Whole Body Advanced Vibration Exercise (WAVE)
This breakthrough technology was introduced in late summer 2007 to Chiropractic & Nutrition Wellness Center. Whole Body Advanced Vibration Exercise (WAVE), is the next generation in physical conditioning and training, providing time efficient exercise and a genuine break-through in medical rehabilitation. Originating with Russian cosmonauts, Whole Body Vibration (WBV) was used to prevent astronauts from developing severe bone mineral loss and subsequent crippling osteoporosis after performing extended space exploration in a non-gravitational environment.
The vibration plate works by stimulating the body’s natural ‘stretch reflex’. This is similar to the knee jerk reaction that occurs when the knee is tapped by a reflex hammer in a doctor’s office. Without thinking about it, your body responds with a strong involuntary muscle contraction, leading to your leg ‘kicking out’. The vibration platform works in a very similar way.
3000 muscle contractions per minute
The WAVE platform drops either 2 or 4 mm. This is a very small and gentle drop. For example, let’s say that you are standing on the vibration plate with a gentle knee bend. Once the platform drops 2 mm, your muscle is quickly lengthened, or ‘stretched’. The body reacts to this by quickly contracting the muscle. By the time it does that, the WAVE platform has already returned to the first position. The platform drops again and this is repeated. Since the WAVE platform has been designed to do this 20 to 50 times per second, you can get a maximum of 50 muscle contractions per second! In one minute, you can actually get 3000 safe and gentle muscle contractions. This is the equivalent to doing 3000 knee bends. You can only imagine how long that would take without the WAVE.