Vital - distributed monthly within the Detroit Free Press & The Detroit News. Also available free in hundreds of local racks

« Articles

Catching the New WAVE in Fitness

Machine used for physical therapy may be coming to a fitness center near you

By Christy Breithaupt

Photos by Daniel Lippitt

The Beach Boys might have been on to something years ago when they sang about good vibrations. Lately everyone from physical therapists to weightlifters is touts vibration therapy, making it one of the biggest trends in fitness and rehabilitation.

At Detroit Medical Center’s Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, physical therapists are using a machine called the WAVE vibration therapy system to improve muscle strength, flexibility, range of motion, circulation and bone density in patients.

The system works by sending vertical vibrations through the user’s body via a large plate, on which a person can either stand or place the body part they’re working. The vibrations cause muscles to contract between 20 and 50 times per second, and the contractions cause an involuntary stretching of the muscles, therefore working them with little strain on the body. In just one minute, a muscle can contract up to 3,000 times.

According to the institute, the WAVE machine is safe for nearly everyone to use. Pregnant women and people with hip replacements are excluded, but even the elderly and sedentary can benefit from the equipment.

“The majority of people love it. There are a few who say it feels weird but they see the improvements,” says Bill Thornton, lead physical therapist at the institute’s Center for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery. “It’s well worth the price.”

Andy Zimmer of Birmingham certainly agrees. Last year, Zimmer was riding his bicycle home from dinner one night when he met a car in a crosswalk. “The car won,” he says. Zimmer was thrown from his bike and sustained a spinal cord injury, resulting in quadriplegia.

Now confined to a wheelchair, Zimmer, 27, has been doing his physical therapy with Thornton, utilizing the machine for about three months.

“It definitely feels strange,” Zimmer says of the WAVE machine. “Depending on what muscle group you’re exercising, it feels different. The sensation’s odd. For a good hour or so after I get done with it, it feels like my whole body is vibrating.”

But Zimmer says he’s seeing improvements already. He’s starting to gain control of muscle groups in his abdomen and back, which allows him to sit straighter in his wheelchair.

“Since I’ve had my injury I’ve never been able to roll over and sit up on my own,” Zimmer says. “My trunk muscles didn’t work. The other day I started rolling over by myself. Yesterday was the first time I was able to crawl. I attribute that to the WAVE machine.”

The exact reasons why vibration therapy works are still undergoing research, according to Brian Dillman, executive vice president of sales and marketing and chief marketing officer of Power Plate North America, which sells home versions of the vibration machine. The technology was originally used to combat bone loss of astronauts in space and is still used for that purpose by NASA.

Top athletes, including basketball players and Olympic hopefuls, use vibration therapy in their training because of its effectiveness. Some athletes use the machines before a game to quickly stretch their muscles and warm up.

“Vibration has been around for a long time. It’s never been applied full body. This is just implementing it on a much larger scale,” says Thornton, who himself uses the DMC’s WAVE vibration unit. “In the past year or so it’s become more popular with the elite athletes and celebrities with their training.”

Strength training can also be done on the machine – anything from push-ups to weightlifting – and results can be achieved in a fraction of the time it would normally take. Involuntary muscle contractions use 100 percent of muscle fibers, as opposed to 40 percent in conventional training. Not only does the machine save time, it also eliminates the time joints are stressed.

Power Plate WAVE units come with a DVD, manual and poster of exercises. They’re not cheap, at about $3,500 for the home version. Still, the machines are selling. Some home-users buy the machines for their massaging benefit, some for exercise purposes and others to eliminate stiffness.

“I have one at home,” Dillman says. “My clothes don’t fit as tightly and I feel better. It’s really an addicting feeling.”

Soon, Dillman says, people will start seeing the machines in chain gyms across the country. A specialty gym has already opened in Florida where a personal trainer instructs clients on a short workout utilizing the vibration machines. That being said, Dillman warns, the machine itself does not cause weight loss and is not meant to replace a cardio workout.

“A lot of people are going further and doing their resistance exercises on it,” Thornton says. “I can see there’s potential down the line for it to be used in a multitude of ways.”