Tom, a little more info would be helpful.   You want to get in shape –what sort of shape are you in now?  Do you have any injuries or health concerns we need to know about?  dAnd your age – If you have kids taking up your time, you’re 30?  Also your size/weight?

Will anyone else be using the machine also and if so what are their needs?

Have you trialled either of the machines?

Looks like I screwed up in my original post. Please disregard previous message.

Hello Lloyd,

First of all I would like to thank you for all the information and leadership that you have shown on the vibration training front. You know your craft well.

My question. I've been reading about vibration training and want to purchase a machine for home use. After the kids there just isn't enough time in the days to get consisant workout routine. I'm hoping that a short workout will help me. My goals are to get in shape and stay in shape, I used to got to the gym quite a bit. I'm planning to also suplement with some cardio workouts.

My budget is ~5K CDN from what I understand I should be able to get a decent machine for this?

I was originally gun-ho set on the

http://www.hypergravity.net/personaldeluxround.html Hypergravity Personal Delux Round model

but recently started reading about the http://www.wavexercise.com/wave_personal.html Wave Contour Plus.

I really like the community that is build around the Wave machinces and it seems like its more caring towards helping people. Hypergravity strikes me like they just want the sale.

Lloyd, I was hoping that you could comment on my two choices taking into consideration my goals. Which machine would be best. I want the machine to keep challanging me and am afraid that I will reach a platoe. Also if there is any other alternative machine that you feel would be better in this price range for my needs please suggest (I live in Canada). If you have any questions please let me know. I thank you for your time Sir.

Tom

Posting does not work

I just tried posting a message and nothing happened. So this is a Test, sorry if it comes through. Is there a delay between when message is posted and when it appears on the webpage

Thanks Jon.  Lloyd and I know all about Mark Verstegen and API.  In fact, I wrote advertising articles with Mark in 03 and 04 for an exercise company.  Lloyd and I were kicked off the forum at coreperformance.com  which is run by API a while back for asking questions about Power Plate.  It seems one cant even ask intelligent questions without suffering repercussions.

John Weatherly

John,

Power Plate hasa facility in Scottsdale, Arizona through API aka atheltes performance institute.  Its a super high end facility that trains professional athletes.  Scottsdale is a hot spot for spring training baseball players.  Most of them train there or at Triple threat performance in Tempe where they use Nitrofit  Deluxe Pivotal and Pnuemex Provibe Lineal vibration side by side.   Atheltes perfromance institute has several locations in the United States and is in contract with Powerplate.  Google API to find out more or go to powerplates website to find out about the affiliation.

I just looked at the Power Plate site again under U.S. and now cannot find the info about Greg Hammann being the new Global CEO under the  About Us section where it mentioned Hammann being an expert in exercise physiology yet not having a degree or degrees in this discipline.  From past experience, it appears Power Plate is up to their old deceptive tactics and lies to fool people.  I have caught them over and over saying stuff that is not true on their site over the last few years.

John Weatherly

It says on the Power Plate site Greg Hammann was named Global CEO of Power Plate in Oct of 09.  This is in the about us section.  It also, in the article, called him an expert in exercise physiology.  According  to the information provided, Hammann does not have even a degree in exercise physiology.  His academic training is in business.  This is very common in the exercise field.  People profess to be experts and yet do not have any academic training.  Compare this with fields like medicine, law, engineering etc.   Exercise is not a professional field. 

John Weatherly

There are a number of acadamies here in the UK.  I use the word acadamies in the loosest possible form of course.

I looked at www.powerplate.com under U.S. for country and they are now showing pictures and using testimonials from Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Courtney Cox etc. on the site.  I am also curious about the Power Plate Academies and the locations of these Acadamies in the U.S.  If anybody knows where they currently are please let me know.

John Weatherly

Thanks for advice.  Havent seen customer since though but will get more details.

There is an interesting study by Lamont et al. on vibration and explosive strength at www.nlm.nih.gov, click on PubMed, and type in vibration exercise as search words.

John Weatherly

I'm trying to get some advice on calf stretching to help a slight injury one of our clients has.  We have done a calf massage which helped a bit and the normal stretch helps a bit.  Philippa suggested  that it might be good to stand on the machine with heels over the edge - holding onto the bar.  Drop one heel till they feel a stretch and then use the other leg to stabilise to prevent any futher downward pull  - then swap heels.  She said to check out what you guys thought though before doing it - sound a good plan or any better ideas

Phillipa,
Great to be here. In Germany, they offered me some brownies, but they were not as good as those you made ;)
Regarding machines, I can only say what my body felt during exercising on them. Physics and biomechanical properties for now I will leave to Lloyd and other guys who knows more than me. In that matter I can divide (lineal) machines to three categories. In first, there is only Vibra-train, which gave me really good workout. In second I can put Vibrogym, Bodyshaker, and Hypergravity, which all felt good, but somehow less powerful than Vibra-train. In third there are almost all others (from which I described some), that I feel are capable to provide some benefit, but mostly for therapy.

Mike
Thanks. I will keep you posted. Since I spend a lot of time reading the posts on this as well as on Vibration training site, I feel like I know some of you already.

Lloyd
You already saved me a lot of money and nerves, because I was about to buy machines, that I know now, have history of breaking up on regular basis.

Hi Dean Welcome to the forum, look forward to hearing about your advances with a studio.

Hi Dean

Great to see you here.  Sounds like you were kept busy in Germany.  Hope you managed to get yourself some good kuchen .  Thanks for the descriptions.  Were any as good as the machines you tried in the UK, the Vibratrains, Bodyshaker or Vibrogym. 

Hello to everybody
I'm a physiotherapist from Croatia, and I'm new here. For a year now I have been collecting information, facts and "facts" on vibration training. Finally, I contacted Lloyd, who recommended me to Philippa in UK, where I received a practical course in vibration training. (many thanks to Philippa and Mark, who were great hosts, and wonderful teachers). Hopefully sometime next spring I will open a first vibration studio in my country.
Since this is my first post, and in a near future I will have a lot of questions which will hopefully be answered, I will try to give to this community something first.
Last week I visited Medica fair in Dusseldorf, Germany, which is the greatest fair in Europe regarding medicine technology. Beside other stuff that interested me (I also have private physiotherapy practice) I step on every vibration platform displayed on that fair, and following are my personal experience with them:
Fitvibe (http://www.fitvibe.com/)
They offer "variety" of types of their machines, which are practically all the same (only difference is on display). Vibration which it produce is not particularly impressive, and it can do much things in physiotherapy, but it will hardly produce any serious workout. Beside that, complete platform wobbles when you step on it, or when you move your body weight from one leg to another, especially on wide squat stand. This wobbling is small, but noticeable.
I-tonic (http://www.itonic-international.com/)
Very nice looking machine. They produce two types- smaller with handles, and bigger without them. If it was cheaper it would be great home device, since it transfers really very little vibrations to the floor and it is generally low noise. It also wobble a little. Even on highest settings, and after few other vibration plates that I tried that morning, it didn't produce that feeling of tired muscles neither on my legs, or arms. And complete machine weights only 40kg. It can be good for small physiotherapy practice, since it consumes very little space.
Vibrafit (http://www.vibrafit.de/englisch/home_english.htm)
This machine is clearly built with studio/fitness settings in mind, with metal shell, and separate control tower. It produce two types of vibration- lineal and pivotal. Lineal feels somehow like a Vibragym, but a bit less powerful.  Pivotal is small amplitude, and lowest frequency is 28Hz. Not very much use of that, I suppose.
Turbosonic (http://www.turbosonicusa.com/)
Any workout on this machine is out of the question, but in physiotherapy I think it would be a great tool for treatment of various disorders, especially in elderly people. Vibrations are very soft, and they transfer through a body in different manner comparing with mechanical types of vibration plates.

Galileo was also displayed on this fair. Since there is a lot of discussion about this topic going on on this forum, I will not go on details. They generaly point out the rehabilitation use of their machines.

I will not go in Powerplate this time, since there is a lot of information and discussion about them here already. They displayed their Pro-5 air adaptive all covered with shiny stuff (crystals, or whatever). It looks like it would fit perfectly in some disco club 80's style.

There was also some CrazyFit style machines which are not worth talking about.

Producers, and all sails people that I have been talking with ensured me two things for every described machine:
1: That it can be used for training, not only for physiotherapy (with exception of Turbosonic)
2: That it can be used in a busy studio for years without problems (but neither one of them could redirect me to such a studio owner or manager that I can contact, and see for myself).

Lack of practical, as well as theoretical knowledge of sails people is a problem of its own. Wih exeption of guy with Fivibe who wrote my questions on paper and promised to answer me by e-mail, rest of them act like knowing all, but their answers didn't really support this act.


Dean Mistura

I look forward to you replicating it in the U.S. Lloyd.

John Weatherly

Like I said, from my experiences with Reynald, and meeting with Harold and Hans in Denver a few months ago, they seem purely research driven with the Galileo in Germany and seemingly disinterested in trying to compete from the fitness angle. They dont even attempt to utilize upper body positions and showed little recognition of any other manufacturers products besides Powerplate. Perhaps that was them playing coy with me

 They tried the fitness angle here in the US and it just didnt catch on. The gym around the corner from me has the Vibraflex 600 and I never see a single person using it. The gym across the street has a powerplate and its the same story. None of these trainers have the knowledge to comprehend the physics behind it or how to anticipate the many individual client responses to vibration that they may see. I see things picking up steam here amongst the medical professionals, but people overall, just dont get it yet. I do hope to change that however and will be opening a studio in March or April..depending on construction speed. I am going to use the Vibraflex 450 in the studio and do plan on reinforcing your safety program as best as I can. The honest truth is, at least for me, that the neurological and general rehabilitative benefits of the Galileo certainly outweigh the anabolic benefits that you mention so they should coexist as a "1, 2 punch" so to speak.

As far as the current debate that you are referencing, my guess would be that other individuals affiliated with Galileo may be perpetuating this lineal vs pivotal battle in order to sell the platforms. In reference to the frequency debate, amplitude claims etc, on the lineal end, everyone still says the "shearing forces" are dangerous to deter potential buyers. I cant see any more legitimacy to this claim than the "head acceleration" claim.

Keep up the good fight Lloyd. Ill be sure to keep you posted on how things work out here in the US.

Phillipa,

Thanks for the invite. I will certainly take you up on that one of these days. Also, I like the mind.body component you have added to your studio. You are certainly on the right track. I recently attended a holistic medicine and wellness expo here in NY and you should have seen how blown away the energy healer community was by the vibraflex...definately something there.

Di,

Stay on your feet already would ya. With all that vibration, your supposed to have a superhuman  proprioceptive system.

PS I never realized how hard it is to right without emoticons.

Hi Gabriel

Hey, the shoulders injury was last December; I’ve almost lasted a year with no further “mishaps”.  And what I did; well I set a gym machine incorrectly as it was a “stupid” Aussie one (N.Z. and Australia have the same love/hate relationship as US and Canada ;-) ).  I fell, taking my whole body weight through my arms.  Then the following week, and I can’t blame the Aussies for this, I fell down a flight of stairs heavily hitting one arm on one wall and the other on the other wall at right angles.  Oops, rotator cuff injury and badly swollen bursa on both sides.  This also showed up tightness across my shoulders /back that predisposed me to the seriousness of the injury.

I have a very proficient physical therapist thankfully and also used the vibration machines for therapy and continued training during recovery.  Yes, you’re right I’ve sustained too many injuries in the last 5 years but the good news is that I have greatly improved fitness and health now, from using the Vibra-Train machines regularly.  That’s the only change I’ve made, in fact I do less cardio activity now and almost no weights.  Its no wonder that Im so passionate about this industry.