Positive Vibrations: Shake Your Way to Health on the BodyVibe

02/22/2010 by Portland Helmich

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On a recent visit to a natural health fair I saw a woman standing beside a strange machine. It looked like something you might see at a gym, though I’d never seen it at my gym. Kind of like a StairMaster, but instead of moving plates for your feet, the base of the machine was just a flat platform.

“Wanna give it a try?” quipped Becky Chambers (www.bcvibranthealth.com), a naturopath who uses the machine—the Body Vibe™—to help clients with a range of health concerns.

I stepped up and got my first taste of Whole Body Vibration. I simply stood there while the plate vibrated underneath me. I didn’t feel like I was doing much, but apparently my entire body—brain included—was doing some serious work.

“Ten minutes on the Body Vibe™ 3000 is equivalent to an hour of conventional weight-training,” Chambers said.

My ears perked up. Could standing on a vibrating plate for 10 minutes tone my muscles and free me from the boredom and pain of weight-lifting? If so, I wanted to know how.

Apparently, traditional weight-training methods only activate 40%-60% of your muscle fibers. Whole Body Vibration activates 100%.

“Every muscle fiber in your body is tensing and relaxing at 20-50 times per second versus just one or two seconds in normal weight-training,” Chambers explained. “You’re holding two to three times your body weight right now.”

Whole Body Vibration is purported to increase metabolism, bone density and balance—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The vibrations supposedly stimulate the nervous system, detoxify the body (activated muscle fibers apparently enhance lymphatic drainage), balance hormone levels, decrease inflammation and keep you young.

One of Chambers’s clients, Erik Eklof, swears by his BodyVibe™. Eklof suffers from fibromyalgia. “It’s like a body-wide toothache in your soft tissue,” he says. Over three years, the 60-year-old stock trader has attended three fibromyalgia support groups in three states, but says that five minutes on the BodyVibe ™ twice a day has been “miraculous,” cutting his fibromyalgia pain in half. “I bought one four months ago,“ Eklof says, “and you’d have to kill me to take it away from me.”

At Chambers’s office, I explored the BodyVibe™ further. This time, I did squats on the machine (not easy), hamstring stretches, push-ups (with my hands on the platform and my legs on the floor) and more. My tongue was vibrating. Even my eyeballs were vibrating. And I was only on the machine for a total of four minutes. More than enough for a beginner, cautions Chambers.

“This is much more than exercise equipment,” she warns. “You have to go slowly. And it’s best to work with someone trained in natural health and vibration when you’re starting out.”

I haven’t made a commitment to the BodyVibe™ yet. I tend to be somewhat wary of grand claims. Chambers, however, believes so strongly in its effects that she puts her dog on the BodyVibe™ for three minutes three times a week. Apparently “Sugar” doesn’t get ear infections anymore.