The Katalyst suit costs $3,000 and delivers an electric shock to your muscles while you move. It consists of a vest, shorts, and arm straps that require significant water to function. You spray the electrode pads until they are dripping, clip the pieces together, and slide them onto your body. A battery pack sits in a thigh pocket, connected by delicate cables. The assembly process is wet and often leaves you feeling cold.
The company claims the device supercharges workouts. It sends electrical pulses to your muscles during basic movements like lunges, squats, and deadlifts. Katalyst states you can achieve the equivalent of a two-hour strength session in just 20 minutes. George Clooney told Esquire his arms were twice the size they had ever been. Bloomberg Businessweek also covered the suit, noting it worked.
I own several pieces of exercise technology, including smart swimming goggles and an Oura ring. I plan my workout time carefully to maximise efficiency. Rowing is my primary exercise because it engages many muscles at once. I also wear resistance gloves when swimming to squeeze out more benefit. The promise of a super-efficient session, despite the insane price, made me want to like Katalyst. I hoped it was the secret to finally branching out from rowing and swimming to more strength-focused routines.
It failed to deliver. The suit gave me pins and needles in my feet for days. My limbs felt numb and cold. It derailed other workouts and was not fun in the way good exercise habits should be. Wearing the $3,000 cyber suit for a month made me reassess my obsession with fitness, optimization, and efficiency. I questioned which concepts were helping and which were holding me back. What the fuck am I even doing? I thought to myself, dripping water all over my apartment floor.
I was not alone. Emanuel Maiberg from 404 Media said I was the craziest person he knew after I sent a photo of the soaking wet suit to our group chat. He compared me to a character from Infinite Jest, with Sam Cole saying they were laughing in real life. Jason Koebler added that as friends, colleagues, and cofounders, this was not normal. The bit had gone too far.
How the device works
Katalyst is an electro muscle stimulation, or EMS, suit. The pads send electrical pulses that make your muscles contract. At first, as the suit and app ramp you into a workout, the pulses feel like a light tingling sensation. Then, a solid block of electricity crosses your arms, legs, and abs. You wet the pads, and sometimes the base layer of shorts and a long-sleeve t-shirt, because the water helps conductivity between the electrode and your skin. Katalyst confirms this is necessary.
I told the rest of 404 Media that the sensation was absolutely insane after my first workout. At some points, your limbs may lock in place due to the intensity of the blast. I tweaked the settings so I could complete the movements fully with a good amount of difficulty and resistance, without locking my legs or arms out completely. The app encourages and makes this easy to do. During a workout there are buttons you can quickly press to increase or turn down the intensity of the pulses. The instructor in the pre-recorded video will often bring up the power during the workout to reach an electrocuting crescendo. It can take a few of the recommended three or so workouts a week to find your ideal baseline.
Katalyst’s instructors recommend you breathe out while the suit pulses. You perform a squat, or a lunge, or another movement for four seconds while the suit shocks you. Then you rest for four seconds. You keep doing that through different motions and intensities. In 20 minutes, the workout is over.
This timesave is obviously the big attraction of the Katalyst; the idea that you can somehow squeeze hours of work into mere minutes without even leaving your home. I’d been trying to go back to the gym a dozen times over the preceding 2-3 years with no luck. The time savings and mental ease of EMS training really is a blessing, AustinAfter40 told me in an email. He is a YouTuber who makes EMS-related videos. Within the first few months of getting an EMS suit in 2023, Austin says he gained 10 pounds of muscle. In the years since that’s gone up to 20 pounds, without, Austin says, really touching anything heavier than a 15lb dumbbell. He says his bone density has increased, body fat has lowered, and back pain he’s dealt with much of his life is now a distant memory.
If you scroll the Katalyst subreddit, you find many people saying much the same thing. But navigating the world of EMS can feel like the Wild West. Austin makes money from his EMS-related videos with affiliate links, so viewers need to keep that in mind when watching whatever suit he is currently making videos about even if the information is sincere and helpful. He has since moved onto TitanBody, a Katalyst competitor. The intensity and metrics of EMS suits are not standardized, so you do not really know what you are getting. An intensity rating of, say, 200 on a Katalyst is probably not going to be the same on a TitanBody suit. Or a VisionBody suit. Or any of the other EMS suit companies that have clearly bought Google Search ad space when you look for anything EMS-related.
Katalyst is FDA-cleared. That is not the same as FDA-approved. The Katalyst suit falls into Class II of the FDA’s different groups for devices, putting it in the moderate risk category. Being cleared means Katalyst can sell the suit, but the FDA is not saying everyone should slip it on.
On the Katalyst subreddit, people have historically complained about the company’s customer service or suit delivery times. The customer service was very good for me, with a dedicated Zoom call to talk through the issues I was facing. Kennedy, through his company Mont y Mer, acquired Katalyst in 2025. He said the previous CEO and Katalyst’s founder, Bjoern Woltermann, had essentially bankrupted the company twice in six years, and had taken orders and payment from more than 1,000 customers but had not created any suits. Kennedy said he then went around the world meeting with different suppliers to produce those original 1,000 suits. For me, it took around five months for my suit to arrive when I ordered it in 2025. Kennedy said Katalyst has inventory now and has sort of solved that problem. Woltermann acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide a response in time for publication.
Beyond the anecdotal, the science suggests EMS suits can work. Professor Yong-Seok Jee at Hanseo University, who has researched EMS, told me in an email that while athletes often use EMS to target specific muscle groups, he says the suits can also help normal people. Like me, presumably. For non-athletes or the general population, EMS can be particularly useful as a time-efficient and low-impact training option, especially for beginners, older adults, or individuals with limited mobility, he continued.
But EMS is not some magic tool you can use instead of actually working out and exercising normally. That said, EMS is not a shortcut or replacement for exercise. Its effectiveness depends heavily on appropriate intensity, supervision, and program design, and there are safety considerations, such as avoiding excessive stimulation, Jee said.
Casey Johnston, who runs the lifting-focused newsletter She’s a Beast and is the author of A Physical Education, told me in an email Katalyst is definitely in no way a replacement or even effective complement to strength training. If anything, similar to the drag suit argument, wearing a thing like the Katalyst would probably hamper your ability to effectively learn strength training movements and form, which is a huge cornerstone of translating strength to real life, before it would be additive in any meaningful way with muscle stimulation.
What it means
The device works by forcing muscle contraction through electricity. It saves time and offers a low-impact option for some people. However, it does not replace the need to learn proper form through traditional training. The lack of standardisation across different brands makes comparisons difficult. The high price point and the risk of injury mean caution is required before trying it.
