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You might never have heard the name and the odds are certainly against you ever having stepped on one, but anyone who's ever visited a gym has probably seen a Power Plate. They are the predominant brand of vibrating platforms that sit neglected in the corner of the room while people flock to every other piece of equipment. It's enough to break your heart, and it's also a missed opportunity for fans of efficient workout sessions, as Claire Finlay, founder of Transition Zone and Power Plate expert, explains:
What is a Power Plate?
It's a form of vibration training. The vibration travels through the muscles. It's relaxing and contracting the muscles, so working on the Power Plate you get muscle fatigue much more quickly. If you're doing a plank you might be able to hold that for 30, 40 seconds or whatever, if you do it on a power plate you'll find you tire much more quickly.
It [vibration training] was devised by Russian cosmonauts. In space, you have to do about six-eight hours of weight-bearing exercise to maintain muscle mass in zero-gravity. They found that by using
a vibrating platform they halved their exercise time.
How do you use them?
You can do lots of things on a Power Plate. Many people use one before their workout, some to stretch at the end, and you can use it for a full workout. Anything that you do as part of a floor-based workout, you just translate onto the vibrating platform.
I would recommend that you should always do lower body – start with squats. I tend to do lower body and core. If you want to build in more strength-based work you integrate weights and kettlebells.
You can also make it HIIT-based. You might be doing jump squats from the floor to the plate, mountain climbers or burpees. You can do HIIT-based workout, strength and conditioning, pure core, upper body, legs, anything. It's really versatile.
What setting should you use?
For training you can set the rate at which the plates are vibrating from 30 to 40, and then there's a high and a low. It's normally 35 low. The reason why Power Plate is a shorter session normally is because that constant switching on and off of your muscles is so exhausting. If you were to put it on 50 and high, it's just a waste of time, it's just too much. It's only used for massage on that higher setting.
If you'd prefer your first Power Plate experience to be under the careful eyes of a professional, Transition Zone run 25-minute classes using the platforms. £28 for a one-off class, transitionzone.co.uk
This content is from the experts at Men's Fitness magazine.
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