Whole Body Vibration for Bone Density | Medical Exercise Specialist Report

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It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. What do you know about whole body vibration for bone density? Curious? Skeptical? Well, me too. But more and more instances of degeneration, chronic illness, or long haul preventing the active life that supports bone health best, additional means of stimulating both muscle and bone density are always on my mind. What are the options for those of you who do struggle with arthritis, with severe osteoporosis, at high risk for fractures? That is what we're going to talk a little bit more about today. However, if you are strong, you are vibrant, you are lifting heavy, you're using power, don't go away because this whole body vibration episode actually has something in it for you. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns. But look, that's a downer, isn't it? Most of all, we hope to inspire you so you expect and, hands on hips, demand better products and services. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and the vitality that you want, need, and deserve in this second and better half. Falls are the leading, or the second leading cause of unintentional death in the world. Older women are especially at risk due to decreased strength, decreased reaction skills, decreased balance, and low bone density. Falls result in fractures 31% of the time and 95% of all hip fractures are the result of falls. My mother was two of those. For those who've had a prior fracture, you are twice at risk for a future fracture. Whole body vibration was first used by NASA with astronauts as a way to overcome the muscle and bone losses experienced by astronauts in space in the early '60s. I believe it was 1961. To be sure. Now it's 2023 and we're really just first seeing this come mainstream. And I have to admit that even as recently as 13 years ago, I was still— 13 years ago, I believe I was still personal training director at a club with multiple locations. And I was approached by one of the membership managers, one of the, the center managers. We had 3 locations. He said, he said, somebody with Power Plate has come in, they've given us a pitch, and what do you think about this? Because it would come back to me as bottom line, when you're the personal training director, you are probably the most medically based scientific girl on the staff, right? It's not about following a paint-by-number exercise plan, which often is true of group fitness, but it's, you know, I mean, who do we go to? We didn't have a specific fitness director. That was me. And, you know, I was like, this probably is not something we first want to get. It's not first and highest priority on our list. There were some other things there. However, there are things that now I would probably do differently. You know, I probably would have for each of those 3 facilities at least 1 Power Plate. The disadvantage of that is having 1 sometimes is worse than having None. That's strange but true. But when you put something there that everyone probably could benefit from in some way, it's not necessarily ideal to have just one. You want to have multiples available to the public. However, can't go back. But why is the need for whole body vibration so crucial for bone density? And what is there that I can tie to it, maybe to give you a little support and for those of you who are limited by other exercise a little hope. So in this episode, that's what I hope I'm bringing. Let me give you a little background first though on why this is so problematic. Misinformed from perpetuating outdated information from both doctors and trainers since about 2015, evidence of not only increased safety and viability of high-impact and high-intensity exercise for osteoporotic postmenopausal women is much more promising than prior goals of stopping or slowing losses. We're actually in the business now of increasing bone density for women not just over 40 but over 50 and even over 60. It's possible. As long as we stop losses, we know we got good gut health. We'll get into that more, if not today, in an upcoming episode within the next few weeks. So keep coming back. I'm gonna be sharing more, not just about whole body vibration, but about osteoporosis, bone density, what exercise looks like from the inside out. We'll talk again about whole body vibration just as a part of that, but really what should a week look like for optimal bone density? Because October— and it happens to come up right now, but listen, this is a day-in, day-out, every week, every month thing for women over 50 to be concerned about— but October is Osteoporosis Day, is October 20th. It's Menopause Month. So topics near and dear to all of our hearts are our buns, our knees, our hips, and every other part will be prevalent in that month. So Let me go through this little data. 41% of women over 40 had either osteopenia— that's over 31%— or osteoporosis, and that was 14% in a 2010 study. Said differently, 31% of women over 40 had osteopenia, and more than 30% of women over 60 had osteoporosis. The further this— further from menopause like over 10 years that you are, the increased prevalence of osteoporosis, it was 40% compared to just 5 years post-menopause. I don't know where you are, but that's like, holy cow, you know, I'm within this 5-year range right now and I'm thinking I need to hold on hold on with everything I've got and dig my heels in. So I'm looking at all the things. And the best time to do that is right now. So if you're 10 years beyond, you cannot go back, but you can start right now. And no, if you're asking, is it too late? No, no, and no. You can get stronger. You make then the muscle pull on the bone that's going to support you. You lift heavier within your range of what is safe to go heavy, and that impacts and gets a response for bone remodeling. You can be taking as much protein as you should. You can be increasing your amount of collagen you're ingesting, and your bone will benefit from that even now. And you can be doing higher impact exercise— more on that coming up. But whole body vibration increased bone muscle— or I'm sorry, bone mineral density by 2% with 5 minutes, 3 times a week for 6 months. That, my friends, is a pretty good investment in time, increasing bone density by 2% in 6 months. I mean, in 1995, when I first started talking about osteoporosis and had to define what it is for, for women in an adult education class, and we have come a long way, baby, because we used to say the loss per year was 1 to 3%, and you were at best going to be able to slow those losses. And that was success. That was significant. If you only lost 1% as opposed to losing 3%, the difference was 4% better. Now we're looking at gaining 2%. That's huge and that is possible. In able-bodied, in combination with resistance training, Whole body vibration increases results of both muscle and bone regeneration. And that's right, your muscle also deteriorates somewhat in resiliency with age and especially with, without use. While I wouldn't advocate only doing whole body vibration for bone density, if you're able to do more, that is, in conjunction with resistance training exercises, and let me explain that. I'm not suggesting that you stand on the Power Plate and do your squats or put one foot up and do your lunges, although that is one way to do it. You could lift separately, stand and use, stand, sit, or plank on the Whole Body Vibration Plate, alternatively. And so you've got lots of options. Does that make sense? You can do it 5 minutes a day because it's in your kitchen, which is where mine is right now. It's not an ugly thing, by the way. It's made and is fairly beautiful, right, as, as equipment can be. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that you're squatting and doing it at the same time. If you're using it for balance as well, you probably want to be doing some kind of balance activity for it most beneficial. So you might be standing on one leg, you might be standing as if you were on a tightrope instead of standing normally with your feet directly underneath your body, hip-width apart. You might be moving down to do kind of a deadlift motion, reaching down, touching the, the plate, and then coming back up. Dynamic movement. But you have a variety of ways you can use it and be benefiting from the bone density. So important to realize that this is what I would call an extra— whole body vibration for bone density is an extra form of insurance. It not only provides an improvement in bone density, but it's beneficial to muscle, to balance and healing, or regeneration in the case of injury. But get this, also for performance If you're a golfer, for instance, you know, standing there to on the power plate in a bracing form as if you were about to hit a golf ball and then coming up to a standing position, you're actually bracing your spine in the exact form that you're going to maintain and be using over and over again. And it's been shown for golfers to be very advantageous in in certain golf training centers, there are Power Plates reserved just for elite and pro golfers' use in their performance. This isn't necessarily just regenerative if you've got an injury. However, let's say you're sore frequently. What could you do? Well, um, let's see, a couple weeks ago I took a friend to the Grand Canyon. We hiked down and up. Hiking down for gosh, what was it, about 6-some, 6-plus-some miles. A little eccentric contraction, we call that. And on the way down, that eccentric contraction is responsible for more soreness than coming up. And her quads were sore the next day, more than her glutes or her hamstrings. And lying on that face down with her quadriceps facing it for, you know, a few minutes even probably would have helped her recover. Now Little did she know that because she actually took it out of the box for me and set it up after we got back. But different uses is what I want to point out. When I lived in Boulder and was a part of rally sport, when we had people who had injuries, maybe a torn calf muscle or a pulled calf muscle, might have them sit on the ground or the floor right in front of the Power Plate, put their lower legs up on it and turn it on to work on just vibration. So there's lots of different ways that you can use it. It not only increases bone density, but it does an awful lot of other things. Quote unquote, whole body vibration therapy is an intentional biomechanical stimulation of the body using various frequencies of vibrations, the Hertz numbers 30 and 40 Hertz, with the motive of health improvement. Ever since its discovery, this therapy has been extensively used in physiotherapeutic measures and in the sports industry. For proper— or property of increasing bone mass and density, space agencies use this therapy on astronauts who return to Earth after long-term space missions to regain lost bone and muscle mass. The potential of this therapy to restore bone mass encouraged researchers to look for its scope in the treatment of age-related bone degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis and sarcopenia, which is muscle loss, as well as the correction of posture control and gait in geriatrics and postmenopausal women. Huge. So mechanisms of whole body vibration for bone density and for the other benefits as well: it affects bone metabolism, causing that regeneration, the remodeling. Muscle function, muscle training, and the endocrine system. And what do I mean by that? So the endocrine system obviously is your hormone system. Good news for that is you can increase your growth hormone by like 500%, hundreds of percent. Why is that beneficial? Well, you need growth hormone to boost your muscle. Vibration therapy provides anabolic mechanical signals to the bone and to musculo-tendon tendon— tendonous system. So not only your muscle, your bone, but your tendons, ligaments, the connective tissue surrounding those joints. It improves blood circulation to the bone, ensuring an improved nutrition supply. Human adipose-deprived stem cell differentiation into osteoblasts is facilitated by vibration therapy. So osteoblasts Blasts and osteoclasts are kind of the remodeling. And if you imagine a pancake cooking on your fry pan, you see the bubbles appear, disappear. That is kind of what your bone does. And when you were young, it filled in those holes faster than it created holes. As we age, we create more holes than we create, more Swiss cheese than we create the fill-in. The whole body vibration actually supports the creation of filling those back in. So that constant turning over, we're filling in, in getting rid of some of those holes, which then make us much more weak. Whole body vibration works on inhibiting excessive osteoclasts, so that's the, the holes. It improves bone health by amplifying the gap junctional communication in osteocytes. So again, and just at the deep bone level. But these are all things that have been proven. So individually in different studies, this has been declared and studied. We know it happens. It also activates the tonic vibration reflex and induces non-voluntary muscle contraction. Here's how much muscle contraction can increase by like 28 to 50%. And what does that mean? Means that if you're standing on the Powerpoint doing a squat, or you're standing on the Power Plate doing bicep curls, you are expending about 50% more energy because you're recruiting more muscle fiber. That's a pretty good return on investment. There's more activation of previously inactive muscle fibers. We're waking some of them up, and it enhances the endocrine system's functioning. Again, we're coming back to that growth hormone increases. And I will share in future episodes, there is a study that increases or shows the increase of growth hormone was about 500%. And, you know, most likely that was in someone who was aged and has decreased growth hormone production. So who needs it worst, right? So yes, the least advantaged or the most disadvantage. We need it more. But we could be doing— you and I could be doing the strength training, and yet if we don't have that growth hormone, and if you're not sleeping well, it's a struggle because we release that hormone in our deepest cycles of sleep. So I'd love to know, so we can carry this on, what questions do you have about whole body vibration specifically for bone density or for osteoporosis or osteopenia? And I will be sharing periodically what I'm doing and how I'm using mine. I'm now using mine about 3 to 4 minutes every single day, just either to do balance on, to do core on. I had a couple days coming back from the Grand Canyon where I was a little sore and used it for that. And I would really love to have your questions in the show notes for today, flipping50.com/wholebodyvibration. I'm going to include, uh, an affiliate code where you can go to my link and make a significant savings off of a Power Plate if you'd like to use it. Now, I do this in total transparency. If you make a purchase at a link that I share, I try as much as I can to score a beneficial discount for you, and I also make a small commission. It might buy me lunch. I probably couldn't buy us both lunch. So if you're concerned about that. I do want to let you know in advance though that that is the case. So I'm going to put that in the show notes so that you've got it and look forward to your questions because your questions really matter to me. And I want you to know that I— if you are a skeptic, you know, thinking this is too good to be true, it's got a place. And I just want you to understand very clearly where is that place. Where's that place in your repertoire, in your routine? I don't think it should replace anything that you are able to do, but if you've got certain things that are best for bone health, and that's coming up in a, a very, uh, near future episode, then this might be a good substitute for you and certainly for others around you. But everybody in the family, in your household can use this, whether it's for performance, for preparing for exercise or recovery from exercise, or specifically enhancing bone density or recovering from soreness. It's a fantastic tool. I'm in love with it. All right, hope you can share with me your questions and your thoughts about this podcast. If you use a Power Plate, they are widely prevalent and available, accessible in gyms today depending on the size of your gym, and they're fairly reasonable when you think about What are the biggest priorities we have? Bone, muscle, and potentially brain health. And we may be least bothered by brain health until we feel we need it most, right? But muscle and bone health are top of the list for most of us because muscle health is related to body composition. Many of you may think I, my number one priority is weight loss, but it's really not. It's fat loss and it's fat loss by way of muscle gain. My friend, you have control over. And Power Plate or whole body vibration is one way to get it. All right, what are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 today.