An electrotherapeutic method of providing electrical stimulation to human or animal tissue. A stimulating pulse train, having a primary frequency of 500 Hz to 100,000 Hz, is coupled to two electrodes attached to the portion of tissue to be stimulated. The train of pulses of the primary frequency are gated on and off so that they are applied and discontinued in predetermined intervals. For neural stimulation, the gating is performed at 0.1 Hz to 200 Hz. For muscle stimulation, the current is provided for predetermined intervals of 0.001 to 100 seconds and is discontinued in alternate intervals for 0.001 to 100 seconds. The stimulating pulse train may be amplitude modulated so that its amplitude rises at the beginning of each on-time period and falls at the end of each on-time period, the rise and fall time varying between 0.5% and 50% of the total on-time of the stimulating current.