By Henri Schmidt, CEO & Founder, VBTec/Visionbody
One of the things I enjoy most about my work at Visionbody is connecting with our customers and hearing what brought them to us in the first place. Every person has a different reason for starting. Some want to build muscle. Some want a more efficient way to train. Others are simply looking for something that fits better into their daily routine.
And every once in a while, you hear a story that stays with you.
Tommye Austin, PhD, is one of those stories.
At 62, Tommye describes herself today as feeling “like a kid.” She jumps on her mini rebounder, rides her e-bike when the weather is nice, and trains with her Visionbody suit several times a week.
Getting to that point, however, was a long and very personal journey.
A Lifetime of Struggling With Weight
Tommye says she has struggled with obesity for much of her adult life. She remembers weighing between 160 and 180 pounds in high school and feeling self-conscious because she was taller and bigger than many of the people around her.
After the loss of her grandmother, she says she turned to food for comfort, and her weight continued to increase. At her highest, she says she reached the 600-pound range.
In 2008, Tommye underwent gastric bypass surgery. As she explains it, the procedure helped create a feeling of fullness, but it didn't eliminate the “food noise” that had been part of her experience for years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she began exploring exercise and different approaches to improving her health and fitness. As her focus shifted from simply losing weight to building a stronger body, she became increasingly interested in how she could maintain and develop muscle along the way.
She didn't just want to lose weight; she had experienced the frustration of yo-yo dieting before. She wanted to build a stronger, more defined body.
“I wanted to have a muscular figure. I wanted to have a proportioned body.” She says.
That goal changed the way she approached her fitness journey.
Finding Visionbody
Tommye started researching how to actually build muscle, not just lose weight.
She wasn't new to muscle stimulation. She had used EMS and TENS devices before for knee pain. But one night, while scrolling online, she found something different: a wearable, full-body EMS suit called Visionbody.
Not a machine you sit in front of. Something you put on and train in, on your own schedule.
She decided to give it a try.
And it didn't remain something she tried once and put away.
“I Use the Suit Three Times a Week”
Tommye says: “I use the Suit three times a week.”
As she continued training, she says she began noticing more muscle development and definition.
“It has helped me maintain my weight loss and build muscle. I got biceps on these arms and my triceps. You can actually feel the definition.”
For Tommye, this was about more than seeing a physical change in the mirror. It was about working toward the muscular, proportioned body she had wanted for years.
And consistency became a big part of it.
She kept using the suit as part of her routine rather than treating it as a short-term experiment. That is something I hear often from people who get the most out of any training method: the tool has to fit into your life well enough that you actually keep using it.
More Than Muscle
Tommye is candid that muscle was only one piece of a much bigger picture.
She lived for years with sleep apnea so severe that she says she was waking hundreds of times a night, along with urinary incontinence and chronic pain in her ankles, knees, and back.
Her path forward combined several different approaches, including gastric bypass surgery, returning to regular movement, rebounder cardio, and Visionbody training.
Visionbody became part of her muscle-training routine. It did not replace the other things she was doing, and her broader health journey cannot be attributed to one product.
What changed alongside all of it is what stays with me.
She started jumping on a trampoline. She got outside on an e-bike when the weather allowed. She kept training.
This isn't just a story about a different body. It's a story about a different relationship with movement.
Tommye captures that beautifully: “And so now I'm like a kid. I jump on the trampoline, and when the weather's nice, I ride my bike, my e-bike outside.”
From a Personal Tool to Something She Wanted to Share
There is another part of Tommye's story that says a lot about how strongly she feels about Visionbody. She didn't stop with her own suit.
She says she has purchased Visionbody suits for friends and family, including her best friend and her nephew. She has also bought suits for other people close to her.
And their reasons for using the system aren't all the same. Her nephew is naturally skinny and wants to build muscle. Her girlfriend, she explains, had struggled with obesity as she had.
That variety is interesting because it shows how Tommye thinks about the system today.
“I know what this suit can do in regard to muscle retention and for building a tight, firm body.”
For Tommye, Visionbody became a tool she was enthusiastic enough about to share with the people she loves.
Why Visionbody Became Part of Her Routine
So what is it about Visionbody that made it such a consistent part of Tommye's training?
The Visionbody Ultimate Wireless EMS-EMA Fast-Track Muscle System is designed for full-body muscle training and muscle performance. Its EMS-EMA technology combines electrical muscle stimulation with voluntary movement, so the system is used while you actively move rather than simply sitting still while stimulation is delivered.
The PowerSuit features 24 dry electrodes across 12 independently controlled channels, giving you the ability to adjust stimulation across different muscle groups.
For someone like Tommye, whose focus has been on building and maintaining muscle as part of a broader fitness routine, that flexibility is valuable.
The format is also compact. Visionbody training sessions are designed around approximately 20 minutes, making focused full-body muscle training easier to incorporate into a busy week. And because the system is wireless, you're free to move without being connected to a training machine by cables.
Technology Built for a Different Training Experience
Visionbody pioneered the development of the world's first fully wireless EMS-EMA suit in 2014, bringing electrical muscle stimulation into a more mobile training environment.
The system also incorporates different waveform characteristics and adjustable stimulation parameters, giving you greater flexibility in how stimulation is delivered.
That matters because no two bodies are exactly alike. Differences in body composition, from how much muscle you already have to the amount of body fat around a particular muscle group, can influence how electrical stimulation is experienced. With independently adjustable stimulation, you can tailor the intensity across different muscle groups and find a level that suits your body, training experience, and comfort.
At 62, She's Still Looking Forward
What I find most encouraging about Tommye's story is that she isn't talking about fitness as something she has finished.
She's still doing it.
She trains with Visionbody. She jumps on her rebounder. She rides her e-bike. She talks about muscle, movement, and the body she wanted to build. And she isn't describing herself as someone who has to stop doing the things she enjoys because of her age.
That doesn't mean everyone's journey will look like Tommye's. It shouldn't. Her health history, goals, training habits, and results are personal to her.
But there is something universal in the reason she started looking for a different approach in the first place.
She wanted to keep moving forward.
She wanted to build muscle and feel stronger in her own body. And she wanted a training tool that could become part of her routine.
She found one in Visionbody.
Could Visionbody Be Part of Your Training Routine?
You don't need to have Tommye's story to understand why Visionbody became valuable to her.
Maybe you're trying to make muscle training more consistent. Maybe traditional gym sessions are difficult to fit into your schedule. Or perhaps you're simply interested in a different approach to full-body training.
Visionbody gives you another way to train, combining full-body EMS-EMA stimulation, voluntary movement, adjustable control, wireless freedom, and a compact training format designed to fit into real life.
It isn't about replacing everything else you do. It's about giving you another option, one you can build into the routine you're already creating.
For Tommye, that option became part of a journey that brought her to a place where she feels more active, more muscular, and excited about movement.
At 62, she puts it much more simply: “Now I'm like a kid.”
And honestly, that's the kind of customer story I love hearing.
Ready to Experience Visionbody?
If you're looking for a more flexible way to incorporate full-body muscle training into your routine, discover what the Visionbody Ultimate Wireless EMS-EMA Fast-Track Muscle System can bring to your training.
Explore the Visionbody Ultimate Wireless EMS-EMA Fast-Track Muscle System
Customer experiences are individual, and results are not guaranteed. Visionbody is intended for muscle training and muscle performance and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition. Always follow the User Manual, safety instructions, and recommended training schedule.
