In the past 20 years of operating ReVibe Fitness and Wellness, I have discovered several important findings. First, and much to my surprise, the Power Plate and Whole-Body Vibration training (WBV) is amazingly efficient at achieving results. Literally, the Power Plate forces the recruitment of additional muscle with every movement you perform. This has a two-pronged advantage. First, since WBV is literally causing the contraction of all muscles, it eliminates the downside of isolation training. Let me explain. The human body works like a connected kinetic chain. You have likely heard of the term “A chain is as strong as its weakest link,” right? Well, the body functions in multiple planes and through multiple joints. In any singular motion, the weakest muscles are at the greatest risk of injury.
All movement is interlinked insofar as no isolation of muscles can occur; it has to be a combined event. Think of a simple movement such as standing to attention, then moving your arm to the outside and above your head (abduction). This motion would appear to use a single joint, the shoulder; however, there are seven joints that need to move in order to accomplish this simple motion! Yes, seven! I will not go into the explanation of those joints, but you can message me if you really want to know! The point is this: Every moving joint also requires muscle to move it. In isolation training, this concept of kinetic chain function is ignored. This causes the overstrengthening of some muscles and the understrengthening of others, leading eventually to injury and joint dysfunction. Bottom line, the body works as a kinetic chain; ignoring that fact will lead to increased risk of injury.
And that means that most fixed range of motion exercise equipment in the majority of health clubs today may end up hurting you rather than helping you.
My second point is that the recruitment of at least 30% more muscle per exercise negates the need to perform multiple sets. It has long been thought that multiple sets build strength. As early as 1948, DeLorme and Watkins published research looking at multiple sets. Their conclusion was simple: training 3 sets or more yielded little difference as far as strength gains were concerned. Notice that they started at three sets, however. The widespread thinking at the time was that the 3-set model was the best for building strength. The 1948 model questioned it and tested 3-9 sets and concluded that three was enough. It was not until 1982 that Westcot looked at 1-3 set models and found that the average gain difference between one set and three was about 3-4%. Sure, 4% is more, but it took 3 sets to gain an extra 4%! The greatest gains were in the first set. Bottom line, if you are training for a competition, do more sets, but if you are simply looking at overall fitness, you can do one set, make 97% of the gains, and save three times the effort and time investment.
Power Plate also does way more than make your workout more efficient. It stimulates something called mechanoreceptors. Now, these are also called proprioceptors, which basically help you balance (and a lot more). Since many mechanoreceptors are in muscle, losing that muscle with age affects balance. Since most of the loss of muscle is fast-twitch, reactive strength is also affected, so your fall risk increases. The Power Plate just happens to stimulate fast-twitch muscle, even when your force output might be lower; thus, the gradual loss of muscle, especially fast-twitch, with age (sarcopenia) can be effectively slowed.
There’s a second caveat to stimulating the mechanoreceptors too. Just so happens that there is an inverse relationship with proprioception and nociception. In English, the proprioceptors are balance and the nociceptors are pain. Thus, as the Power Plate stimulates strength and balance, it also untangles those knots and reduces overall pain. If we want to get into it, strength training will also release small peptides called myokines that block inflammatory cytokine pain too. Myokines, by the way, improve insulin sensitivity, help to burn more fat, have anti-inflammatory effects, stimulate bone remodeling, and improve mood too.
Strength training increases myokine production.
This pain control mechanism makes Power Plate and Chiropractic an essential method of treatment if you want to reduce pain, especially from misalignment. Keep in mind that in the absence of a trauma, your pain is almost always an alignment issue. Also, keep in mind that pain is the last step in signaling that something is wrong. The first steps are a gradual change in posture to get away from the pain. The end result is more misalignment; thus, pain is an indicator that your joints have become misaligned and restricted and your body is out of workarounds to control that pain.
What this means is simple. Misalignments cause more wear and tear, and surrounding muscle will tighten around that area to protect it. It also means that other muscles have stopped working properly as they attempt to heal, only it can’t because of the misalignment. That’s why, by the time the pain has set in, it might not even be in the area it first started. Your painful hip could be from your pelvis, knee, even your ankle. Your body is remarkably good at finding workarounds, until it runs out of options, and then the pain sets in.
This is where both chiropractic and ReVibe Power Plate shine. Chiropractic adjustments can correct postural misalignments and restore movement to a painful joint, but the surrounding muscle must still be addressed. Some of those muscle spasms must be released, and other muscles must be reactivated; this does not happen naturally.
A quick lesson in recovery: When muscles are injured, they tend to shut down in order to heal. The chiropractic adjustments restore joint function, but muscle must be stimulated to fire. Without that stimulation, those healing muscles will heal, but when they do, they will be weaker than before. Since they are weaker, they are more vulnerable to injury in the future. How many times do you hear people say their backs go out every so often? That’s because those muscles were not reactivated and strengthened.
Enter the Power Plate. Since we are dealing with whole-body vibration, those shut-down and weaker muscles must respond by contracting, and that contraction strengthens them. A crazy thing happens with weaker muscles: the nervous system compels them to catch up with the stronger ones; thus, balance is restored.
For those who have spasms and locked-up joints, the Power Plate can be used to relax the muscle, increase circulation, and reduce muscular guarding. That can make your adjustment more effective. After the adjustment, the Power Plate can be used to calm down the adjusted areas and eliminate inflammation and pain. Overall, the Power Plate not only helps restore motion but also helps the body to move once again as a fluid kinetic chain. Power Plate and chiropractic help restore movement, which is one of the central issues of pain. When it hurts, you move less. But movement speeds recovery, so it’s best to establish mobility as quickly as possible; Power Plate helps that become a possibility.
Most people ask how Power Plate helps over traditional exercise equipment. There are many benefits, but the greatest one, perhaps, is the vibrating platform. These tiny vibrations force the body to contract muscles to prevent sway and steady itself against the imbalance caused by the vibration. Since the platform moves side to side and up and down, it creates an increase in gravity against the muscle contraction, but not the joints. Thus, muscle is strengthened and joints are spared additional stress.
Where chiropractic and Power Plate shine is in the combined benefit of both modalities. Chiropractic restores motion to joints that have been misaligned or locked up. Power Plate activates the muscle around those joints to restore function, stabilize, and strengthen those joints. Obviously, pain is diverse in causation and requires a multi-disciplinary approach to its correct diagnosis and reduction. Chiropractic should be your first step because a competent chiropractor can diagnose, treat, or refer to orthopedic care if necessary. This, sadly, rarely happens when you begin in the medical community. In these instances, you may be prescribed pain-killing drugs rather than treating the direct cause of the issue. Every instance is different; medical doctors have a lane they operate within which is valuable and necessary. However, not all pain is a medical problem.
Pain is also not caused by an ibuprofen deficiency.
Restoring your lifestyle should be the goal of all medical practices. Drugs are not always the answer, and neither is physical therapy. Sometimes joints that are not functioning properly are causing pain easily fixed by chiropractic and Power Plate therapy. ReVibe provides that approach. And while you’re here, we strengthen your bones and your muscles too, something you need to carry you into the latter years so you can maintain your independence and daily activities.