Latest mantra: Vibrate your fat away

MUMBAI: Madonna swears by it, Michael Jordan has dunked for it and Claudia Schiffer is hooked to it. Will Mumbai jump for it?

A vibrating platform, the favourite gym accessory of several celebrities, is the latest arrival in Mumbai's fitness market and is making its appearance in some high-end gyms across the city. A 10-minute, three-days-a-week whole body vibration (WBV) workout sounds like the perfect prescription for the hassled-for-time Mumbaikar. But does it work?

WBV is said to be the key to Madonna's hot bod, the athleticism of the sultan of slam-dunk and model Schiffer's sleek-as-a-Ferrari frame. According to desi buzz, filmstar Shah Rukh Khan has got himself a vibrating platform, while one of the Ambani brothers is upgrading his months-old imported machine. "In all, over 50 personal platforms have been sold in the last few months," said an official of the firm importing the machine.

Outside the personal gyms of the rich and famous, the city's wannabe-fit brigade is gingerly stepping on the platform in J W Marriot's gym in Andheri, in Talwalkar's Bandra and Chembur centres and south Mumbai's Qi.

In the fitness world where fads change fast, vibration is one of the latest imports from the West. New York dailies reviewed the noisy, resonance machine three years ago: some were impressed by its muscle-toning ability, others sceptical about its bombastic health benefit claims, including battling osteoarthritis.

"If standing on a vibrating platform offered real health benefits, subway riders would be the healthiest lot on the planet. If vibrations were the key to being fit, you'd never see a fat jackhammer operator," wrote Sal Marinello, a USA weightlifting certified coach, in a serial review.

Nitij Arenja of upper crust gym Qi, which has acquired a platform, offers a scientific point of view: "The vertical vibration of 30 to 50 hertz forces the person to move at the same acceleration, in the process exercising 95% of the muscles in the body as against 45% muscles exercised in other exercise forms."

Dr Aasheesh Contractor, the medical director at Qi, said, "It gives you a complete workout." Neesha Bukht of Talwalkar's said the vibrating platform performs a two-fold function.

"It strengthens as well as relaxes your muscles," she said. She conceded that many in the city were confusing the WBV regime with some tummy-trimming machine in vogue decades ago. "When you mention vibration, they connect it some tummy-trimming regimen of some decades back which it is not," she said.

The vibrating platform came into existence in the early seventies, when the Russians were devising ways to protect their astronauts' muscles from degenerating during long stays in space stations. It has since landed in Madonna's gym and hasn't stopped making news.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-12-27-vibration-platforms_x.htm

Body tone gets an effortless even shake

By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY

Those Beach Boys have been right all along: Vibrations are good, good, good.
Arriving just in time for New Year’s “I gained how much?” resolutions are vibration exercise platforms that seem to promise increased body tone with very little effort.

Among the machines getting a big push: the $3,500 Power Plate (the company says Madonna bought one after she fell off a horse), the $2,000 Ironman Resolution and the $495 Soloflex Whole Body Vibration Platform. “This is the greatest discovery since the Greeks and Romans perfected barbell exercises,” says Soloflex founder Jerry Wilson.

“Experiencing vibrations during a workout isn’t the be-all and end-all, but rather a great complement to what you’re already doing,” says Jasper Sidhu, president of The WAVE (Whole Body Advanced Vibration Exercise), whose $5,000 in-home version of a commercial platform arrives in January.

Simply standing on one isn’t going to turn you into the Incredible Hulk. But if you’re willing to stretch, lift weights or otherwise strain yourself on the platform, your muscles will get an added workout.

Rooted in research conducted during the 1960s space race, vibration machines work off the principle that if muscles are worked while being shaken, they call upon neighboring fibers, building mass faster. Technological advances have made it possible to build these devices, once found largely in hospitals, at reasonable costs.

Sidhu says his machine’s price reflects “the quality of the vibration.” But Soloflex’s Wilson, whose product is smaller and markedly less expensive, shrugs off the notion: “When you’re only on it for 30 minutes a day, what we offer works.”

Experts say the key is the consistency of the vibration and the size of the platform, “both of which usually come with products that cost a few thousand dollars,” says John Porcari, a fellow with the American College of Sports Medicine.

“There’s no question that your muscles, through the contraction provided by the vibration, will get stronger” if you work out on the platform, says Porcari. “If you can lift 100 pounds easily, doing so while standing on this machine will soon get you to lift 110.”

Sports medicine and rehab expert Dan Hamner says his New York office’s hospital-grade Power Plate has helped get his patients up and moving.

“I usually come from the ‘no pain, no gain’ camp,” he says. “But I’ve been amazed how this painless device has managed to help those people who didn’t want to do anything.”

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