Movement as Medicine: Do This to Cut Your Exercise in Half

Hi friends. Laurie here. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Synergy Podcast. Kelly and I truly value your continued support and today I get to share something very close to our hearts. For years, we have guided our clients through powerful health transformational journeys. And now we've taken all of that wisdom and created something we're so proud of. The Reset to Resilience app, or as we call it, R2R. We're officially launching the R2R pilot program and we're opening it up to just 15 founding members. This is your opportunity to be among the very first to experience a new approach to wellness. One that actually honors the real you. If you've ever been told everything looks fine when you know something just isn't. If you're tired of feeling dismissed, overwhelmed, or even unsure where to begin, R2R was built with you in mind. This app offers more than just health advice. It gives you the following structured, easy to follow wellness plans, bite sized daily guidance rooted in the functional medicine approach, which is root cause, and a community of like minded women walking a similar journey, as well as tools to help you reset, rebuild and truly reclaim your health. If you've been longing for clarity, consistency, and actually a path that makes sense, this is your moment. We'll be announcing signups soon, so be sure to follow us on social media the link below to grab one of those founding member spots. And yes, as a founding member, you will get special perks for life. I truly hope to see you inside the app. And now let's get back to today's episode.

Welcome back, Synergy listeners. We are so excited today to have Laura Wilson back with us to interview. She was with us in December, our December 9, 2024 episode. If you have not listened to that episode, go back and listen to that because we really get into the technology of Power Plate, all of the cool things that it can do. Everything from balance to coordination to lymphatic flow to muscle building. I mean, it's just an incredible tool. We have to admit we're not moving enough. And Lori and I do believe that movement is medicine. And we are so excited that Laura's here with us with her energy. She has lots of energy, lots of passion, and she's gonna get us moving.

We can't wait, Laura. So get us moving. You gotta, you know, even though they listen to the December episode, you have to tell us like, you know, why is movement and exercise a passion of yours?

Yeah, first of all, just let me compliment you guys. I love the idea that movement is medicine. Humans are meant to move, and it's when we don't move that we start to have issues. So I love that. Movement is medicine. I was a busybody. I have always been as both. I've adopted it, but my friends always say I'm naturally caffeinated. And so movement for me is just a way of expending all of this additional energy that I've got going. And, you know, you could go back and you could talk to my parents who, who would tell you that from a very young age, I was a very busy person. They put me in gymnastics at the age of three because they were like, this girl needs to expend some energy. And that was even though I was. I'm. I grew up on a farm, an actual working farm, and it was my mom, dad, and my sister. So we always said we were my dad's girl crew. And so I worked on the farm. From the time when you walk, you can work. So mo movement for me is just a necessary part of being. And I've always found joy in that dance movement. You know, whether it is more as people think of structured exercise, I like that too. But I. I just like to move.

And we love that you like to move.

So what's, what's the connection?

Like you, you know, we don't go to college, right, to learn how to move. You're right. You know, we learn how to move very, very early. But something that had to have attracted you to being in the position that you're at now and helping other people adopt some of those philosophies a little bit about what you do now in respect to that and how do you reach people and encourage them to do just that move?

Yeah, health and wellness, again, the part of being active was. Was very natural. But to get into the field, like you said, you know, you don't study that when we're young. But I found very quickly that growing up and being someone who was so connected kinesthetically and enjoying it, that it made sense for me to at least retain some part of that in my job capacity. And I started off as a high school English teacher, but I was always doing fitness on the side. So I was teaching group fitness or I had a client or two, because I was just passionate about, okay, this is a fun area to be with people. And people have really positive reactions when you help them feel better. And I was like, well, let's all feel better. And it really started off as that simple. Like, we feel better when we move together. So it started There and then obviously became much more of the science of. I went back, I got my master's in exercise science and continued to pursue and even then cross over into the world of health and wellness as my full time. And I was able to do that just kind of somewhat gradually, still working as a teacher, but then always dabbling in that world. And I just realized that's the world that I prefer to be in. I could still teach. I could just teach in the world of health and wellness instead of teaching in a traditional classroom. Because again, the power of helping someone to either get rid of or diminish pain or to allow them to move better or play better, you know, if they're a sports person, whether it is actual as an amateur or professional or just recreational, was so powerful to me. And it filled me with joy to see the joy in others that I knew that was the right place, because who wouldn't want to do what they love? Like, I was like, I love this. Let's make it my. How can I make it my job?

Yeah, so we find that sweet spot. And you can do that, right? You can pour into people because at your heart, you're a teacher, and now you're just teaching what you absolutely love and adore, which is movement. How, how awesome that. So if we could get more people moving early. I think in today's world, our world is set up by design to be very sedentary. You know, we put kids in a classroom and they're sitting for hours and hours at a time. They're not out playing and moving and doing and climbing trees and all the things that we did when we were kids as much anymore.

Right.

We're on that computer, we're on that iPhone. And so setting people up from a very early age to recognize that our opportunity for building muscle mass happens early in life. That's the bad news, right, Is. I mean, it's like the good news, bad news. It's good news if we harness that. It's bad news that our society is set up in a way that we don't. Don't organically get to do that anymore after age 30. I was, I was reading the statistics that we start losing between 3 and 5% of our muscle mass every decade after 30. And then at age 50, it goes up to 5 to 10% of muscle mass loss. So, Laura, how profound is that when we think about what that's actually doing to the body?

So to be. To dig into the science of it, we, our bodies have to be strong enough to fight gravity. And to be able to stand upright and move. And as your muscle decreases and your bone as well, we're also losing bone, you know, the, the integrity of your bone. As we age, as those decrease, obviously we become more susceptible to a lot of disease or risk of bone breaks when we fall. You know, or if you just talk about the muscle mass, like not being able to sit down, stand up or go upstairs or do things that would allow us simp to live alone, you know, or, or live and not be in assisted living. So. And again, because we are a somewhat sedentary society and, and, or people just don't know what to do because they think it needs to be sciency in a specific program or very structured and in a gym, which is not the case. And I'm sure we'll address that here in a moment, but it's. It. So it is very profound. You know, I look at, I look at a friend of mine who, she's, when she got around her mid-60s, because she was not a movement person at all. She was very thin. But that has nothing to do with being active, fit and using movement because bending down at the grocery store to get a can off the bottom shelf was impossible for her in her 60s because she had no muscle mass anymore. And she just wasn't able to do that. So that was very alarmin. She was so young. And I was like, okay, we, you know, let's just start with some really basic things like walking regularly and you can sit down in a chair and stand up, do it repeatedly, you know, stuff like that. So that idea that, that it suddenly accelerates, you know, it starts at what you say 30, I think is the first kind of threshold. And then at 50, it nearly doubles in the amount that we're losing. You know, again, that's, that's scary. But guess what? It's not. Because we can combat that. And that's what you guys are doing. That's what I'm doing, you know, with our people that we work with. So.

But there's such a, you know, pushback oftentimes in that whole exercise piece of things. You know, it's a curse word for so many because I think in many respects either they fear it because maybe they've done it before, maybe didn't like it, or they did it and they were so. They had pain afterwards and, you know, or they, you know, it a gym membership or the cost of doing it. I, I think there's so many reasons why people either don't get started, fail to get started, or fail to continue doing it. And I think that's what's really cool about, you know, exercise now is that we do have devices, and specifically that of power plate that are designed to do more with less time.

Actually, not just that, but I, I just was like geeking out and I was like, let her finish, let her finish. The power plate does three or four things that you, that you mentioned as barriers. It combats those. It gets rid of the reason not to move. First of all, you can simply stand. There are white papers out there that show that a power plate, not just any vibration plate, but specifically power plate, because that's the one that has the science backing to it. It's the one that has the medical device accreditation. But simply standing on a power plate improves muscle mass and bone density. And we're talking within 10 minutes, three times a week. Anyone can stand on a power play for 10 minutes. You can be injured, you can be older, you can be young, you can be. I hate exercise. Like standing for 10 minutes is the equivalent of doing close to like a 30 or 45 minute workout. So we're addressing the need for time. We're addressing the need for. I don't like exercise because it's hard. You can stand or I can't exercise because I have an injury, or maybe I just don't. I'm so new that I'm a beginner and I'm afraid of it might hurt again standing. But the last one is that the power plate, because of what it's doing as far as the circulation, in addition to the other stuff, it actually makes you feel really amazing because it takes our central nervous system and it down regulates your pain receptors so they shut off and they're like, this feels so good and you're all happy and your serotonin and dopamine go higher than they do with a normal workout on the ground. Then what it also does is that circulation is recovering. It's rehydrating all of your tissues and putting nutrients back in your blood at a really incredible pace. So you won't be sore or you won't be hurt. You feel more oxygenated, you're going to feel lighter. So it does all of these other things when you simply stand that also combat. You know, I don't like exercise because it's hard. I don't like exercise because it doesn't feel good. You know, those things are then kind of deactivated as far as. Well, that was, you know, an excuse that I had before. But now the power plate can help to Solve for that.

And it sounds too good to be true, though, let's be honest. So I, I mean, I, I, I think that people need to hear you say, how does it do that? Because it does sound so good to be too good to be true.

Yes. I promise I am not a snake oil salesman. Like, because it does, it does sound that way. And I always say, you know, when I talk to people the first time, I'm like, I know it sounds like it's, it's a magic pill. Well, it's as close as you can possibly get. So what it's doing is when you stand on it. So if this is me and this is the power plate, it's actually moving underneath us. And what that simulates is your brain thinks you're falling down. So every time the plate moves, your brain says to your body, brace for impact. Because I want you to take a moment and imagine if you're on ice or it's raining and you start to slip and fall. What does our body do automatically before we land? It races every muscle. You feel it go. Like everything just contracts. You may even not notice, but you hold your breath for a second because your body doesn't know on what part you're going to land. So it tries to protect you. It braces all the muscles, squeezes every muscle fiber to activate. That's what's happening when we're on a power plate. Normally in our just ground movement, we're able to activate if you're really, really kinesthetically aware, like maybe you're a professional athlete or a dancer or something like that. People who have great body awareness and connection, they're maybe activating 60% of the muscle fibers in every muscle body. The average person is getting like 20%. When you slip and your central nervous system says, I'm falling down, it's 100%. We went from maybe getting, if we were in really good shape up to 60%, but more likely probably 30, 40% to 100. So now I have so many more muscles moving more often. Because the second thing is, it's every time the plate moves, that happens. And when you turn the plate on to a low setting, say 30 low, which don't worry about what that means. What it means it's moving 30 times a second. So 30 times a second, your body says, I'm falling down. Contract the muscles. So it's literally falling down, falling down, falling, falling, falling, falling, falling. Activate. Activate. It's so fast that now on the floor, I do about one to two per second on the plate, I'm doing 30 a second. So not only are more muscle fibers activating, but they're doing it more often 30 times a second versus maybe two times a second. So that's how you get such a huge volume of work, muscle contractions and neurological activations in this amount of time. What would normally take this amount of time we can do in this amount of time. So more muscles more often.

I love that. And it feels good, guys. That's the thing about it is it doesn't feel like you're falling to your body. It feels very pleasant to your body. It's very relaxing to the body. And so it really is truly an incredible tool. So, Laura, we could, we could unpack a lot of what you just said. I want to dig into the osteoporosis bone loss kind of concept because so many of our patients, as I mentioned before, that muscle loss starts happening at age 30. So does bone loss. Right. And so if we knew before age 30, if we could get the message out to our early birds, our young, our youngsters, to really start building that muscle and keeping that muscle, muscle Strong before age 30, bones are going to be strong too. But I hear a lot of people talking about heel striking, you know, wanting to do heel striking activities for bone building. And what I'm hearing you say is the power plate does that without the actual effort of the heel striking.

Right?

Yeah. So again, we used to shun away, like as you age, you should do, you know, no more jumping, no more those types of things. And in fact, that's the opposite. As we age, we should be doing more, we should be more jumping. We should have more impact in our lives because our bones are getting weaker. And it's that impact, that heel strike, as you said, or jumping, or any kind of, you know, again, ground reaction force, that's what keeps our bones strong. So when you think about what the plate is doing, it makes sense because not only are, you know, in the case of when we walk or we move, we're striking the ground. In this case, not only are we striking the ground, we're getting an extra benefit because it's striking us back, because it leaves you and hits you. So it's even more impactful without feeling that way. Imagine how do we put babies to sleep? We put them in a bouncy chair, a vibrating chair, to soothe them and put them to sleep. That's what this is doing. You turn it on, you don't see it moving. Why? Because it is so minimal. So you're not even Going to feel it per se, until you put a foot on it and you're like, oh, it is moving. You can't even see it. It's imperceptible when the machine is on. So again, that idea that it's moving 2 millimeters so you don't even know that you're not touching something because it's also happening 30 times a second. So it's, it sounds dramatic, but it, like you said, it's the most soothing, wonderful feeling because it's just like a vibrating chair or, you know, people who fall asleep in the car or on the airplane because it's basically vibrating you to sleep. That's what the power plate does. And it has those same soothing effects on us too. Lowering our cortisol. But yeah, that idea of, of ground reaction, force, building bone, heel striking yak, we can do that without having to do box jumps, without having to do, you know, six miles of walking every day because we can get again so much more in a lot less time. So we're not stressing the body as much. Work smarter, not harder.

And that's one of the visible differences amongst, when you're comparing systems that are out there, the $100, $200 buy it online versus power plate. Profound difference in just looking at the base when it's on. That's the things that you taught me to be able to talk to people about because I felt it was something we could see. Right. And what you're saying can't just see that as a difference. Your body feels that difference. There is a difference.

Yeah. And, and it's, there's, there's a couple of things that we talk about here. You know, I think more and more people are becoming aware of things like, you know, heel strikes, grounding, that that's leading to bone density and, or the lack thereof. But that idea of a certain vibration or way it vibrates actually syncs up with the body more. Or biological grounding. Putting your bare feet on the earth helps to reset our electromagnetic. It also helps when you put your bare feet on a power plate because that vibration then is helping to reset ground you because the frequency of the vibration is synced so that it is precise and predictable at a range in which we know medically is compatible with the human body. And the power plate is still under all its patents. So no other vibrating platform out there, not one in the entire world has the accreditation the powerplay does. When you go dig into the science, when people come to me and they're like, hey, I'm Wanting to work on osteoporosis or osteopenia. I have bone density. My doctor is telling me to work on this. So I'm going to go buy a vibrating plate. You know, I'm always like, let's take a second. Because not all vibrating plates are created equal. We have to have the ones that actually sync up the frequencies sync up to the human body. Number one, which is, is what the power plate is meant to do. But number two, it needs to move not on a singular axis. It shouldn't be a wobble board, or I like, I like to call it sometimes, but it should move imperceptibly. So that's obviously a visual. You know, you can do an eye test because I've seen there's lots of ones out there that do this or they do this. And you can only imagine if you think about doing that over long periods of time, what this does to your ankles, knees and hips when those joints are doing this too for long periods of time. On those other alternatives, it's, it's hard long term on your joints because you're, you're not moving in a very precise, predictable way. Number one, on every edge of wherever they're standing. And number two, it's, it's moving on a singular axis so it wobbles instead of having full body vibration.

And the importance of being a very informed consumer because even facilities to which pay for memberships specific around osteoporosis and osteopenia often do not have the power plate. They have the, what you would call the wobbly ones. And when you think about long game versus short game, that's just one of the things you could actually Creating more harm than good.

Yep, absolutely. And again, that's, that's an eye test that you can, you know, when you watch and see them. I, someone sent me because of course, my friends all know what I do for a living. They sent me a picture of two women because it was independent. The two things that were vibrating, that were each seated on one and trying to drink a glass of wine. And it was shaking them so much that it was spilling all over. And I was like, exactly. That's not the one we want.

Okay, so Laurie, we're going to do this. We're going to get on our power plates with a glass of wine and zoom each other.

And see how that works out. I promise you'll be able to drink it because it's such a tiny, imperceptible vibration. That's right.

We have to add into the equation that something that I think is also very important but funny is, you know.

Our power plates are.

They have stood the test of time. I mean I purchased mine in 2012. Right.

Okay.

And I think I got mine in 2009. Maybe like it was one of my very first A4M events because I was really struggling with a hamstring injury and I was a runner and I was so frustrated and so I bought one at my very, I think it was my very first event with a 4M back in 2009.

I love it.

And they didn't have the personal ones. Actually bought one for the clinic so that we could use it in clinic at that time. And eventually it made its way to my house. So I have it at home now kind of similar to the one in your background. Lori has one very similar to that too.

So.

And I have since purchased the, the home version, the move, which I absolutely love. It's in our clinic and I love being able to put someone I like to go over there and just at lunch have just a nine minute reset just standing on it. But being able to put our clients on it has been a very useful tool. But my point in sharing that is that it has to the test of time and that speaks volumes to, to power plate as well that you know, yes, you still have all of the patents but you're, you're. When people purchase these, these are things that will stand the test of time for them as well. So they're not gym memberships. That's one of the barriers too is, is cost. Right. You know, that's something they pay for every single month where power plate they are paying a single fee for something that's going to last. And in addition to that they have the help of your app, which I think has just been an amazing addition. I don't know how long you've had it, but I know that it's been an amazing addition to again reiterate, this.

Power plate that I have here in my house is 21 years old. And, and what is so great too just to speak to, you know, yes, people might have a bit of sticker shock when they first look at it. You know, the fact that we have so much science backing it leads to some of that. But again, 21 years, you don't have to service them. You have to service if you buy a said bike system and you have to pay for their, their workouts or, or if you buy, you know, a whole weight rack, those kinds of things, usually there's some kind of updating or if you buy a treadmill, you have to take the belts off and you have to clean them. Those type of. The power play requires none of that. This is 21 years of just me pressing go. Nothing else has ever been replaced. And that's true for most of our. So people say, oh, well, maybe you don't use it as often in gyms. No one ever buys new ones because 20 years later, they're still functioning perfectly and they're being used all day, every day. So yeah, those home units, they're still made with the same components. They still have the ability to be commercial. That's how they're built. And they last forever. And then being able to just put the app up, whether you put it on your iPad, you've got your phone, you can screen share up to your TV and it's free. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It's pretty nice because, oh, one other thing. This is one piece of equipment, does everything. You buy a bike, you're doing cardio. Where's your strength? Where's your flexibility? We've got to have all components. You can't just do strength, you can't just do cardio, you can't just stretch. You know, there's a little bit of something. This does it all. I can get stronger, I can get more flexible and be limber. I can have better range of motion. I can get my cardio in one piece. One piece.

Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, Laura, about controlling cortisol, helping to balance cortisol. So I want to talk about cortisol and I want to talk about growth hormone because growth hormone's all the rage today. And cortisol, everybody knows their cortisol is dysregulated. We're all a bunch of stressed out people. Over, over scheduled under slep. So tell us about, you know, what do we do on the power plate that helps with cortisol? How does that work?

So that's the question is, you know, people always come with condition. Okay, I want to lower my cortisol or I want to improve my bone density. Well, the good news is you don't have to do any specific set of movements in a certain order to get those things. It's about time on top of the power plate. So, for example, you want to lower your cortisol. Great. You're going to aim for at least three times a week for 10 minutes. Get that in there, you're going to see some significant reductions. If you're like, oh, I can't even do that. Guess what, get on it. Every day then for maybe two or three minutes. Like I promise you, you can find those two or three minutes in your day. Because even those shorter bouts, but more throughout the week are going to help. So what it does is because of how it affects our parasympathetic system, it actually tells your body to be less stressed out. So it's, it's soothing that symptom our system because of the neurological activations and the way it actually affects our hormones. Because if you've looked into the science at all about what jumping does to our hormones, and that's both male and female sex hormones which control your metabolism, control pretty much every function in your body. It's amazing. We should be just jumping around all the time. Well, that's what you're doing. You're standing there jumping, you're getting all these micro hits.

I just had a vision of a vacation where Laurie and I were in France and she breaks out into a Richard Simmons in the middle of, in the middle of the street. I was like, what are you doing over there? She was just jumping around happy, right? We should all be doing that. We should all be doing that. You inspire me, Lori.

Okay, that's good.

I'm glad I can.

I'll keep doing it.

You know, it's so funny because I like to call my time at, at the gym it's adult recess. Like every kid loves recess. And at some point we stopped liking recess maybe because it was taken away from us in high school. And so I'm like, I am reclaiming my recess. Like that's recess. It's playtime.

I love it.

I love it. So that's a mind shift, right? That's a really good, powerful mind shift for all of our listeners to reframe the words that we use for movement. You know, as Laurie mentioned, exercise oftentimes for our patients can be a four letter word. And they don't want to hear about exercise. You know, they go into shame anytime time we mentioned exercise. But what about recess?

That's what I do at lunch, right? I go over and just sit and it's so. And, and if you have a little bit to eat, you know, with most exercise, you eat and you're going to be like, you know, you're going to get sick exercising. I find it to be very helpful. Like I'll have something small go over there or I'll do that first and then, you know, get on the power plate and then have something to eat. Because we know the research in relationship to improving while parasympathetic rest, digest. So I think I love it. So adult recess.

That is what we're an adult recess on the power plate. Not only will that mind shift help your cortisol, but obviously the science behind it helps our cortisol too. So it's a double whammy. If we can make that mind shift.

That's really good. Yeah. You've talked about indications of osteoporosis, osteopenia, I did hear you say earlier, pain as well, circulation. Is there anything specifically that would be a contraindication to utilizing total body vibration and specific power plate?

Okay, whole body vibration training the power plate. Let's talk specifically about that because I, I, this is the one that I choose because of the science that backs it. And what is insanely amazing is there are no contraindications. Yeah, none, people might have contraindications, but the power plate does not come with any. So if you're cleared for weight bearing, cardiovascular exercise, you can use power plate. And we're talking literally anyone. As long as you can exercise, you can use a power plate. And whether it's standing on it or actually doing some kind of movement, either one, that's what's so amazing. It truly is beneficial for all. And we've seen everything from. There are studies that have been done on 18 month olds that are, that are told that they have autism and adhd. It helps them to refocus because there's often a tactile issue that they have and the power plate can help soothe that. So they can then apply themselves in other areas all the way up to 90 year olds who are maintaining bone density and muscle mass and the ability to live on their own. So they're standing on it. You can hold onto the column and be in a very safe place, but you're getting the equivalent of box jumps of, you know, taking a bike ride. Like all these other things flushing your lymphatic system. Things that only happen when you maybe do exercise at a very high level. We can just chill out. My favorite thing is to see all my peeps from class. We go down there and most of them are 70 and above. That's who I get to hang out with every day. I love it, love it. We go and we get on the power plate. We have four of them where I it work all side by side. These big ones, two or three people are standing on it at a time and chit chatting. It's the water cooler, but guess what? We're at the water cooler. Building bone density, you know, maintaining muscle mass Flushing our lymphatic system all while chatting away.

I love it, really. I mean, and that also improves, Right. Relational wellness. Right. We need to be connected.

Community.

Connected and super close community.

Yeah.

It checks off all of those. All of those amazing boxes. I have to say that in the period of time that I've had it in the office, it's been very rewarding to see having a. A client of ours come in. And when they first start out, if balance is an incredible, you know, their main hesitation or fear of exercise or movement is their fear of falling, which we know fear of falling is the number one reason why people fall. And it's the number one reason why, you know, people, or it's one of the major reasons why people then end up, you know, compromised and losing their hell or losing, you know, losing, actually. Yeah. Their life. So to see them go from something as what all they can do is just stand on it with eyes open. Right. To being able to stand on it with eyes closed to going from being able to stand on it with one foot and then not. It's just really neat to see those baby steps and seeing what they accomplish towards independence because I, too, love, love, love that age group of the aging, healthy, vibrant adult who wants to live independently as long as they can. And something like this allows them to be able to do that and confidently in their own home.

Yes, yes. And it's, it's because we're getting. I've mentioned the micro hits, but those micro moments of instability. So it. Training you to improve your balance again just by standing on it. That's what's so incredible. Yes, you can move and do other things, but just standing on it gets you all of these other benefits. So that balance, you just gave us a nice little outline of progressions and how they would, you know, go about slowly improving that. But again, it's a safe. Such a safe way to do it. Whereas, you know, if I had to take someone that truly needed to improve their balance, there's going to be a lot of, you know, factors I need to consider if I'm putting them on a Bosu or I'm having them, you know, stand on one leg and I need to try. They can hold the column. This one back here that I have the larger units that have a column you can hold on. Or if you have the move, I always say, and you'll see it in all of our online workouts as well as our app workouts, we put a chair next to the move and that becomes how you hold on to it or get it next to a wall or I even have places that. For example, you said you have a move in your clinic. A lot of clinics will take that and install a stair rail or a ballet bar. So that then becomes your stability to hold on, but still getting instability because you're on top of the play. So it will improve balance.

What is the research behind astronauts and returning to. To gravity or to back to Earth do. Are they using the power plate to do that? Because that was something I read.

So it's. People think, oh, this is new. I've not known about this. Powerplay has been around since the 1960s. The original power plate was. 1960s is when it was invented and it was used. We bolted it into the Russian rockets. And if you go back and you look at the space race, Russia is the one who first built MER and figured out how to stay in space for long periods of time. It's because they had power plate. Because it's somewhere between 100 and 120 days where if you don't come back, your bone has atrophied and your muscles have atrophied so much, you will be crushed by gravity. Yeah. So they had. They could not stay. And no one was staying that long. And they were really trying to solve for that because they wanted to be able to have experiments and, you know, the science of being able to grow things in space. All the stuff that we were looking to do. Russia figured that out because they had power plate and they were holding themselves onto the top of the power plate platform so they could maintain bone density and muscle mass. And NASA then said, excuse us, knock, knock. What have you got going on over there? And so, yeah, that's. That's still a part of what's being used.

It's powerful. That is powerful to know that it can do that. Because I think sometimes, you know, our metrics in relationship to bone density, you know, oftentimes we don't have the ability to the immediate feedback of knowing what benefits we're getting. Right. We luckily, Kelly and I both have the privilege of having in body body composition, where we can track and trend skeletal muscle mass. And that's really important. And I've seen the improvements in that, but we really haven't been able to outside of bone densities, which insurance, we know, only pays for every, you know, two years. We don't have that, but they did. Because anytime you're doing science and studies, I'm sure. Right. Yeah, you guys have that. So to me, that is powerful for our. The people that are listening here today is to know that something like this really can make a significant difference. Your plan, when bone density is, I mean, it's, it's needs to be at the forefront of the aging adult. And as Kelly said earlier, we have to think about this early and earlier and earlier because now we're up against many people, many of our clients that are on GLP1. Semaglutide, tirzepatide, muscle wasting. And what are they wasting too?

Yeah, that's, that's. I, you know, that is, is. That is a very delicate spot for me currently because we do have so many people that, you know, some for very serious medical reasons, need to be on that medication to be able to. To get back to a. A healthy, movable, you know, body. And. But it does. It. It will force, you know, the body to kind of eat your muscle and eat your bone, to, to say it in simple terms. So you. You've. We've got to be really conscious when you are on those, to have other protocols to be on a power plate to make sure you're consuming enough protein, you know, more than you were before, probably. So it's. You're absolutely right. You know, with. With new medicines and new technologies, guess what? Power plate just becomes even more powerful.

Right? Yeah. Yep. And I think of the endurance athlete who too has the tendency to, you know, thinking the other end of the spectrum, not on medications, but the endurance athlete that oftentime isn't able to nutritionally maintain what they need or they have wrecked guts, as we've talked about in some of our other podcasts about what endurance training does and even over training does to the gut and the brain and muscle wasting too. So again, I keep hearing you say throughout the seasons of our lives, right. That this is one tool or piece of equipment that no matter where you are in those seasons, 10 to 20, 20 to 30, maybe even younger. Right. 30 to 40, but also maybe even in the seasons of our lives when we have had setbacks, injuries and things that we can't be as active as we used to, or we go through pandemics, which I hope, you know, none of us go through that ever again. Right. Where we are in situations where we have to sit longer, we have sat longer and been more sedentary, that we have a device just like this that really does span all of those seasons. And it's really cool. I'd love for you if you could take just a couple of minutes to just kind of take that. We already kind of talked about the aging adult And I think we talked about even some conditions like autism. I, I thought that was really cool. And focus and attention. Are there any other unique maybe conditions that you're like, wow, did you know? Just curious.

Oh, gosh, you know, there's so many interesting. Both anecdotes and then, then science. So yes, you mentioned that. We've got both ends of the spectrum. I think, you know, the, the middle. Let's just talk about the middle ground. For example, the common gym goer that's gonna see it at the gym. What, what we see there in that area is this is one of my favorite things to tell people is it is not about, you know, the whole like, no pain, no gain. You know, the more sore I am, the better the workout. That's definitely, I think still for a lot of people, a mindset that they have to have, which is why exercise becomes a barrier. Because I don't want to, want to be in pain. I don't want to be sore for four days. Yes. Well, what's so great is the power plate is so much about recovery that in this middle ground when you're like, well, I'm healthy and I'm this and I don't have osteopenia yet and I don't have autism, so what would it benefit me? Well, guess what? You should never really be sore. Soreness is not the sign of a good workout. It's a sign of a poor recovery.

Oh, say that again.

Soreness is not the sign of a good workout. It's the sign of a poor recovery. And we're finding now that, hello, oxidative stress, like the amount of stress that we have in our life is actually reversing the good things that we're doing for our body. It's that stress we're finding is causing our bodies to mutate cells which then turn into you, the ugly little zombie cells that could make you more prone to cancer, those kinds of things. Because we are overstressing the body so often. So whether it's that endurance athlete or just me and my neighbor trying to be fit but working out too much, always chronically sore, chronically stressed, those types of things. What the power plate allows us to do on several different fronts is to help decrease some of that. So the endurance athlete doesn't need to train for 20 hours every day, day. If they use a power plate, maybe they can do, you know, 20 minutes, which is the equivalent of, you know, a 30 mile bike ride or a 20 mile run or, you know, for our body, the. So it's it's causing less stress because we're not spending as much time. I'm not just talking about time saving, I'm causing. I'm talking about the volume of workload you put on your body and stress out your body. Because, yes, we want to work out, but we have to find that balance between stressing it just the right amount to get these results over here. So then the second part of that comes in the fact that it does turn that switch for cortisol. It does turn the switch for your happy hormones. It does help to reset your hormones, which then affects your gut.

Yes.

So our gut bacteria starts to go back into the right, you know, pH, which is directly linked to our mood because that vagal nerve inverates in our gut. And so it's down there and it's like, ew, your gut is so gross. You feel gross. Or it's like my gut's just down here doing it all and you're like, I feel so good. Like it's a direct correlation. So if we can reset our hormones by getting on this for a little bit bit, suddenly you feel better not only because of the happy hormones that are coursing through you, but because your actual vagal nerve, which sends out the signals to the rest of your body, your gut bacteria is right. So it says, yeah, we're good. Yeah.

And I think about the barrier of time. It does all of that and you don't have to exercise for very, you don't have to be on there for very long. You can do your nine minutes. But anyway, I just had to get that in because, you know, this middle, middle essence, since what is our main.

I mean, we don't have time to do anything. Yeah, this is definitely a tool for that middle, middle aged person that's lacking time. But we spend so much time, Laura, talking to patients about vagal tone and really working on that stress response. And I love that you highlighted what the power plate can do for that purpose because a lot of people feel lost in the world of meditation and, and deep breathing exercises and all the things, all the tools that we know work. But they could stand and if they could stand on the plate, if they could get a power plate and stand on the plate, they're doing tremendous things for the vagal tone and ability to.

Control for stress.

And sleep and all of the things that we know that help us prepare. So what a great tool. So I know you guys launched the Rev last year and I was an early adopter to the Rev and I'm loving my Rev.

I know my rev is in the other room where I would, I would point it out, but it's not in this room today.

So basically the Rev is a bike that has vibration technology built in and you're not vibrating the whole time you're on the bike. So don't, don't lose me now. Don't, don't click off because that would be crazy. But you do 20 second intervals with vibration on and it's really been an incredible tool. I have struggled with some endurance. I'm an endurance athlete by heart and I just want to be out there doing that so bad that it's been a really fun tool for me to have in rehabbing and being able to do short bursts and feel very powerful in those short bursts and also see lots of good leg muscle definition.

Oh, my gosh. Yes. So the rev was my baby. I was tasked with being in charge of education and development and it was a almost eight year process. I'm like doing the calculation in my head. It was eight years of us doing research, development, testing. Back to the boards again. We have the power plate and the vibrating platform is the gold standard in the world for full body vibration training. We couldn't just come out with a vibrating bike. We had to make sure that the science was there to back it, that it was actually doing what in our heads we, we thought and knew it could do. So it took, it took a hot second. But yeah, it's, it's hiit training. So it's short bursts of vibration on. So there are two different drive shafts, if you will, or gears on the bike. One that's smooth like a normal bike and one that's bumpy. Think of it that way. So you, you turn the bumpy one on and off. Like the chain goes over the bumpy one, then it goes back on the smooth one. Then the chain. It's not actually a chain, but just to try and give you, you know, if you know what a spirograph is, when we were kids, you put the gear inside the other gear and you put a pen in and it would make that cool design. That's what it is. It's like a spirograph in there. And you're riding over the spirograph. So you're like. And it's the pedals that vibrate. So your feet then are absorbing that vibration. It's coming up through the legs, which is why I'm sure you're seeing the great leg definition. Because the two. I feel like I'm cheating.

I feel like I'M cheating every time I get on there.

That's right. That's what we're doing. We're cheating with all the power play and the rev, but it, it enhances, it's, it's going to. Your two key benefits are mechanical power in your cycle muscles is going to have a massive boost. So you're going to be able to generate way more power. So whether you're an endurance athlete or a sprinter, you're going to benefit from that. Secondarily we have metabolic power hour. This if people know anything. One of the number one indicators we're finding now for overall health and Wellness is your VO2 max. And the better that is, typically the longer your lifespan. If you focus on improving your VO2 max, it takes somewhere between for most humans, nine months to a year to see improvements with the power plate. We see them in four weeks. Do you hear that?

Yes.

And we're talking up to 3 to 5% improvements by riding three times a week. It's eight minutes is the protocol, three times a week. And it's a 40 second vibration in that eight minutes. So you're going to warm up for like three minutes, ride for 20 seconds on vibration, take a little breather for two minutes, ride for 20 seconds of vibration and then cool down for two minutes. You're done. Four weeks of doing that three times a week. And the studies show that it's a VO2 max improvement somewhere between 3 to 5%. That is wild. That's really wild. Again, one month or nine to 12 months. And we're talking again, again, this is taking your overall like how close or how far you are from disease. It's something called your Met Z score. It's improving that in those four weeks. That's just, that's really powerful. When we can do that. I don't care if you don't like to bike, you can sit there for 7 minutes and 40 seconds.

I'm just thinking lung capacity, you know, too just lung capacity as a whole. Endurance, like just, just cardiometabolic strengthening, just that whole thing that happens in that shorter period of time. So once again, taking one of the major barriers of exercise, which is time, right. And, and leaving someone no excuse. Also just biking. When you think about the push, pull and just, you know, the low impact of, you know, other joints, because that's one of the barriers too, is, you know, people's joints, you know that, that one's kind of off the table too.

Yeah, off the table because not only is it lower impact, we know that vibration is then ultra hydrating your body. So for example one of our. If you go and you start poking around at the power plate website, you're going to see Caroline Pierce who is a former. She was a track star in, in Great Britain and she actually was a. The person who pushes the bobsled in for the Olympic team for England and then went on to be one of the gladiators for the UK Gladiator series series. Her body, her body has sustained a lot of impact over the years and she has bone on bone in both knees. She can't ride a bike. It's very painful. She can ride the rev. Yeah. And we were like just waiting. We can't wait to see. What Caroline says is, you know, as we're all testing it too because of the massive amounts of hydration you're getting in the muscles. It not only is it lower impact. So okay, great, she could ride a bike but she could wouldn't because of the circulation. She can ride the rev because it doesn't, she doesn't feel that. So it even has that enhanced little component because you're getting more circulation benefits out of a rev over a traditional bike.

So thinking about joint replacement real quick, are there any specific stipulations for when they can re implement the total body vibration specifically power plates back into their recovery plan post joint replacement?

So obviously when you've had any kind of joint replacement surgery etc you get, you have to get your doctor's clearance. That's always, I'm always going to err on the side of that. But what, what I have found is when I'm able to work with, you know, my client and, and talk to their doctor if they're not familiar with power plate is typically it's 48 hours after we can have them standing. Yeah. On power plate or seated with their feet. Feet on the power plate. Because again when we talk about healing from surgery, you aren't cleared to exercise typically for many weeks. However, if doctors truly understand what power plate is and you have a lot of them out there who use it in their own practices, they want you to heal from surgery and that means getting your circulation moving for sure. And we can do that without compromising anything by having them on a power platform plate. Because they're not having to exercise. Yeah. You know, not even a walk because some people aren't even cleared to walk at first. But they could sit and put their feet on a power plate which is going to generate circulation which we know leads to healing. So that's, that's a Critical piece for sure.

And then you have all those handheld fun devices too and we could go on for hours and talk about them, you know, because you got to have the travel one because my best friend over there, you know, and, and you know, peer right up there, she definitely was an early adopter of too and shared that. I think that's amazing to, to travel with. And then you have the larger one as well. That's been really nice for healing and repair of. I'm nursing a shoulder injury right now.

Yes, yes.

Yeah. So tell us just a little bit about those. I know we don't have a ton of time, but you know, at some point we can go through those devices.

So targeted vibration, just meaning it's going to go on a specific part of the body again. So Power Play is the original creator of vibration. And just to speak even further of that, the rev is a whole new catego category of vibration. It's self power. You determine the intensity. That didn't exist before Power Play invented this entire category. Again, one more reason to speak to. It's the gold standard. It's the one that you need to be purchasing for the science reason. Targeted vibration is going to be your massage guns, your vibrating rollers, those types of things. And we have, we have a roller, we have what's looks like a peanut shaped device, the dual sphere. And then we have a large, large massage gun and then a smaller one that's, that's really portable. The, the joy of those are going to be twofold. One because we are, you know, the originators. Ours are made to always be just, you know, a little. We're going to try and beat the competition, make it a little quieter. Battery lasts a little longer. But more importantly, the science behind the frequencies that are used and how far it's moving when it's vibrating is all backed by the science that we know. Not just going with the cheapest way to make something. So that's a critical piece is we can as a company sit and look at this and say, okay, we really want the science to be behind those. And you'll find that sometimes people, if you've ever used a massage gun and then suddenly got hives because some of them are not set to the correct frequency that the human body likes. So you gotta do your research. You'll have people who have this condition where maybe a roller they bought that's vibrating causes a rash on their skin and it's not a reaction to the texture the ingredients in the roller, it's a reaction to the vibration Frequency, which is wild because we are biological beings and we have our own frequencies. So you want to be using one that's in tune with you. But the concept of what it does, activation and recovery. Yeah, you're stimulating blood flow, blood flow to those areas. You're telling your central nervous system to calm down. It doesn't do it in the same way whole body vibration does, which is it starts with the brain. Instead you're injuring the body almost. It's saying hey, come send blood flow over here or send blood flow here. Wherever you're using it, it's telling your body to send blood flow there because they, they sense the impact to the body. So it's going to repair that tissue. It can be used again for either a warm up or for recovery purposes when you're sore and travel wherever you go.

So you have fixed machines, you have ones on the go. You guys got it all. Well, we are very, very thankful that we ran into you at a conference and met the just full of energy person that you are. We just love you honestly very much. Have enjoyed the multiple times now that we've gotten the opportunity to talk with you a little bit further. We love having how PowerPoint, how power plate has enhanced our lives individually and then collectively those that we get the chance to share it with. Thank you for your time today once again. You've always been so generous with your time starting with on the conference floor when we went over and over back.

We geeked out.

Yes we did. We were geeking out together.

But thank you so much for doing that and just thank you for just what you do, your passion and that you and your mission to share this with us others. We need more people just like you on this earth.

Well, thanks. I could say the same thing for you two women. So I'm just glad that we all found each other and hopefully, you know, we all can just touch as many clients and people out there and so all those people that are listening, you know, that's I, I'm just happy to be here and, and be able to share something that I know is so amazing.

And if people need to get, or want to get a hold of you, is there a specific way that they would.

Yeah, they can, they feel free to email me. Laura.wilson powerplate.com yeah, that's, that's always an open line of communication and if I don't have an answer, I will get one for you because I, I have lots of resources I can go to.

Well, thank you so much. We once again thank you for your time.

Thank you guys.

The Synergy Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor patient relationship is formed. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have, and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.