Okay, the first thing readers are going to tell me is that my title is very serious – it’s meant to be!

Will you die if you don’t do vibration training? Maybe you won’t but there’s a very high risk of premature death for certain groups of people who refuse to partake in strength producing exercise; and vibration training is the safest and most effective form of fitness training I know of. In fact there are only a few conditions where vibration training isn’t recommended.

Who are the people who would benefit so much and what happens if they refuse or, the much more common scenario, they start training (or therapy using the machines if that’s their starting point) and then they stop – for all sorts of reasons with laziness (just can’t be bothered) being the prime one.

Okay, you don’t fit into this category if you are young, active, fit, of healthy weight, and maybe also if you are middle aged and go to a gym regularly (though vibration training on top of a gym session is the extreme that gives amazing results).  It’s not for you also if you are pregnant (as a precaution at this stage, we don’t allow it), if you have a pacemaker (but we haven’t forgotten you; there are small vibrating foot platforms available), or if you have an active cancer (even this contra-indication is being debated).

This leaves a huge population that CAN use a vibration machine and if they aren’t active in some other fitness method, they will benefit greatly if they do.

That’s the nice message – the harder more serious one is this

People who have a disability and can’t easily do other forms of exercise; people who are morbidly obese (considered to be around 40% BMI) and can’t even walk to the letterbox without pain in their knees or hips, or gasping for breath, those who have muscular dystrophy or M.S. and even older people who are sedate – these people benefit so much from Vibration Training or Vibration Therapy.  And I almost forgot to add; those who have diabetes or pre-diabetes which goes hand-in-hand with obesity and has become the Number 1 health problem in New Zealand.  These are the people my hard hitting title really applies to – Do it or Die!

The Joys and the Problems

At Vibra-Train we allow some people to be sponsored and do their sessions free. These are people with true life threatening conditions (very extreme obesity is one) or a major disability they are never going to recover from.  Coming in for free isn’t automatic – it’s done after discussion and generally with the support of their medical helpers (doctors etc). It’s certainly not given to everyone who thinks they’re a little overweight. Some of the people who are given this sponsorship have been in a severe health situation for a long time and don’t have the finances to pay for sessions so this is a wonderful gift that Vibra-Train gives them – and more so as the sponsors are the directors and staff; there’s no outside organisation that pays for this in New Zealand.

These people (the morbidly obese, those with M.S., in wheelchairs, and similar) work hard, some starting out with just a single handlebar assisted squat position. This can mean driving or being driven across the city to do just one single, 60 second position on the machine.  Those who are not able to do even that sit in front of the machine with their feet placed on the platform edge for 3 minutes, repeated once or twice.  Starting with just that one squat, or sitting in front of the machine with feet on edge, the client graduates slowly  into more squats and when they are able we add in a few more positions building up to the full program for some; others do what they can.

The results are truly amazing – they are life saving! I see people who can only walk with a cane or stoop and shuffle begin to stand upright and walk with confidence knowing their legs are stronger and will support them.  Within three or four weeks I’ve seen hugely obese clients gain strength and then start to slim down. It’s a slow change and no one becomes slim overnight despite what advertising for various pills and plans tells us but it is real and its forever if the person keeps training. Their whole demeanour changes, they tell me how much they look forward to coming in for their sessions. It’s very hard work doing the vibration training but that part is no different than it is for other clients – all real training is hard work.

The great thing about using the Vibra-Train brand of machines is that the sessions are fully supervised and the machines are very powerful but designed specifically for use by people who cannot squat unaided what we call “worst case scenario”.

I work with some of the sponsored clients and enjoy encouraging and pushing them as hard as they are able, and some more above that. We get real results from real training in a safe controlled environment.

What happens next is very sad

Sometimes it’s frustration because there’s no instant fix or miracle, sometimes its family pressure, sometimes laziness but there are some clients, some sponsored even, who stop coming after a few months. It happens at any time, even after we’ve marvelled at their results.  They know Vibration Training is working for them yet they stop coming. We usually don’t know why people have stopped – we wonder if they are unwell or moved to another city.  Then they come back – many months later, always so much worse in their condition, and they expect us to fix them.  Ask where they’ve been and they’ve been “too busy” or gone off to try a “magic cure” or just stopped for no real reason.  After the effort the trainers here put in and the effort they used to make, they stopped coming and think they come back and recover, get back on track again. This might be possible but often it isn’t!   Debilitating conditions get worse over time so we’re starting over at a huge disadvantage since their previous time.  We’ve had people come back in a wheelchair where before they could walk in. There are times we simply can’t help anymore!

Title of this article; “Vibration Training or Death?” The choice is serious so choose well.