Why Vibration Therapy?
In order to build and maintain both strong bones and strong, flexible muscles, we must put in time and effort. With vibration therapy, you can spend less time and receive the same or better results! No matter whether you are already losing bone mass and feeling weak or whether you are strong and able, vibration therapy will help you feel better not older – or weaker!
Vibration Therapy Basics
Vibration therapy sessions involve you and a vibrating plate. The vibrating plate (a PowerPlate Move is available at my La Plata, Maryland studio) moves in all 3 planes of motion – up and down (like jumping), front to back, and side to side. This triplanar motion challenges your deep stabilizing muscles, stimulates bone growth, activates muscle fibers more than a standard workout, improves circulation, and balances your nervous system. Vibration therapy was developed to help astronauts maintain muscle mass and bone density when they are in space. Now it can help you with your bones and muscles!
Who Uses Vibration Therapy?
Vibration therapy addresses a wide range of body needs:
- Athletes wanting additional ways to improve their training
- Postmenopausal women healing from or avoiding osteoporosis
- Anyone seeking pain relief from tight or overworked muscles
- Anyone working on lowering their blood pressure
- Balance challenged individuals
- Injured folks wanting to recover to the best functionality possible
- Overweight people wanting to boost the effectiveness of their weight-loss oriented exercise program
- Anyone living with arthritic joints
- People wanting to improve their posture
- and you!
What to Expect from Your Vibration Therapy Session
A session of vibration therapy at Zen and Vitality is a 9 minute session. You can use your 9 minutes to focus on a particular body part (one knee for 3 minutes), you can do a specific exercise routine on the vibration plate, you can rotate through different parts of the body. You will receive an orientation during your first session. A session for a beginner might look like:
- Sit in a chair with both feet resting on the plate for 2 minutes
- Bring feet to the floor and lean forward to place both hands on the plate for 1.5 minutes
- Sit on the plate with hands behind you on the plate for 1.5 minutes
- Stand beside the plate in a small lunge with one foot on the plate – 2 minutes for each leg
A session for someone else might look like:
- Stand on the plate with straps in hands and do squats for 2 minutes
- Stand and bend forward to place hands on the plate for 2 minutes (like a down dog in yoga)
- Do step ups onto the plate (alternating legs) for 2 minutes
- Lie on your back on the plate with legs doing slow scissor movements for 2 minutes
- Sit with wide legs on the plate and lean forward elbows on knees for 1 minute
What will you choose to do with your session? See you soon!