I have just been introduced to the Flexi-Bar, a bit of apparatus invented by German physiotherapists as a healing tool, but last week launched in the
It then continues vibrating with minimal movement of the arms required - the key is keeping the abdominal muscles contracted. Relax these and the bar stops. In contrast vibration you perform numerous exercises, eg squat-thrusts and lunges. The shock waves of the vibration thru your body force it to work harder. As Dennis Bartram, the fitness director at dennisbartram.com (where the flexi-bar video demonstration classes were launched), explains: "The shaking action of the bar destabilizes the body, especially the backbone.
To keep it vibrating, you need to signup the muscles that run the length of the backbone. Do this regularly enough and you target the deep, stabilizing postural muscles, accelerating their strength and promoting blood flow. Regular use will improve overall posture and lead to longer-looking limbs. "You aren't waving your arms up and down to shake the Flexi-Bar; all the shaking movement is controlled by contracting the intestinal muscles.
You've got to keep working all over." He admits that it needs a while to realise the vibration system. "Most folk who have attempted it can't get the thing to move when they hold the Flexi-Bar in their less dominant hand," he is saying. It is, as he asserts, harder to operate than it appears to be, and exhausting. In my class, even the warm-up of vibrating squats, twists and marching left my muscles shaking.
Get down to the genuine work of sit-ups with a shaking bar held above your head and you start to understand that power yoga was a straightforward option. To feel blobby parts of your anatomy wobbling of their own will isn't a pleasing sensation, but at least it's evidence of the work that should be done. "We are keeping classes to thirty mins for the present because folks are finding it tough," Hodgkin says. No kidding. The Flexi-Bar isn't the only item of fitness hardware that uses the foundations of vibration to get you into shape.
Those who have already invested in the A B C Dynamic Exercise, a flexi-bar that claims to reduce workout time by eighty percent by energetically vibrating the body. The Active Balance Core Dynamic Exercise vibrates without your assistance, four thousand times a minute.
You perform simple exercises like squats and leg-raises on the little platform "It works by transferring the power from the vibrations to your body, which then triggers fast muscle contractions," announces Dennis, the clarity of your personal coach. "The upshot is that you're employed harder all over. In twelve mins you can effectively work as hard as you can in 60 minutes of a standard workout." Russian scientists discovered the advantages of this sort of coaching in the 1970s when searching for a way for their astronauts to exercise in space, where the weightless atmosphere links to osteoporosis.
Trials carried out since that time on gear like the Active Balance Core Dynamic Exercise have shown that it can help to extend muscle strength quicker than traditional weight coaching. "Because tendons and connecting tissues are also manipulated when it's used by you, adaptability improves," posted by one of many happy customers when formerly occupied by Swiss Balls and yoga mats, variable we might be but the possibility is that before the summer's out we'll all be vibrating, but don't forget to strap up your wobbly bits before you start.
