers, results can take some two months to show up.

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Is This the Shape of Things to Come? - The New York Times