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The Art of Recovery

by ColoredByte

By: David Howatson-Begg

art-of-recovery

Using Power Plate® for recovery and massage can be extremely rewarding and beneficial, as well as simply feeling nice and relaxing. As a personal trainer, I believe there is no better product than Power Plate that can provide so many holistic physiological benefits for your clients or athletes alike. Please allow me just 5 minutes out of your busy schedules to articulate these multi-faceted benefits with you.

Here are six key points for your consideration:

  1. Whole body vibration provides much needed circulation to the tissues (muscles, skin, connective tissue and all fascial structures). This brings a rapid delivery of oxygenated blood and nutrients, enhancing the healing process of structures that may be suffering from fatigue or overwork during your exercise routines.
  2. This circulatory benefit, not just via the blood, also comes from inter and extra-cellular fluid from within the fibrous connective tissues of the body (skin, tendons, ligaments and fascial networks in and around the muscles). Intercellular means within the fibers of contractile elements of the body; while extracellular pertains to all body fluid outside of the cells that is absorbed to cleanse and hydrate the tissues. All muscle and fascia involved in movement are made up of fibers, and through intense exercise, prolonged bouts of sitting and poor footwear (just to name a few culprits), these fibers become drained of their much needed fluid! Without hydration, fibers become 'stuck together',resulting in reduced and dysfunctional movement capacity. Massaging areas like hamstrings and calves replenishes lost fluid and nutrients. As your freedom of movement and function quickly returns performance goes up; injury risk goes down…double benefit!
  3. Adhesive trigger points (bound up muscle fibers) will not properly respond to being stretched out. They require the application of compression in a way that relaxes and stimulates your para-sympathetic nervous system to "let go" of the tensional state. Otherwise, the muscle spindles continue to misfire, 'wind up' and bundle, causing tissues to become shortened and 'knotted'. Massage with vibration de-stresses the taxed muscle spindles, enabling the adhesions to release.
  4. Massage combined with vibration can induce 'tissue creep', which is a change in length of the tissues that may be shortened via postural or nervous system biases. Positioning the body and allowing vibration to ever so slightly change the tissue and nervous system behaviour improves tissue lengthening. Vibration, simply applied to one region of the body, can drastically alter the "functional whole" of the system.
  5. Clinical literature supporting vibration and massage has demonstrated to improve and reduce recovery time between workouts and after fatigue between 20-50% faster! That's huge if you want to train smarter and perform higher in whatever sport or activity you pursue.
  6. When the fitness professional applies a hands on strategy to the massage process, it encourages involvement and interaction that is becoming a lost art in the personal training environment. This is a great reason for your clients to continue to seek your expertise. Try it if you haven't, it's hugely powerful.

The above is not an exhaustive list, but a few of the innumerable reasons why you and your clients should be using this phenomenal tool to enhance performance, extinguish tissue behavioural problems, expedite recovery, and feel better during training regimes and tasks of everyday living.

Go to work, give these a try and remember, "everything in life is vibration". Use Power Plate to enhance and empower everyone you work with and enrich their lives on a daily basis.

By David Howatson, Performance Health Systems UK Master Trainer