Rebounding vs Whole Body Vibration After 50 Which? When? Worth It? #FEDFitness

All right. Shaken and stirred. That is really what this podcast should be titled, I think, because I'm really looking at rebounding and whole body vibration, both which shake you up a little bit in one way or another. But if you are on either or, or both, and you have them sitting around collecting dust, or maybe they're taking up space in your family and living room and you wonder which one should you give priority to, or which one should you use when and why? This episode is for you. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause, and you're not slowing down. You're just getting started. But the old rules don't apply anymore. The workouts that worked before, they're working against you now. The advice you've been given, incomplete at best. I'm Debra Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping 50, the pioneer in fitness for women in midlife. For more than 40 years, I've been in the trenches with women just like you, and for the last 12, right here on this podcast, and, and the founder of Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping 50: The Stronger Way, where science meets strength, where you'll find the tools, research, and real talk to build the body and the life you want in your second half. Each week you'll get evidence-based exercise and nutrition strategies, conversations with leading experts, and honest answers to the questions your doctor didn't get answers to in medical school and doesn't have time to answer in an appointment. This is your show. Let's get stronger. Shaken and stirred. Okay, that is really kind of cute. I got to give myself a little pat on the back. That came spur of the moment. But that is really what this one is all about. So rebounding and whole body vibration are both tools that you might say, I would say definitely are targeted at midlife and older women. They both offer benefits and they both come with their fair share of claims. So what does research support? I guess that's the question that I'm answering today. Spoiler alert. I love them both. I have them both and I have specific ways of using both, but I also am a 62-year-old female concerned about bone density, longevity, mitochondria, VO2 max, gaining strength, holding onto muscle and/or gaining strength. I have goals and I still am not limiting myself to thinking I'm too old to do that. I'm going to stay immature enough not to ever get there. Is my hope. My son and daughter-in-law will have to take the keys away. That'll be that. But here's the deal, I am also running a business with two arms. When you have a team, you will find suddenly, even in a fitness business, you have more things to do than you have time to do them in. So I need efficient and effective workouts, and nothing helps me get more fit than that right there. It doesn't matter if you're telling yourself, "When I retire, I'll finally get to this." Don't, don't you wait and don't you think that the more time you spend, the more fit you will be. It doesn't necessarily work that way. Wide open windows don't lend themselves to any start or stop. Needs. You don't have any sense of urgency about getting it done. So you just might find it's harder to get it done. And it is really helpful to have a schedule, to have to get it done, to have a reason. If you have a starting line you're gonna be ready for or have to or be embarrassed not to be ready for, that's important. When every single time Folks, every single time I have paid a registration fee for a race, and let me tell you that triathlon is not a cheap sport, not cheap to participate in, to train for. Doesn't matter if it's a sprint distance, an Olympic distance, a half, or a full. And I went from sprint all the way to full. I skipped over the middle parts. It's expensive. Those little backpacks you pick up or don't, and I've had a couple don'ts, cost you between $600 and $700. And a lot of times, most in fact, depending on where you live, you are going to then travel and stay and pay for lodging and all the souvenirs that tells you you are an Ironman or a marathoner or whatever your adventure race was, right? Because you're proud of it. Because nobody can take that away from you. I have probably half a dozen visors that are so old the elastic falls down my forehead and I have to push it back up, but I can't bear to let them be thrown away because they remind me of who I am. And nobody can take that away from you, even if it's been a minute since you did that thing. So I say this to say, I'm in the boat rowing with you. How I spend my time is important to me. I can't waste time. So in my decisions here and sharing with you what the science says, I'm also going to share with you how I'm using something and how if I was really tight on time, that might collect some dust. So you're going to get it all. Right here. Okay, the unbiased opinion. Let's start with this. Rebounding. And for those of you who are, "Prove it to me, girls," I gotcha. The science will be here. And that is perhaps the most disappointing part of preparing for this episode. The research on rebounding is really fairly flimsy. Some of the things that it is known for, touted for, It's really hard to find, and I dug. I dug pretty deep. I dug pretty hard. I had several days. I went to it, came back to it, looked again. Surely that must be wrong. There must be more there. But there was not. So here's what rebounding does. No argument. It provides a safe, joint-friendly, lower-impact way of exercising. So all movement, by the way, let's not forget, all movement is good for breaking up sedentary time, getting you moving. When you move, you contract muscles, you, you pump your lymphatic system. That's the way it has to happen. If muscle doesn't contract, there's no lymphatic flow. So you've gotta move your lymph. Even sitting at your desk and pumping your heels up and down can actually help you do that. But everything is good. And it supports blood sugar levels, but there's gonna be a continuum of, you know, if I get up and I go for a walk, I'm gonna really support my blood sugar levels better. If I go lift, I lift weights and I create more muscle, and I'm also using that muscle during the lift, I am doing even more good because not only during that lift, but long-term I've created longstanding tissue that is going to help with blood sugar levels. That's along a continuum. So yes, rebounding is on that continuum. Continuum, I think it's important for you and I to think about where on that continuum. So while you're using it, it's beneficial. If you're not using it, it's probably not as beneficial for supporting blood sugar levels. It does improve knee extensor strength. Now this was particularly in older adults. So I would say to you, if you're listening and you're a woman who's lifting weights, you're doing squats, and/or you're going to the gym and you're doing squats or you're doing a leg press or, and/or leg extension. And by the way, I don't love that one. It's not the first go-to. And when I do it, I do it with a caveat of I do limited range of motion and I'm getting at my vastus medius. That is the quadricep muscle that is most internal or medial toward your center line that supports keeping that knee cap on track where it's supposed to be and not letting it slide over to the edge, which is where it tends to go for older women who have more lax and more lax muscles in their quads, but also more tension in the outer leg, which is your tensor fasciae latae and TFL, that's called by the way. And so those and the IT band together tend to be pulling things that way. Your vastus medialis is like, meh, you haven't really worked me much. But getting on a rebounder, you're jumping, and when you're jumping, you're landing with slightly flexed knees, right? And then you're pushing off again, and that little micro contraction of your knee extensors actually helps to strengthen them. Now, for you, again, you're at the gym, you're doing that regularly and lifting heavy. You're probably not going to see as great of an increase of your strength than compared to somebody who's otherwise not going to the gym, not strength training, and is just getting started again. So realize, know who you are. And I want you to picture this if you're thinking that I would ask somebody who's maybe a little bit more frail, not as stable, to get on a trampoline and start jumping to increase their knee extensors. Without holding on, I wouldn't. So this is— imagine, um, what I have is a YouCan rebounder with a handle on it. Now, I really resisted that, but I went ahead and put it on. They sent it to me to try, and I was like, do I have to put that thing on? And they're like, uh, yes. Thank you. Okay. So I put it on, but it does have a great reason why I put it on. So you also get a phone holder, which is kind of cool. Not to watch anything. I'm not wanting to watch a video necessarily, but I am playing music and I could change it because part of rebounding is mood. And I'll get to that in a minute. But knee extensor strength in older adults is shown to improve from use of rebounding. It also supports neuromuscular benefits. There is, when we have to figure out where is our body in space, and you do when you're on a rebounder, you're kind of, you know, out there and you're off in space, barely. You don't have to come a long ways away from that or jump really high, but you've You've got to kind of figure out this down and up and how much do I push to jump again? Do I need to push to jump again? But all of that helps neuromuscular benefits. Neuro standing for brain, muscular for muscle. The Wi-Fi signal that you're sending between your brain and your muscles gets stronger. And all of that means you're gonna have better reaction skills. Your muscles will fire better doing other activities, not just while you're rebounding. And in that way, it was actually these studies that proved neuromuscular benefits occur were done on patients with Parkinson's disease. So another reason why, for Parkinson's, it is part of the neural breakdown that is the problem. And other activities that have been noteworthy for Parkinson's— so I'll take a small pivot right here— are like riding on the back of a tandem bike. There's actually research and studies to show that coordination improved when they were going in that rhythmic and circular pattern on the back of a tandem bike. And boxing has also been shown to be really good. And we know, I know it is really wonderful for fast twitch muscle fiber reaction skills, rapid thoughts. So There are lots of ways to box, you know, and I can call it out and I can say jab, jab, jab, cross, and we can teach you patterns or jab, cross, jab, cross. And you can also learn it that way and say, okay, a jab is number 1 and a cross is number 2 and a hook is a 3 and an uppercut is 4. So I want you to do 1, 2, 1, 2, and then you kind of have to think for a minute, right? You have to put the pattern together. And all of those things are great for neuromuscular coordination and for improving just the brain synapses. So thinking about what do you need, you know, you are exercising physically because maybe you're wanting to gain more muscle, reduce some fat, but also don't discount the brain benefit that you're getting from doing certain things 2. So it improves balance, coordination, the knee extensor strength across populations, including older adults and neural conditions like Parkinson's disease. That also might lend itself to diseases like MS, where other exercise and proprioception can be challenging, you know, and having a handle and being able to bounce and work on coordination in that way could be beneficial. It might maintain bone density. And I want you to hear the strongest word in that sentence is might. Okay? So it's— second most important word is maintain. It's not going to help you gain bone density. And I would say that the one exception to that rule might be someone who's doing absolutely nothing. But I would also then say to you as a medical exercise specialist with 4 and a half decades of experience, Never in my life would I suggest first that the first place for you to start would be a rebounder. There's too much going on. I would, I would start you walking. I would start you walking to build up endurance, to, to build up stamina. We would change the terrain that you're walking on or the speed, having you go uphill and downhill, but we would not first put you on something that required balance and proprioception. That would be ridiculous. Ridiculous. So there's that. Um, next, so might maintain bone density, but it would require significant effort since the rebounder actually reduces load and the force to the bone. And here's the thing, we need force. It is a powerful force and impact that actually re— is required to increase your bone stimulus. Now, most people are choosing a rebounder because it's a softer landing and easier on joints, and these two things are counter to each other. Strange but true, right? Easier on joints negates anything for the bone. We, we have to be a little harder on the joint in order to get to the bone. Now, Now, if for you, this is one way where you might say, "It's too late for me to do that. My bone is degenerated. I'm not ready, nowhere near needing a joint replacement, but I'm uncomfortable enough that I can't do high impact. It just doesn't make sense for me to do that." You're going to use the rebounder because it allows you to move more without pain and without paying for it afterward with pain. So there's two different kinds of pain, right? Can we agree? And when you reach the third kind of pain, you've really gotten yourself in a pickle. The first kind of pain is pain on participating in an exercise. The second kind is pain participating or that you experience from participating, but after. And it lingers. And then the third is if you have it before as well, basically you have it all the time. So we want to avoid that, of course. But the whole idea between using rebounding and yet thinking that it's beneficial for bone density is, is a really hard one to grasp. If you're using it so it's lighter and easier and low impact, you're removing the very thing the ground force and the impact that are the bone beneficial piece. So I just want you to know that if you had a really firm jumping surface, meaning you were using, uh, the, the bungees basically that tie the surface to your metal form, And you made that as firm as possible. And then you were coming down with boom, explosive force down into that. That is where you could stand to gain the most bone benefit. But if you are simply jumping nice and easily, you are not getting that bone benefit. So I want you to realize big difference. Jumping powerfully on a rebounder with controlled and significant trampoline stiffness has produced 1.5 up to 2.5 times body weight impact. I want you to know why that's significant. We have to be over a threshold of 2 or more times body weight to even factor in, okay, that's bone beneficial. When we get to 4 times body weight and over, now we're really making more progress and getting more stimulation. So I wanna give you that idea. We're at only at about 1. 1.5 to 2.5 at best, but that's with effort. That's really trying hard. And I will tell you that as somebody with 44 years of consistent, you know, outside of— of course I've been sick, I've, you know, been postnatal, and I've been, you know, I've had accidents, been thrown off a horse, but outside of those minor little things I've exercised consistently and I don't shy away from a challenge. I lift heavy, I go hard, I go long, I do stupid things like endurance Ironman. Yeah, I— not recommended, seriously, if you're looking for a pro hormone-centric exercise. But some of us have a problem, so I need a support group. Hey friends, picture this. I'm at SeaWorld holding my 3-year-old and we're at the dolphin pool, and spontaneously holding up his little fish, he says, "Here, honey," and starts calling the dolphins over. The cutest darn thing. But who doesn't love dolphins? And if you do, here's another reason to love them. They've unlocked a core secret to aging for all of us. I've added a new supplement to my routine an essential fatty acid, and I'm beginning to pay more attention to the health of my cells as much as I do my muscles and agility. It's C15 from Fatty15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. It is an incredible scientific breakthrough to support your long-term health and wellness, and you guessed it, healthy, powerful aging. Fatty15 co-founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson discovered the benefits of C15 while working with the U.S. Navy to improve the health and welfare of older dolphins. Cool job, right? Based on over 100 studies, we now know C15 strengthens our cells. It's foundational as a healthy aging nutrient which helps to slow aging at the cellular level. In fact, when our cells don't have enough C15, they become more fragile and they age age faster. And when your cells age faster, the body ages faster too. This eventually led to studies finding the first new nutritional deficiency to emerge in 75 years. It has a name: Cellular Fragility Syndrome, caused by a lack of the C15. As many as 1 in 3 people worldwide have low C15 levels and fragile cells. To help support and optimize healthy aging, a team of doctors funded by the US Navy spent over a decade to develop the pure, science-backed, bioavailable C15 ingredient in Fatty15. I've been taking and recommending omega-3 supplements for decades. It turns out Fatty15 has 3 times more cellular benefits than EPA, which is a key Omega-3. Further, omega-3s are fragile and susceptible to oxidation. We knew this, but Fatty 15 protects against damaging oxidation, so you actually take and get what you need to the cells. I've been using Fatty 15 now for almost 3 months. What I'm noticing most is better mood and more energy, all giving me more focus and concentration throughout the day. It's a small capsule once a day. But they also make gummies. And if you, like me, like to test, not guess, there is a test you can take that some doctors already use in a regular fatty acid panel. They also clinically test for relevant signs of low C15, like lower hemoglobin, high ferritin levels, and elevated liver enzymes. These symptoms, they're often kind of mysteries when I'm working with clients, like begging the question, why? What this. Now maybe we have an answer. Fatty15 is on a mission to support healthy aging for all, including all ages and stages of life. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com/Flipping50 and use code Flipping50 at checkout. But what I want to point out is that You have to really go hard. And I even only opted for a medium kind of stiffness in my rebounder. So it comes with, um, in, in my case, it's all black. There are an entire set of green, which is much stiffer resistance that I could change them out to. What I opted to do is change out 4 of them and put 4 stiffer on, and, you know, I can bump that up and I could do another 4 or a couple more here and there to make it stiffer if I wanted to. I really don't. So I, I will tell you how I'm using it in a minute, and it is much more like going back to the '80s than it is anything about bone density for me. So realize it's possible, but most of us are using it prefer it because of the low force and the fact that trampoline absorbs the ground force, which is good for joints that need a soft landing, but not good for bone density that needs a hard ground reaction force. It also has a greater cardiovascular demand per impact. So if you enjoy it for cardiovascular exercise, it could be a great resource tool. So I gotta tell you, I noticed this the other day. And I was just, you know, I'm going to get on it for a few minutes. And basically I let the length of a song— so I just put a fun song on and I let the length of the song and I just started doing— I started doing aerobics basically from the '80s. And I'm like, okay, I remember that move and that move. And what can I do in this 40-inch diameter that I have? And then I was like, huh, this is embarrassing. I'm kind of breathless. And I wasn't breathless to the point that this would qualify as an interval training. But I was reaching the point where now if I sustained it, I would have reached kind of a steady-state aerobic training. It would be significant enough. Now I didn't have anything on, I wasn't tracking my heart rate, and I'm sure I could have looked down. It wasn't that great, really. But it surprised me because I thought I was just going to pop up there, hang out for a few minutes, and then pop back down. You're like, "Huh, okay, I like that. A little bit of a break. I'm not necessarily breaking a sweat." But realize that every little jump has greater cardiovascular demand. And the reason is you're coming down and then you're absorbing, and then you have to jump and power back up off of it. It's different than jumping on the solid ground. So very cool. So if time is a factor for you, And isn't it for everybody, at least at some point? And you're trying to find options that give you power, ground reaction forces, cardio benefit, agility, all at one time. Rebounding would not be my first choice for you or for myself. So if I want all of these things, I would probably say, you know, I'm gonna do a 10-minute treadmill run and I'm gonna do some very quick for my cardio benefit, for some ground reaction forces also, because when you are running hard to do interval training, you're increasing that jump a bit, a bit more beyond just going for a jog. And there's not a lot of agility to it. So moving feet quickly is true, but you're running, it's linear. So I'm going to touch on a lot of things. By doing that interval training on the treadmill, but I'm going to get a lot more done than I would if I were saying, "I'm going to rebound for 10 minutes." Not nearly the same kind of results. Not in my VO2 max, not in ground reaction force. I'm not going to get any. Or, and then I would do some ground reaction force, some jumping, some powering. But I want you to remember this, you can power and do jumps if you tolerate them with, you know, any other— pair it with anything. Pair it with resistance training, with going for a walk. Do it at the end when you're warm. If you can jump, jump, friend. If you can't jump, okay, now we look at alternatives. What else can you do? So if you like it, it's an extra for you, something you do for fun to break up sedentary time, improve your posture, reaction skills, potentially improve pelvic floor. But I want to tell you this, this is something I put in because you read it so very often. It's going to improve your pelvic floor and it's going to increase your lymphatic flow. The research, friends, is very flimsy. There isn't much there. And for probably 50% of the women who try it, it does not help pelvic floor. It may worsen it. So if you've got pelvic floor issues, I would always go toward, let's fix the issue first. Don't ignore it and do something that might worsen it. And that would go for resistance training heavily as well. If you don't know how to strengthen your, your MUF, as my good friend, the vagina coach Kim Vapny says, you need to do that first. Pay attention to that. In terms of lymphatic flow, it was really disappointing because there is minor indications. We know that muscular contractions are required for lymphatic flow. So all exercise that causes circulation or improves it will be beneficial. And I will tell you a little bit more about the rate of contractions and what really matters, because speed and rate does matter. And we can get to that easier from a rebounder than we can in, on any other way, going slowly, step by step, walking won't quite do the same. So I want you to realize that it can be good for those things. As far as pelvic floor, however, if you need help, seek pelvic floor therapy first and then look at, is this appropriate for me? It'd be a great question to ask your therapist. So ground reaction forces, I want you to, to get this so that you understand this little continuum that I've got. And if you're interested in more, there's a, YouTube video that I did on ground reaction forces, or 14 different moves of jumping, and that give you bone benefit and where they all are on the continuum from stomping, walking, and heel jumps, heel drops that are on one end to drop jumps on the other and everything in between. But ground reaction forces of walking, like you and me just walking along, nonchalant, la la la, that's about 1.0 to 1.5 body weight. Like it's our body weight plus a little bit depending. Jogging is 2 to 3 times body weight. Hard ground jumping, like we're gonna stand on the ground, we're gonna explosively go up and jump, we get 3 to 5 times, much more bone density benefit there. Drop jumps mean we're standing on a chair or on, um, some kind of a platform at the gym, or we're on a step out in the back in the driveway and jumping. And we do squat jumps from that. They enter into 7 times. Now we're really getting somewhere. But by the way, you don't start there. You start with little ones hopping up and then later turning around and popping down, and then you gradually boost that step up. So over time, weeks and months, you would gradually get yourself there. The rebounder, by comparison, only about 1.5 to 2.5. But remember, that's if you're trying really hard to power through it and it's a very firm surface. Here's what rebounding absolutely does not do. It does not increase bone density or offer enough force load for bone denif— benefit. It has lower ground reaction forces than jumping or resistance training, either one. Rebounding may support lymph movement, but it's not supported by modern peer-reviewed human research. So I found that to be very interesting. There is minimal out there. Experts do say this will help and does. And so that's such an interesting dichotomy. I found that some of the experts I know, like, and trust do say it's gonna help lymphatic flow. However, I'm like, show me the science. Where is that again? So circulation, yes, we know that it does improve circulation. However, it's indirectly supporting lymph movement because it involves rhythmic muscular contraction, ankle-calf pumping, changes in pressure, and deeper breathing. But the popular statement that rebounding flushes the lymph system or increases lymph flow by 15 to 30 times— and that I put in quotes because you will read that It's not well supported. Just want you to know exercise does improve lymphatic flow, all exercise. There is just little specific evidence, at least yet, directly related to rebounding or to whole body vibration, but it is related to muscle pumping to the lymph. So in theory, the faster the contractions staying on the surface of the trampoline. So when you're jumping specifically for improved lymphatic flow, circulation and lymphatic flow. You don't need to come high. In fact, you don't want to. You want to keep it low, like paper thin. You're almost on it. So as if you get your heels pumping on it to get it to go up and down, and then you're kind of riding the wave. That gives you small repeated movement, and all it takes is 1 or 2 minutes. That is the better for extrinsic pumping. So let's flip gears. All right. So if that were really diving into rebounding, what then about whole body vibration? And at the end, I will also share with you what's the bottom line in this summary. So whole body vibration does improve fluid distribution, and I'm picking right back up at lymphatic flow because we just left that. And this was shown in cancer patients, by the way. Increase blood circulation, activate the muscle pump mechanisms, and reduced edema and swelling in— these were smaller clinical studies. It does improve bone density in 6 or more months of use versus, or via, the mechanical stimulation. So small micro contractions occur at a rate of about 50 50 muscle contractions per second. I know, I'm going to say that again. 50 contractions a second. Now, if you're standing on a vibration machine, if you don't know what it feels like, I'm trying to think of something that I could even imagine. And most of us, I could use this, but you're not going to, you know, running a jackhammer probably is less familiar even than a whole body vibration. But let's say you were running a snowblower. Or a lawnmower. My chances of you doing that are probably better. You know, one, it vibrates, right? So you know what that feels like when the motor is running and/or it's turning around and trying to spit out snow, depending on which one you chose. You know what that feels like. Well, imagine standing on a surface that was making you feel like that from your feet, from the ground up, or you were sitting on it. You can do that too. That's kind of what it is, but that means that your your entire body. Micro contractions are happening within the muscle that are not making you tired or fatigued or going to cause you to have to quote unquote recover for 2 days between. It's occurring. You're getting the benefits without getting any of the cons, the, the things that are really taxing you. So that is one huge benefit. And for those who maybe can't, they're tired, they're weak, they're frail, they can't exercise right now in a way that would help them to really reach muscular fatigue. This is another alternative. On whole body vibration, there is a Hertz level, and generally between 20 and 30, most of the time 20 to 35 is actually mentioned in some studies. For bone density is the most beneficial. Not lower, but not higher, which is— most of us think, well, higher must be better, I'll get more results. Not the case. It's not the way it works here. So either 10 minutes, 5 days a week at that level, or 15 minutes, 3 times a week. And generally the work is better, the results are better when there's movement involved. So rather than standing and just balancing on it, You're actually standing and you're doing squats on it. So you're loading your own muscle a little bit. So you can do a squat on the floor and you know what that feels like. You are loading your muscle. You're using your quadriceps and your glutes in doing that. It'll be using the rest of you in stabilizing. But those are, you know, valuable ways and proven to increase bone density. So if you're doing doing a squat, you are actually targeting your total hip, which is often measured in a DEXA scan, and your lumbar spine. Both will benefit from that. So doing the load will be better. If you could lift in heavy loads doing leg press or squat with weight, it would probably be even better. But if you can't, getting on a whole body vibration to get some stimulus that way would be an alternative. I will tell you that as somebody who can and does and did, has for decades lifted heavy, I still had osteopenia in 3 different sites because bone density is a factor of a lot of integrated parts about you, your stress level, your sleep, your nutrition, not just your nutrition that you're eating, but your gut health and whether your body has been able to absorb all of that good throughout the years, or if anything might have interfered with it, including medications. So it's very difficult for you or I to know why do we, or did we, get that? "Because I've exercised all the time and I've been conscious of my diet." It's an insult, I get it. Better than potentially, you know. But there are so many things at play that, you know, we don't have control over what we did or chose or how many diet Cokes we drank in grad school that probably wreaked havoc with at least my gut. I don't know about you, but I know that to be the case. Maybe that second cup of coffee sometimes during the week also interferes with absorption. So there are a lot of things that you have to consider. And so even, yes, somebody who exercises diligently, heavily, does high-impact fact may still also be vulnerable. And that, my friends, is okay. It's a level playing field. Did you know osteoporosis does not discriminate? It's, it's a fair world out there where it's concerned. But there are also things you can do. So I would say Whole Body Vibration is fantastic for anybody who is limited because of joints or a condition and cannot lift heavy. And yet it's also beneficial as an extra for somebody who can, but who's found themselves in a pickle with, wait a minute here, like, how did that happen to me? So you've got options and it's, I've seen it work in both ways. So what helps most is combine load with exposure, either to rebounding or whole body vibration. I would I wouldn't use either one of them in an isolated way for bone density if you can do lifting under load. If you cannot, then I would first look to whole body vibration if bone density were your goal. And very last, I would look at rebounding. Now, the one thing that may disrupt you is looking at price and investment. And if you're looking at the entire range of whole body vibration plates that are out there now, You just want to look carefully. And if you're saying, I want it for bone density, then you need to go shopping for something that gives you 20 to 35 or 20 to 30 Hz levels so that you can get the benefit you want. Don't go buying until you know, this is my goal. What is the science out there and the research on that being a reward or efficacy that I can get. I'm trying to find my words, can you tell? I can't pull one over on you, I know it. But you want to make sure that you're shopping for the right thing. Don't just go shopping and say, well, Whole Body Vibration does this, and then get home and say, what level am I supposed to use? And, oh, you kidding, I don't have it. So you want to know You know, right away what helps the most is combining load if you can, impact if you can, and if you can't either or those, then whole body vibration, and last rebounding if bone density is your sole goal. However, movement is still important, an important part of bone density and resisting gravity. So again, I wanna go through the thresholds Examples again of ground forces, activities that produce greater than 2 to 3 times body weight ground reaction force are recommended for bone density, and 3 to 5 shows significant impact, positive impact and benefit on bone density. The examples are jumping, resistance training also will do that, and really high impact aerobics, which could be jumping if you did it repeatedly. Bone responds to 3 different things: strain magnitude, that's the amount of force that we're putting on something. That's why jumping on a really soft surface, that mini trampoline, is not going to help you significantly. Jumping on the ground will. And/or creating the force. From that Hertz level in whole body vibration. It's why power, not just pushing slowly, but explosively, can actually help bone density more. In fact, doing strength training with power has been shown to be more beneficial for bone benefits. Then there's the strain rate. So we first had the strain magnitude, the amount of force, and number 2 is the strain rate, how fast the force is applied. So again, with power, when you're doing resistance training, boom, explode, slow it at decelerating under control and lower it back down. And then also when you are jumping explosively, jump off the ground. When you're doing a drop jump off of a platform or a step down to the ground, then try explosively jumping again and you get at two different forces, the landing force, the takeoff force. So how fast is force applied? Now, if you look at whole body vibration, remember what I said, 50 contractions a second, pretty darn fast, right? So that one also counts. And then novelty is the third thing. Just jumping up and down in the same pattern you always jump in is not enough. So jump rope is great, but make your jump roping travel and then jump over and back, side to side. As you're doing, you want to change things. If you're playing pickleball, it's forcing you to move forward to the left, forward to the right, backward to the left or to the right, and to pivot and make movements laterally that you otherwise don't. That can be good for bum. And jumping in that way is also good. When you're on a mini trampoline, will you vary what you're doing? Probably a little bit. You can kind of twist and jump to the left, jump to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that. Okay. Sometimes it just comes to me. But when you're on a vibration plate, you're not gonna get any novelty really, right? 'Cause you're just standing in contact with it. You're not jumping And I don't think the company wants you to. Okay. Just saying, they're probably not gonna honor that if you try to return it. So looking at it this way makes it easier to understand why resistance exercise with heavy weight or power and impact training are the most beneficial for their strain magnitude. In terms of strain rate, power again wins explosive jumping and landing or lifting and whole body vibration. Comes in here with lower magnitude but rapid firing at 50 contractions a second. The novelty comes from a variety of directional forces, jumping laterally on in different angles, beats moving in linear only patterns. Those of you who are still doing step aerobics, you know, you know a little bit of novelty. Now you might not be jumping, but if you stepping up to it sideways and in different ways also makes a difference. But if you are doing any plyometrics onto it, off of it, laterally or diagonally, that also will help. When high impact and heavy lifting are not options, or when they aren't enough, the addition of whole body vibration in my case was enough to improve my bone density and reverse osteopenia in, uh, 2 out of 3 sites. It improved the bone density in the third site, just not quite to get me that gray zone. In summary, here's what I would say. Rebounding is an excellent way to increase exercise options for those in need of low-impact exercise and, and/or those seeking safe, novel, fun ways to increase activity levels. Coordination, balance, and posture, knee extensor strength in the frail, and pelvic flood— pelvic floor benefits. Wow, pelvic floor benefits. Are proven with rebounding. It is not going to increase bone density, but by increasing activity may support bone density. I'm gonna say that again. It's not going to improve or increase your bone density, but by increasing your activity options or activity total level, it may support your maintenance of bone density as it is now. Whole Body Vibration it does have bone density, circulation, weight loss, and other benefits that doesn't surpass necessarily other forms of exercise, but it may be helpful as an adjunct to them or a replacement or substitute for them when they are no longer options. How I'm using mine. So I have both of them in my sunroom, which is kind of right off the kitchen And I do have an office in the other end of the house. I don't know about you, but I've always ended up doing my homework at the kitchen table. This house is no different. Ah, so I am right beside it. So I get up to get some water, I get up to go to the bathroom, I will come back and go past that. And generally halfway through the morning, halfway through the afternoon, actually a couple times during the afternoon, it's a bigger stretch. I will get on and do a couple minutes of bouncing, rebounding. Moses doesn't quite know what to think about this yet. He's like, what? I can't get up there. And, uh, I don't think he wants to cuz he can't figure out how he would get off. But it's just fun. It is a mood boost. It is great for stimulation. I find when I sit all day, even if I get up, just still sitting, my ankles are a little swollen at the end of the day. Even if I've gone for a walk, I'm— I've lifted that day. Generally that all happens before noon, and then meetings kind of run away with the afternoon. Um, I love getting on it because I've noticed that my own circulation, by showing in, you know, my ankles, you know, are not retaining water nearly as much when I'm on it regularly. So I know circulation and lymphatic flow personally are happening. You can also, by the way, enhance your lymphatic flow on whole body vibration. There is some proof that you can do that, and it's great for recovery. We use it a lot when, say, we've got an athlete, or you and I going for a long hike qualifies athletes, you know, and your calves are sore from doing a lot of hill training. I can't get away from hill training right here. I've got two major hills in one of the, the only two streets I can walk. And, you know, so I'm getting a lot of pumping up and down and flexion and extension in my ankles, which is good, but also makes my calf a little bit sore most of the time. And, you know, I will just lay my calves on it to recover, improve circulation. And that generally helps recovery feel better, feel lighter, and and then get a good stretch from it. So that is how I use my two tools. And I have found the rebounder to be really fun. If I were short on time, really needing to nail— I need VO2 max and I need strength today— I'm not going to use my whole-body vibration and I'm not going to use that rebounder. They're extras. They are not in the bullseye. They are outside of that bullseye. But yet, say I can't sweat. I have a really busy day, started early, it's going late. I don't have time to change clothes, to sweat, to do the all-over thing. I could stand on a whole body vibration. I can do just a little bit of bouncing. And those things do matter, breaking up your sedentary time. So hope that's been helpful. If you wanna try one or the other or see the ones that I have, I will share the link to the Fed Fitness B-CAN. It's the 40-inch is the one I have. There's also, I think it's a 44 or 48-inch, so it's a little bit bigger and it may help you feel more stable. But I find that for me was ideal. It comes with that full set of bungee cords, so you can either go really, you know, light or you can go really heavy. I opt for medium medium, you know, and it's based on weight, but it also probably should be based not just on weight but on your, your exercise experience, your strength, your power. So I use that with a grain of salt, but I still went for the medium. I'm not looking for really high or hard. I want to be able to bounce on it just a little bit. Took, you know, just probably 15-20 minutes to put it all together. That's probably because I had help with Moses on the floor. But other than that, it was, it was relatively easy. The instructions are super simple and everything you need is right there in the box. So it also supports up to 500 pounds. It's very stable. I love that. The armrest I mentally wrestled with a little bit. It's like, I don't need that, right? I'm a professional. But, you know, it's super smart. Why would you not, you know, if it's there and the phone holder. Is actually the biggest thing. So it's bringing that up to, you know, waist to chest height, depending on where you place it. And that's a really easy adjustment. And I also see this as something that, you know, in a couple of years, I would imagine there's probably gonna be a toddler who wants to crawl on top of that. And, you know, at least there's a handle there that we can, you know, make that safe and supervise it as well. I hope that was helpful. If you have more questions when you listen to this, I'd love to hear from you. If you are rebounding and how you use it. The one question I will wrap with is somebody said, can I use my rebounder for interval training? And no matter what the end of that sentence was, can I use my rower, my elliptical, my treadmill, my bike, the swimming pool for interval training? The answer is, I don't know. Can you, if you can get breathless, I mean breathless, I don't mean breathing harder, breathless, in 30 seconds or less, then yes, you can. If you don't get breathless or cannot figure out a way to do it, it's not truly interval training. So I want you to find something that really is. You want to get breathless in a short amount of time. And you're going to sneak that in so that you can improve your VO2 max. In weeks you can do that. But if you're not getting that, is there still cardiovascular benefit? Yes. But if you're asking about interval training, sprint intervals occur in 20 to 30 seconds to breathlessness. That means you have to stop because you have no breath. Okay. All right. That's the definition. Thank you so much. If this was beneficial, please share it. I will put the links in the show notes to the, um, one that I have for rebounding. I'll put it also there for the Power Plate that I have and I love. Reversing bone loss is no joke, but I also have to say that the two of these tools together, if you happen to be so lucky or fortunate to have them both. We absolutely need the coordination, the balance that can come from a tool like rebounding so that we don't fall in the first place. What if we don't test whether or not we got the bones strong enough? Focus on the agility, the reaction skills, and the coordination, and then we're really talking about optimal aging. I'll see you on the flip side. The information shared on Flipping 50 the Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program, making changes to your diet, or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast.