[00:00:00] Latest and Greatest: The Importance of Mindset and Consciousness in Health and Wellness

[00:02:08] How Whole Body Vibration Boosts Brain Health and Well-Being

[00:03:29] Scott Hopson’s Journey in Health, Performance, and Whole Body Vibration

[00:07:35] The Early Days of Whole Body Vibration and Its Transformative Benefits

[00:10:54] Customizing Whole Body Vibration for Infinite Health and Wellness Benefits

[00:14:39] How Whole Body Vibration Supports Bone Health Across All Ages

[00:19:10] Shifting the Focus: Building Muscle and Bone Mass for Lifelong Health

[00:22:59] Whole Body Vibration: Transforming Metabolism and Enhancing Cellular Health

[00:27:53] Reducing Visceral Fat: Long-Term Benefits of Whole Body Vibration

[00:30:09] Balancing the Nervous System: How Whole Body Vibration Reduces Stress and Inflammation

[00:32:27] Interconnected Systems: How Whole Body Vibration Supports Holistic Health

[00:33:17] Finding Balance: Movement Snacks and the Cognitive Benefits of Whole Body Vibration

[00:38:52] Why Power Plate Stands Out: Research, Durability, and Education

[00:41:19] Understanding Vibration Types: Why 3D Movement Matters in Whole Body Vibration

[00:44:15] Whole Body Vibration vs. Targeted Percussion: Complementary Tools for Pain Relief and Mobility

[00:49:02] The Science of Vibration: Mechanoreceptors, Serotonin, and Gut-Brain Connection

[00:50:56] Getting Started: Using the Power Plate App and Guided Programs for Optimal Results

[00:52:44] Personalized and Flexible Usage: Tailoring Power Plate to Your Goals and Lifestyle

[00:55:12] Optimizing Power Plate Frequencies: Preparation, Strength, and Recovery

[00:58:19] Choosing the Right Model: Power Plate MOVE for Home Use and Versatility

[01:01:05] Barefoot Benefits: Enhancing Stability and Circulation with Power Plate

[01:02:17] Clearance for Use: Addressing Medical Concerns with Power Plate

[01:06:47] Comparing Tools: Power Plate, Rebounders, and Electronic Lymphatic Drainage

[01:09:33] Power Plate vs. Micro-Impact Platforms: Comprehensive Benefits Beyond Bone Health

[01:10:12] Understanding Microdosing: Power Plate’s Small Movements for Big Impact

[01:12:21] Max User Weight: Power Plate Models and Their Load Capacities

[01:13:24] Lymphedema Research: Promising Studies with the Cleveland Clinic

[01:15:12] Power Plate’s Widespread Use Among Elite Sports Teams and Athletes

[01:18:07] Using Power Plate for Limited Mobility and Everyday Movements

[01:21:27] Blood Clots and Power Plate: The Importance of Exercise Clearance

[01:23:40] Closing Thoughts: Transformative Benefits of Power Plate for Health and Wellness

[00:00:00] Latest and Greatest: The Importance of Mindset and Consciousness in Health and Wellness

Ryan Sternagel: Scott, the traditional first question for you. You’re not allowed to use whole body vibration or Power Plate or anything like that in your answer. When it comes to staying healthy, preventing disease, that sort of thing—living a long, happy, full life—what’s on your mind these days? What have you been geeking out on or trying harder to implement in your life? Or maybe a new study you read that jumped out at you? Anything and everything; What are you thinking about in the health world right now?

Scott Hopson: Great first question. Intuitively, I’m going to say mindfulness and mindset. I think the more I explore health, wellness, and human performance—or what I call human potential—I think all the studies today are pointing to one thing. Most communication in the human body is upstream. It’s the body telling the brain what’s going on, not the other way around. If we’re not present to that, it’s pretty hard to know if we’re heading in the right direction.

Ryan Sternagel: That’s the second week in a row we’ve got that answer; I love it. We had Dr. Marco Ruggiero on last week, who’s, I’d say, in the top 1% of doing innovative stuff. As far as physical products go, he makes some of the most unique, top-shelf physical things—the things that you consume and that sort of thing.

When I asked him that same question last week, he said consciousness is his new frontier, seeing what’s possible there.

Scott Hopson: I think so. I don’t want to derail us, but maybe the conversation gets back to that later. I think it’s at the hub of all things health, wellness, and vitality for me.

[00:02:08] How Whole Body Vibration Boosts Brain Health and Well-Being

Ryan Sternagel: Whole body vibration also sure feels darn good on it. It’s a very physical thing, right? Vibrating your body 50 times a second. You could probably speak to this better than me—I feel like there’s got to be some sort of dopamine release mechanism going on there or something.

Scott Hopson: There is exactly that. One of the most powerful things is what we call BDNF—brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Boring, silly name, but it’s called miracle growth for the brain; It is the miracle growth of the brain.

We now know that movement obviously increases that, but movement plus vibration upregulates it hugely. And then the downstream effects of that—from learning to cognition to memory to serotonin, dopamine—have a trickle effect. You’re spot on. There’s a reason that you generally get off it feeling, “Wow, better than when I got on it.” We’re now starting to get the science to explain what we’ve anecdotally seen for 20 years.

Ryan Sternagel: I love it, Scott. I got here last minute and usually have your bio and stuff like that pulled up, but that’s not the case today.

Scott, who are you and what are you doing here?

[00:03:29] Scott Hopson’s Journey in Health, Performance, and Whole Body Vibration

Scott Hopson: I coach, I teach, I consult all around the world in all things health and human performance. On any given day, I could be coaching myself one-on-one, in teams, or entire organizations. Or I could be coaching the coaches—that’s my favorite thing. I do that from South America to Asia, to the Middle East and Europe. Or I could be consulting with companies that I inherently believe in and what they bring to the table, like Power Plate, because I’ve authentically used their product for 20 years. I’ve used it in the health clubs I’ve built, as well as in the high-performance and elite sports facilities I work in.

For me, it crosses that entire bandwidth of human potential. I consult for companies like that.

Ryan Sternagel: I like it. I know you’ve been involved with… I looked you up. You do a lot of great stuff, Scott. I know you’ve been involved with Power Plate for a long time as well.

It’s interesting that you bring that up because you are, as a guy that’s interested in all things human performance and optimization and potential and so on.

I remember before my son was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and my wife and I were first getting into… Some people get a cancer diagnosis, and that’s what launches them into trying to find out about health stuff and that sort of thing. We were already very much into getting rid of toxicity in our lives and trying out different diets. I was training for triathlons and all sorts of fun stuff like that, and then the diagnosis turbocharged our natural health interest.

I remember, back 10 or 11 years ago now, there were only two big health guys on the airwaves—on the podcast waves—Dave Asprey and Ben Greenfield. I remember listening to Dave Asprey way back in the day from the biohacking side of things, talking about how he was big on whole-body vibration way back then. And so it had always been in my consciousness as, “Oh, that’s something neat that I would like to do or try or obtain at some point in my life.”

Then, after my son was diagnosed, I started hearing a lot of holistic health, cancer, and so on, more on the healing end. I started hearing a lot of those guys talk about whole-body vibration.

It makes sense why when you start thinking about the mechanisms of action and all the different benefits and so on and so forth. It makes a whole lot of sense why the human optimization guys are talking about it. The more healing and reversal, holistic wellness-type people are talking about it because of everything. It’s almost hard when you pull the list of benefits and the list of even conditions there’s research on and that sort of stuff. You start to feel like, if you’re trying to talk about its benefits, do you feel like you’re talking about snake oil or something like that because it does positively affect so many different things?

What’s your favorite way to talk about whole-body vibration as a kickoff to this conversation? And to stop Ryan from rambling for the next 50 minutes?

Scott Hopson: I like rambling because you never know where it’s going to lead you. I think it’s perfect.

[00:07:35] The Early Days of Whole Body Vibration and Its Transformative Benefits

Scott Hopson: I started in 2003 with vibration, and at that time I built health clubs—not performance clubs, health clubs—for the everyday human being. Most of my clients were 40 through 75 years of age, but at the same time, I was coaching a Division One national rugby team.

I got these six Power Plates, which back then, 20 years ago, people looked at me like I was crazy—like I put six little spaceships in my gym. They were like, “What is that?”

They all said it looked cool, but “What the heck does it do?” Over the next six weeks, I documented everything. I taught my coaches how to use it—what I knew of back then, which wasn’t much. I introduced all my members to it. If they were walking from reception to the locker room, I made sure they put their foot on it; That simple.

I got my rugby guys in between beating each other up, practicing, and games. The same three things came back from my coaches, my members, and my athletes.

At the end of six weeks, they all said:

1.         “I don’t know what it does, but I feel good.”
2.         “I came in pain.” (Who’s not in some pain, whether it’s acute, chronic, or episodic?) “Today, it left. I had less pain when I left.”
3.         “I moved better. The next thing I did afterward was better—whether it was running on a treadmill, strength training, power, speed, whatever.”

They said, “My pain got less. I feel good. The next thing I did was better than normal.” That fascinated me.

Long story short, I found myself on a plane going to the Netherlands, where it had been created. I begged the founders of the product to spend a couple of days with me and tell me everything they knew and show me everything because no one in the States knew what it was; That was my introduction.

When you say, what is my best way of using it? The honest answer would be: whichever way best serves the client in front of me. If someone says, “I want to live a pain-free life to pick up my grandkids,” that’s a very different way I’m going to use it than when someone says, “I want to be bigger, faster, stronger,” or someone says, “Listen, I’m living with chronic inflammation, and it’s showing up as any -itis—rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis. If it’s an -itis, it’s inflammation, and I would like to make sure I don’t just live longer, but I live with vitality.” That’s a different application.

I think the bookends are the most powerful: if you prepare on it before you do what you’re going to do, and you recover on it after you’ve done what you’ve done, it will upgrade every system in your body. There’s no doubt in my mind today. If you say, “I want to go on a 5k run,” start on this before you go. When you get back, do your recovery.

If you say, “I’m going to go play rugby,” start on this before you hit someone, come back after you hit someone. If you said, “Keep doing everything you’re doing, but start on it and finish on it,” we call that prepare and recover. There’s a methodology behind it. It will change everything in the middle; I’m convinced of it.

However, the stuff in the middle is pretty darn impressive, especially when it comes to strength, fall prevention, bone mineral development, etc. That stuff is mind-blowing. But if I had to pick two—bookend it. Keep doing what you’re doing, but the bookend will upgrade everything you’re doing in between.

[00:10:54] Customizing Whole Body Vibration for Infinite Health and Wellness Benefits

Ryan Sternagel: When we say keep doing what you’re doing, now, of course, my mind goes to how creative can you get with that?  That’s our thing; We’ve got a million different healing devices at home that we’ve collected over the years. I stack our light therapies with photodynamic, ingesting a certain compound to enhance the effects, and so on. I’ve never thought about that in terms of what I could combo the Power Plate with for ultimate healing. Now that I think about it, my son has his infrared sauna routine and a couple of those things that he does before the sauna—jump on the rebounder, and the mini trampoline, to get the lymphatic system going. Also, he does some dry skin brushing—the same thing, to get the lymphatic system going. But that being said, I should probably add the Power Plate to that stack.

Scott Hopson: There are a lot of recipes. The way I look at it is there’s the key ingredient of vibration training.

Here is what we can use it for: mobility, stability, strength, bone mineral, muscle development, and fall prevention. There’s a list of ingredients, but how you create the recipe is infinite.

You could take the same four ingredients and create 20 different recipes. If that was food, I could take flour, yeast, water—whatever. I can make bread, or I can make a donut, or I can make a muffin, or I can make a croissant with the same ingredients. It’s the same with a Power Plate. We know what it does for circulation, flexibility, mobility, stability, and strength. We know what it does, but how it shows up in your recipe—your life, your exercise routine, your recovery—is… there are infinite recipes based on what you already do or don’t do.

My favorite thing, though, I will say, is especially for populations that are 50-plus, who want to live longer with vitality and live to their potential—playing with the grandkids, kicking butt in the boardroom, running their business, having three kids that you’re driving like an unpaid Uber to all the different soccer games and everything else—and then you still gotta pay your bills and cook food every day, and you want to be able to do that with more energy and less fatigue, that’s living to your potential. I’ve rarely seen a technology—and I use all of them—where I could use the same technology to improve mobility, stability, and flexibility, and get you ready to move. I could use it to turn on your strength, bone, and fall prevention. Then I could do five minutes of massage and recover, promote anti-inflammatory hormones, and decrease pain. One tool that does it all? Like you said, I’m not selling snake oil. There are over 200 papers to say it does that. You can use it completely integrated, which I do, but I have clients where that’s the only thing they’ve got. I coach them on that. It’s a win.

That’s very unusual—that you can do a handful of movements on there with the right load—and it can completely change your outcome. I love it for that; It’s the simple made complex made simple, which is what vibration is.

Ryan Sternagel: It’s pretty remarkable. Like I said in the emails, my only regret is not getting it sooner. It’s been an amazing addition over the past few years.

[00:14:39] How Whole Body Vibration Supports Bone Health Across All Ages

Ryan Sternagel: It’s obvious when you think about it from the lymphatic and circulatory benefits. You mentioned bone mineral stuff a couple of times. Can you go a little deeper on bone stuff and whole-body vibration?

Scott Hopson: What’s funny now is when you look at the research—and it’s accumulated like compound interest now—20 years ago I had a handful. Now there are hundreds, and it’s feeding the next research.

What I find fascinating is the very first thing that it was ever tested on was bone mineral. Bear in mind that this technology first existed to go up into space because astronauts, within three weeks, would lose 33% of their bone mineral. That’s not osteoporosis—that’s death. They would have to literally bolt down vibrating platforms and then harness the astronauts onto the platform and turn it on because there’s no gravity.

When it comes to bone, we’re told you want to do weight-bearing, gravity-based movement—i.e., go for a walk, walk on a treadmill, whatever it is. That’s different than riding a bike because you’re not getting the load of gravity. Whether that’s body weight or additional weight, we know that we need to load the body against gravity to stimulate bones—the receptors that break down and rebuild.

When you’re on a Power Plate, it literally leaves you and comes back. I think that’s what most people don’t realize. Let’s say you’re on there doing a squat, a step-up, a lunge, a single-leg balance—whatever it is—or you could be in a position like a push-up or a plank; The plate leaves you, and it comes back. In other words, that’s like jumping up and landing back on the ground—only it’s the inverse; It’s the ground leaving you and coming back and hitting you.

What you get are micro doses of gravity and ground reaction, 30 to 50 times a second in a non-compressive way. It stimulates your bones the same way walking, running, or jumping would, but without the potential risks for some populations or the high impact of jumping, bounding, and running. In one minute, you’ve had thousands of these doses.

What it’s doing is—it’s like an oxymoron. It’s a very low dose, but it’s such a high volume in such a short period of time that it’s explosive. It’s this strange oxymoron that it’s low intensity, low impact, but it’s fast and explosive, like power training.

That’s basically what it does to stimulate bone. The research today—not only in 60-, 75-, and 80-year-olds—shows it slows down the rate of deformation. It increases bone mineral density in active aging populations. They’re now releasing studies in 8-, 10-, and 12-year-old boys and girls who are at risk for losing bone because of diabetes or metabolic syndrome X.

We’re getting studies now at both ends of the spectrum—10-year-olds who don’t have it yet, and 60-, 70-, and 80-year-olds who do have the disease, whether it’s osteoporosis, inflammation, or whatever is causing the bone to lose at a quicker rate. We’re seeing the same thing, which you rarely see in two disparate populations; A 10-year-old and a 75-year-old don’t typically get the same response in research, but we’re finding with vibration, they do.

That’s a game changer because today we have the first generation of youth scheduled to die younger than their parents. We’ve managed, for the first time in human history, to create an environment—internal and external—for our children to die younger than we will. They’re dying now at 12, 13, and 14 with adult diseases. It’s cool to see a technology, like this one, say, “You might want to intervene now. Don’t wait for it to be near the end of the disease. Let’s be proactive now in kids that are at risk.” That’s my synopsis for bone. We’ve known it for over three decades now. It’s the most well-researched part—what it does to slow down the rate and/or add bone mineral density, whether that’s at your knee, your hip, or your lumbar. The only difference would be how you position yourself and how you move to stimulate it differently on your lower back versus your hip. Ultimately, it does the job.

[00:19:10] Shifting the Focus: Building Muscle and Bone Mass for Lifelong Health

Ryan Sternagel: Your point is well received. Obviously, we’ve got people of all ages concerned with chronic conditions with us. My heart goes out to everybody, but obviously the biggest soft spot is for children and such, given our story—and who doesn’t love kids? I didn’t know that about it applying to both ends of the spectrum; That’s neat.

I also didn’t know that’s where the technology started—with astronauts and needing to make sure they didn’t lose all their bones.

Scott Hopson: It’s funny because people will say, “Look, it’s not rocket science.” I say it was—it’s what it was created for. If NASA created it, I’m guessing it was.

When we talk about obesity, metabolic syndrome, etc., of course, there’s an argument about being overweight—or maybe, more importantly, your visceral fat; That’s probably more significant. But something we forget to talk about is: is everybody overweight? Or are they under mass, meaning they don’t have enough bone, muscle, and lean mass to perform the functions to live the life they could? You could still be technically overweight. I’ve coached and played rugby for 30 years. These are some of the top athletes in the world. They would all be on the BMI (Body Mass Index) chart as clinically obese because they’re huge, and carry a lot of body fat. Why? Because they’re getting hit so hard they need higher body fat. If they go to the doctor, they’re told, “Your fat’s too high. Your body mass is too high. Your BMI is off the chart.” They’re some of the best athletes in the world.

They’ve got the muscle, bone mass, and nervous system to perform inside that body. I think something that’s interesting in talking about health and chronic diseases is that instead of always looking at the negative, there’s also an absence of a positive. Which is: what would be positive in this equation? More muscle, more bone, more strength. You could still have the same body mass, but if we upgrade those three positives, you’re a different human being.

I’m a big fan of adding rather than deleting. We focus a lot on, “Delete, delete. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Remove that.” But what if I added this? More sleep—you’ll be a better human being. If I added more water and you’re more hydrated—you’ll be a better human being. If I added more strength—you’ll be a better human being, even if you still weigh that much.

I like adding, if that makes sense.

Ryan Sternagel: At one of the last integrative oncology conferences I was at, you hear the body mass, “Get rid of extra fat” presentation over and over again. I knew there was research on it, but I didn’t know there was as much research as there was, after seeing this presentation, on muscle mass being a huge predictor of overall survival.

The length of living longer, accelerating survival, lowering all-cause mortality—all these different things. That’s the exact point the presenter was making; We hear all the time about body mass and that whole story, but I would posit that muscle mass is more important. It was a very compelling presentation given by a very well-established naturopathic oncologist; That was neat.

[00:22:59] Whole Body Vibration: Transforming Metabolism and Enhancing Cellular Health

Ryan Sternagel: You mentioned metabolic syndrome. When we talk about metabolism, that’s the other big thing that doesn’t take long to hear about that cancer is more of a metabolic condition than a genetic condition. Or at least, genetics can—what is it—load the gun, but your environment and those sorts of things are going to pull the trigger.

What do we have on metabolism in general with the whole body…?

Scott Hopson: That’s a fascinating one. I agree with you 100%; There’s your genetics—what you’ve been given—but then there’s your epigenetics, how your environment shapes the expression of your genes. That’s where the rubber hits the road. Two people could be given and downloaded exactly the same genes in the DNA from the same parents, but if they live in different environments and make different choices—completely different lifestyles.

When it comes to metabolism, my brain always goes to the fluids in the body. That includes the endocrine (the hormones), the exocrine (stuff that we sweat out, pee out, poop out, all of it), as well as the cardiorespiratory system.

We’ve also got what we call our energy systems—the things that provide energy and fuel all the cells in the human body. For me, metabolism is a very multi-layered thing.

A few things I know to be true about vibration: when you look at the studies that say, “Here’s a control group, we’re not going to do anything. Here’s a, let’s say, traditional fitness group. We’re going to do cardio—45, 60, up to 90 minutes of steady-state, typically aerobic stuff. And here’s a vibration training group.” Long-term studies, randomized, controlled. We’re going to look at these things:

•         Your oxygen uptake (the technical word is VO2, doesn’t matter—it means how much oxygen I can consume as a human being. In theory, the bigger, the better, though I disagree with that a little bit).
•         We’re going to look at caloric expenditure, which is useful but limited. I would say very limited—it’s not always about calories.
•         Then we’re going to look at your post-exercise consumption. When you stop, how much do you have to pay back the bank? How much have you used?
•         Then we’ve got heart rate, blood pressure—all of that, to me, is in that metabolic bucket.

When you look at those three groups, we find the same demand on the oxygen system—our cardiorespiratory system—to consume and use oxygen when you do your strength training or movement training on a vibrating platform, as someone who did a 60- to 90-minute bike ride. I find that staggering because it not only goes in the face of traditional research around health and strength conditioning, but it certainly is a bit of a curveball that you could go to the gym or get on your bike and do a 60- to 90-minute steady-state cardio session—or you could do 20 to 25 minutes of vibration, doing your fundamental movements (squat, push, pull, lunge, whatever it is)—and get the same metabolic benefits; I find that incredible.

The other side of the metabolic equation is what’s happening to the lymphatic system and the circulatory system; That’s metabolic too—not only getting good stuff into the cells (nutrients, oxygen in particular), but I’m a big fan of getting the bad stuff out.

What we know about vibration is it not only increases peripheral blood flow at a macro and micro-circulatory level. Macro is the big stuff—the arteries, the veins—but then you get down to capillaries and all the other stuff. Why that’s important is if the microcirculation doesn’t do its job, you’ve got all these fluids going around the body like a NASCAR spinning around and exercising and got this muscle pump.

If the microcirculation doesn’t work, you can’t get the oxygen from the red blood cells to the cells that need it. It’s that very end stage of microcirculation where the oxygen gets transported. Guess what? Vibration improves that.

When we look at what it does post-exercise, it lowers cortisol. And we know what it does to the cytokines in the body, especially the anti-inflammatory ones—it increases them. It helps attenuate inflammation. I think, wow, metabolically, it’s not just what I’m doing during the session. It’s not just about my heart, lungs, oxygen, and calories—all of which go up with vibration equal to riding a bike or running on a treadmill; You’re now telling me I’m getting the bad stuff out because my lymphatic system is pumping, so now I’m taking the trash out. It’s good you’ve got to take the trash out. Metabolically, it’s incredible.

[00:27:53] Reducing Visceral Fat: Long-Term Benefits of Whole Body Vibration

Scott Hopson: The one that surprised me was a study in 2010—I believe it was 2010. I can send you the study. It was by a guy named Visas, where they looked at visceral adipose tissue.

Peripherally, you could have a lot of excess adipose, no problem; It doesn’t affect your health. In fact, it might be good for insulation, protection, and all kinds of stuff. But it’s the deep stuff around your organs.

I’ve done enough cadavers in my life to know that when you open up a body, there are no straight lines, no gaps—everything’s squished. You see how much white, yellow, and brown fat there is around your heart, your lungs, and your liver. I thought, “Ooh, wish I’d known about that.”

They did a study, and what was transformative is they said: control group, do nothing. The next group, nutrition only—we know how powerful that is. The third group, traditional fitness. You’re going to do ground-based exercise, strength, and cardio. Fourth group, Power Plate only.

The three groups—nutrition, traditional fitness, and vibration—all decreased their visceral fat. However, here’s where it got interesting. They stopped the study after six months. Then they waited six months to test again.

In those second six months, they said, “Don’t do anything. Go back to eating the way you were. Go back to being sedentary. Go back to not exercising.” The only group that still had a decrease in visceral adipose tissue after six months of doing nothing was the vibration group.

That made me sit down and go, “Hold on. I don’t even know the physiology behind that.” How could I give you a stimulus to reduce fat, turn it off, and say, “Go back to doing what you’re doing”? Not that we would advocate that, but it’s a great study because it showed long-term visceral fat tissue decreases.

If you go speak to any educated medical health practitioner and say, “What’s the biggest threat for you long-term?” they’re going to say your visceral fat. I don’t care about your cellulite, I don’t care that you’ve got some extra fat in your arms and legs., but if you’ve put it around your heart, your lungs, your diaphragm, and your liver, we’ve got major health problems coming down the train tracks.

Metabolically, I think it’s amazing.

[00:30:09] Balancing the Nervous System: How Whole Body Vibration Reduces Stress and Inflammation

Ryan Sternagel: That is another thing I was not aware of; Long-term visceral fat.

Scott Hopson: Think of that. I didn’t know where to put that in my scrambled eggs. I was like, “That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t resonate.” I’ve got no background knowledge that makes that make sense to me, but I believe, given what it does to the hormonal system and the autonomic nervous system, it might make sense.

What I mean is, if we look at one of the biggest influencing factors on not only inflammation, cognitive decline, and social intelligence, but a whole host of healthy well-being metrics—the autonomic nervous system is one of the biggest things we should be looking at. On one side, if we keep it generic, there’s fight, flight, freeze. On the other side, we’ve got to rest and digest. In today’s world, we create environments where we live on this side the most—we’re always under threat. Every email, social media post, every bill, we’re under threat.

The crazy thing about the nervous system is it knows no difference between a real threat and a perceived threat. It processes them the same, and it releases the biochemicals and hormones in your body no differently than hearing a gunshot.

There’s research that shows feeling shame in a public environment releases the same adrenaline, cortisol, and stress hormones as hearing a gunshot. Shame and a gunshot feel the same to the body. What does that mean? It means you’re going to store fat because your cortisol is up, your adrenaline is up, and it’s not coming down. You’re going to break down muscle and bone because you’re chronically in a state of inflammation.

One of the things exercise, breath work, and mindfulness do is switch it from this side to that side—”Hey, let’s rest and digest a bit.”

Power Plate is such an amazing way of decreasing that adrenaline. When we do some simple breath, stretch, or massage stuff on it, while also pumping the lymphatic system, it helps.

I like it because it puts us in rest and digest more than we typically allow ourselves to be, in the worlds that we all create for ourselves.

[00:32:27] Interconnected Systems: How Whole Body Vibration Supports Holistic Health

Ryan Sternagel: You read my mind; I was gonna ask you about nervous system stuff next because it is a big deal. It’s a huge deal.

Scott Hopson: It’s a huge deal. A huge deal. You know better than me—you can’t separate systems in the body. If your vascular system’s unhappy, your bone system’s unhappy. It’s very simple.

Your red blood cells are in your bone marrow, so you can’t affect one without affecting the other. If your cardiac system’s off, your nervous system’s off. In fact, when we look at heart rate variability, it’s measuring the heart to tell me how happy my nervous system is. It’s systems; You can’t separate them. In my experience and understanding, if one system is off, all systems are off.

[00:33:17] Finding Balance: Movement Snacks and the Cognitive Benefits of Whole Body Vibration

Ryan Sternagel: It’s tough because I love working out and exercising and so on my whole life. Long distance—I love going for many-mile runs and these sorts of things. You could stand on the Power Plate and get pretty much the same benefit.

Scott Hopson: That would be different, obviously. If you were doing your training on a Power Plate, it wouldn’t teach you to run a 10k; That’s not going to happen. But you would get the same physiological outcomes.

Ryan Sternagel: Love being out in the woods and running. I’m not going to give that up, but I came from a very stressful situation—going through stage four cancer with my infant/toddler son. We’re 10 years out now, but I went from that situation to losing the day job and taking this online health thing full-time. I’ve stacked a million things on my plate—things I want to get done to help people and make the world a better place and all that stuff, but it’s all too much at the same time. I should have taken it one at a time instead of trying to do eight major accomplishments at once, but here we are.

That’s why I love having it for my son because he gets on it every day, and it makes me happy to see him on it every day and know that I’m providing all the tools that he needs to stay healthy.

For me, I’ll go hard, typing away for 50 minutes or whatever, and then step away and hop on the Power Plate for a few minutes. One, I know I’m not completely wasting away, typing away. And at the same time, it’s a good nervous system reset.

Even if I don’t get any other exercise in that day, I know that I’ve done that, and I’m basically getting the same metabolic, and physiologic benefits as I would if I had done more, and it’s neat.

Scott Hopson: You also have to do what makes you feel good, what your joy is. If running 10k in the woods makes you happy, you’ve got to do that too.

What’s fascinating about what you said is I think so many people can relate—that our bandwidth is being used up, and yet you’ve still got to keep the computer running. When you look at the brain and the nervous system, the brain’s only 2% of the real estate. It only takes up 2% of the real estate, but it takes up 20% of the gas tank. The greatest drainer of the battery is cognitive function—or your thoughts, more accurately.

When you’re sitting at that computer… there’s some crazy research from about 18 months, two years ago. They compared stress markers in master chess champions against marathon runners: heart rate, average heart rate, max heart rate, blood pressure, calories, and glucose utilization.

They said, you go run your marathon, and you sit down and don’t move—move this little chess piece, hit the timer, move, hit the timer. They found they had exactly the same physiological responses to stress in someone playing an intense master-level chess match as someone running a marathon. Their max heart rate was the same. Their blood pressure was the same, and calories were the same.

In other words, if you think, “Man, I need to move more. I’ve been sitting down all day,” if you have a stressful job and life sitting down all day, you could already have emptied your gas tank the same as if you went and ran a marathon. Isn’t that crazy? Living in that environment means less is more. I still need to move. I need to get my stimulation for strength and bone—yes, sitting down didn’t do that, no—but sitting down drained your gas tank. If the gas tank is out of gas, how are you going to move and build strength and bone? You can’t. Which is why you say, “Man, I’m going to sit down and eat and drink,” because you’ve got to restock the gas tank.

One of the great things about vibration is: you’ve got 10 minutes? Get on it. If you’ve got 15, or 20 minutes between your next stressful thing and the next restful thing, get on there for eight minutes. What we call movement snacks—you’ve probably heard of it. These little microdoses, like, “Hey, you don’t have time for a movement meal, you can’t go run, but you can have a snack.” Get on there for eight minutes. Do four movements at this frequency and amplitude, and it adds up like compound interest. If you haven’t got time for a full meal workout, get in a movement snack. Get on the plate and do movements that you like, that feel good, and give you a bit more credit in the bank.

Ryan Sternagel: That’s beautiful. This has become the big snake oil pitch, but it’s Joel everybody… housekeeping now that we’re 45 minutes in.

I usually say at the beginning: one, please don’t take anything you hear as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Scott, to my knowledge, is not a licensed healthcare professional—although he does so many things, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. I’m certainly not. Either way, we’re sharing information, that sort of thing.

[00:38:52] Why Power Plate Stands Out: Research, Durability, and Education

Ryan Sternagel: One of the questions that Joel brought up was—let’s talk about Power Plate in particular versus… Joel’s question was:

“I know the name-brand devices and these sorts of things can be thousands of dollars versus the several hundred dollars I see on Amazon. What’s the difference?”

Scott Hopson: Good question. Obviously, this is my preference, so take what you want and leave the rest, because I don’t want to come across, like you said, as selling snake oil.

The reality is that if I’m going to buy a technology to stimulate my mind and body for whatever reason, I want to know that when we’re talking about the research, a good chunk of that was done on that brand.

A lot of the research I’m talking to is specifically on Power Plate. There’s also research on other brands too. In my honest opinion, there’s probably a small handful of vibration brands that have ever tested their product to find out what it could and couldn’t do—let alone over 20 years. It means trust that what you’re buying is what you’re getting.

The other thing is, I know that they are the leaders in the world, powering the world’s best—from medicine to performance to health—because their products are amazing; They don’t break and you’re not repairing them every couple of years. I’ve had mine for 10 years; I don’t think I’ve had it serviced once.

Ryan Sternagel: With three small children jumping up and down on it.

Scott Hopson: Exactly. It’s like saying the treadmill at the gym is going to be $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000. The treadmill in your home could be $600, but that’s because there aren’t a thousand people using it every day. If you put that $600 treadmill in a gym, it would break down.

The Power Plate in your home is the same quality as what you’d see in a commercial setting.; The quality is there, and the research is there.

The last thing for me, which I’m intimately involved in is educational training. It’s not an intuitive product. If someone drops it off at your house, how do you use it? How do you use it for circulation and mobility versus strength and power versus recovery?

Power Plate are the only globally accredited company, meaning their education has been credentialed by the governing bodies all around the world to say, “This is how you use it. What they’re telling you is legit.”

For me, the research, the product, and the education and training are world-class. It’s why the world’s best do use it and why they’ve been powering them for 20 years. That, to me, is worth spending the money.

[00:41:19] Understanding Vibration Types: Why 3D Movement Matters in Whole Body Vibration

Scott Hopson: The last thing I would add is: not all vibration is equal. And I’m not just talking about Power Plate. I’m talking about—you can have a vibration that goes up and down. You can have a vibration that goes like a “T,” or you can have a vibration that goes in 3D, which is what Power Plate does.

The question for me as a practitioner is, which one of those looks like what we do in real life? If I’m walking, jumping, running, skipping—up and down is what gravity does; I like that. It doesn’t go side to side, so I like the one that goes up and down, but also, we move in multiple directions. I like the Power Plate because it doesn’t just go up and down—it goes forward and back, side to side; It’s a win for me. That makes sense because that’s how we move in life—up, down, side to side, all of it.

That’s my honest opinion. I’ve put it in the health clubs, I’ve put it in the sports facilities, I’ve put it in my home with my clients. They back it up. It does what it says.

Ryan Sternagel: When I was digging into everything, I found out about the difference in tri-planar vibration—the 3D all over the place—versus one-way or two-way combined with the fact that—not all of it, like you said—but a whole lot of the research showing all these benefits was done on Power Plates. And then the same thing—as we get this question on—this isn’t the only healing device we’ve ever done a webinar on, as you may guess.

Same thing with an infrared sauna. You can get an infrared sauna on Amazon for a couple hundred bucks. I’ll spend 20 minutes on the next infrared sauna webinar talking about all the pitfalls of the infrared sauna you get on Amazon for a couple hundred bucks.

Scott Hopson: One of the biggest things to remember, as I told people, is it leaves and comes back. You can have a platform that vibrates, but it doesn’t move. It’s literally shaking you—it’s like being on a Bosu ball on steroids. The fact that you’re shaking doesn’t mean you’re getting mechanical vibration.

If it doesn’t do this—if it doesn’t leave you at some point—you’re not getting any of the benefits that we see in research. That’s the most important part: it leaves and comes back, like walking on the ground. Otherwise, it’s a vibrating belt from the fifties; It’s shaking you, and it’s not delivering mechanical vibration at all.

Anything that’s battery-operated and just shakes—I would say, that’s not whole-body vibration training. I don’t know what I would call that, but it’s not this.

Ryan Sternagel: Going back to talking about stacking it with other things—maybe you’ll do the Power Plate and the fifties vibration belt.

Scott Hopson: I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

[00:44:15] Whole Body Vibration vs. Targeted Percussion: Complementary Tools for Pain Relief and Mobility

Ryan Sternagel: Scott, we’ll get to Q&A in a minute, but I joked about stacking it with the fifties massage belt. Can you speak to targeted versus body—like what folks will get with the gun?

Scott Hopson: That’s the biggest thing. You’ve got whole body versus targeted. Whilst they’re both vibrations, this is mechanical vibration; This is percussion. The massage gun is about applying pressure to the body; Similar but not synonymous.

The great thing about targeted is you can get to a local level at the tissue that you need. For example, a big one—so many people struggle with inflammation of connective tissue, whether it’s their skin, their tendons, or their joints, especially areas like the Achilles, plantar fascia, or lateral elbows where tendons get overused or underused, and so they get stuck down.

When we look at inflammation, it makes connective tissue sticky. If your connective tissues are stuck, all bets are off. One of the greatest things you can do with a massage gun or targeted approach is get into those specific areas because it does two things.

First, it dampens pain. In the presence of pain, you can’t move well because the muscles and nerves you need to turn on are inhibited by pain. If I have elbow pain and I’m trying to strengthen my elbow, it’s an oxymoron; You can’t until you get out of pain—it’s almost impossible. The massage gun will decrease the pain and stimulate the nervous system. My favorite benefit is to fluids because that stickiness is like glue. The tissues have gotten stuck together, and the tissue should be sliding and gliding across each other like this. They should slide and glide. When they’re stuck, they can’t slide and glide, so the pain goes up, the movement goes down, and everything gets worse.

These massage guns allow you to restore hydration to the tissues and decrease pain, so you can start turning on the sliding and gliding. You get on the plate to do your mobility, stability, strength, and power, but the massage gun is a great way of maybe lubing the pipes before you get on there.

Yes, you can do that on a Power Plate from a whole-body perspective, but when you’ve got that neck gunk or elbow gunk, it’s nice to have a massage gun.

The other thing is I’ve got it in my car, I’ve got it when I go on a plane, and I’ve got it wherever. That’s another huge thing—the accessibility and usability wherever you are.

You could be sitting in the car for an hour each way every day because your job’s an hour commute. You start to get that tension in your neck—get your gun out when you’re sitting at the lights. Let everyone else honk their horn; Especially when you look at flow, lymphatic flow from the brain now, and how important that is.

Among the six biggest areas of lymphatic drains in the body, up here behind the ear and above your collarbone are probably number one and two. Number three is your armpit. You sit down all day doing this (hunching), and these all get stuck. That massage gun starts draining your brain.

I do believe it starts stimulating the fluids around the brain because when they get stuck, you get inflammation of the brain—and that’s a really big problem.

Anyway, I probably went a little rogue on you, Ryan.

Ryan Sternagel: No, that’s great. Taking it back to lymphatics—it is the ultimate one-two punch. You’ve got the whole-body aspect, and then you’ve got the targeted, “Let’s loosen stuff up, get in there, and dig around.” That’s great.

Honestly, we had a different massage gun for years. It was a plug-in—you had to plug it into the wall. I got the Power Plate gun a little more recently, and I never even thought about taking it around with me. I was so used to having the thing that had to be right next to a power outlet to use it. I didn’t even put that together with the new one, “Oh, there’s no cord on this thing—I can take it somewhere.”

Scott Hopson: I’ll tell you what, it does get you flagged.

If you’ve got an accent and you’re going through security at the airport, and the scan shows what looks like a gun shape in your bag… I’m going to say there’s more than one occasion it’s delayed me getting to my destination.

[00:49:02] The Science of Vibration: Mechanoreceptors, Serotonin, and Gut-Brain Connection

Scott Hopson: One thing I’ll add to that is—when you look at, to be geeky for a second, we call them mechanoreceptors. These are receptors in every tissue—your skin, your fascia, your muscles. They respond to pressure, and they create movement.

Here’s what’s important—90% of all the serotonin in the human body is in your gut, your enteric brain, your abdominal brain. And we know how important serotonin is for mood, learning, social behavior, cognition, sleep, and digestion. Nature’s incredible, breath is incredible, and movement is incredible for stimulating it.

What we now know is most of the mechanoreceptors in our connective tissue respond to pressure. When we stimulate those mechanoreceptors, they stimulate the gut to upregulate serotonin.

Sitting in that car, stressed, tense, everyone honking their horn, you’re running late—not only does it help lymphatics, decrease pain, and reduce tension, but by stimulating your skin on a Power Plate or with a massage gun, you’re improving gut function because mechanoreceptors stimulate your gut-brain, and your gut-brain has 90% of the serotonin that you need upstairs in the big brain.

Communication is mostly upstream—if you want your small brain to send serotonin to the big brain, you’ve got to stimulate it. If you’re in a car, you can’t be in nature, you can’t move, but you can use a massage gun to turn on your connective tissue, which tells your gut, “Hey, serotonin,” and instantly changes your state.

When people say, “I feel good after vibration,” that’s a big part of it. That’s a geeky rabbit hole, but it’s true. We know this about vibration and the human body—it upregulates serotonin.

Ryan Sternagel: It’s a good rabbit hole.

[00:50:56] Getting Started: Using the Power Plate App and Guided Programs for Optimal Results

Ryan Sternagel: More on the how-to-use front; “What’s the maximum time? How do I start?” What would a sample day look like? What’s the optimum way to use it in a day—all those sorts of things.

Scott Hopson: Two simple answers for you. Number one, they have an app, and on that app, they have everything from onboarding, like your first 21-day habit guide: “If you’ve got a Power Plate, here’s what you do for your first 21 days. When do you do strength work? When do you do massage? When do you do recovery? What should you do for what we call movement hygiene? What should I do between my workouts?” It’s all on there in a 21-day habit guide.

They also have a bunch of free classes on there, like virtual classes. You can join a virtual class with other people in their homes. You don’t have to be on camera. You just choose what class you want—whether it’s a mobility or recovery class, a strength class, or a bone health class; They’re free and included.

You can even do a complimentary one-on-one session. All new consumers can get a one-on-one session with a master educator for Power Plate. That’s the easy one.

There’s a ton of stuff that’s free on the app—just click.

The other thing is there are a ton of programs that exist on the Power Plate Academy, like a six-week bone health program or a six-week natural pain relief program where you get three sessions a week. It’s already been filmed, so you’re not following anyone live, and there’s a small price for those.

My point is there’s a ton of free stuff, and then there’s some stuff you pay for, but it’s already there—you don’t have to work it out. If that doesn’t work, contact the company, and they’ll probably put you in touch with education and training.

[00:52:44] Personalized and Flexible Usage: Tailoring Power Plate to Your Goals and Lifestyle

Scott Hopson: Maximum usage depends on who you are. If you’re my Olympic athletes in Brazil at the National Training Center, we’re using it distinctly differently than my mum, who’s trying not to fall when she walks down the street, minimize bone loss, increase energy, and sleep better. She might be doing two to three workouts a week for 20 to 30 minutes max. Because in 20 minutes of vibration, it’s not about how many reps you do, it’s about how many subconscious contractions you’ve done, which is exponentially more than on the ground.

Here’s the key—daily, she can do movement hygiene. “Mom, you worked out yesterday. You’re going to work out in another two days. Great. Let’s do some circulation and mobility work on there today. Between the next session, let’s do some stuff to stimulate the brain and keep you focused. Let’s do some passive recovery.” That’s daily. You can use it daily, but you’re not working out on it daily—that’s not happening. You’re probably doing that three times a week for 20 to 30 minutes max.

One caveat is, if you’re integrating it with your other stuff—your bands, your balls, your dumbbells, whatever else you’ve got at home—that’s a different program again. But they’ve got it on the app, and they’ve got it on their Academy.

Don’t stress. Reach out to the company, they’ve got the world’s best to tell you how to use it based on who you are and what your goals are.

Ryan Sternagel: I did not realize that the complimentary one-on-one session was a thing. That’s cool.

Scott Hopson: Started in the pandemic because how else are we going to train people? But it got so popular. Then we started doing virtual “Discover” classes, where every month, no matter where you are in the world—UK, Chicago—you can log on and see a master educator for 45 to 60 minutes take you through: “Here’s how we use it to prepare—better circulation, mobility, and stability.” “Here’s how we use it to perform better core integration and strength.” “Here’s how we use it to recover.”

They’re free as well—I forgot about that. Virtual classes with an educator who says, “Hey, you bought a plate for your home. Here are our guidelines—what’s the frequency, what’s the amplitude, how many sets and reps should I do?” That’s also monthly for free, so there’s a ton of stuff.

Ryan Sternagel: I’m trying to see what questions that are answered. Look at all the free information they have once you get it, because that answers a lot of the questions we have on here.

[00:55:12] Optimizing Power Plate Frequencies: Preparation, Strength, and Recovery

Ryan Sternagel: What’s your favorite frequency on the plate, Scott?

Scott Hopson: If I’m using it to prepare—meaning before I get into my strength work, power, or whatever it is—I’m going to be doing 30 to 35 hertz low.

Here’s why I love it. At 30 to 35 hertz, you don’t feel overly stressed, and it’s not overly demanding. If you do the math, 30 hertz—if I do 30 seconds of a stretch, what I call dynamic mobility—that’s 900 contractions in 30 seconds.

I love it because it pumps the fluids, warms me up, and turns on the nervous system. I call it putting the key in the ignition; It turns that car on quicker than anything I can do on the ground.

If I go above 30, I go from warming up to starting to fatigue and run out of juice.

When I’m preparing, 30 to 35 low. When I’m doing strength training, 30 to 40 hertz, but more like 35 high is my sweet spot. I love 35 to 40 high. When you go from low to high amplitude, it’s only a couple of millimeters difference in vertical change, but it doubles the work you’re doing. People don’t know that—it literally doubles the amount of work you’re doing by going from two millimeters to four millimeters. It’s like saying, “I did a 20-inch vertical jump versus a 40-inch vertical jump.” That’s a lot of extra work. Or, “I sprinted 10 meters versus 20.” That’s a lot of extra work.

The key for me is when I’m doing strength training and bone, I like high amplitudes. The frequencies can be 30, 35, or 40, but high amplitude, once you’re ready for it, is a game changer.

Then, when I’m doing recovery, like passive massage—I’m lying down. I don’t want to think about it, like a calf massage, a quad massage. Groin massage is my favorite because we get stuck in our groin; A lot of lymphatics there, a lot of lymph nodes there, a lot of arteries and veins there—it’s a big deal.

Then we stand up dehydrated, and stuff happens. I’m going to the top—I’m going 40, 50 high. I’m laying down and letting that thing pound me because it feels amazing cuz now I’m getting a deep pump of the blood and lymph.

So, 30 low to prepare, high amplitude to do my work, and then high frequency and amplitude to get a massage. They’re my favorites. Obviously, there are a million intricacies in between, but those are the three big ballparks for me.

Ryan Sternagel: The more refined approach must come with the accent. I’m American—I crank it up all the way. That’s back to that, “Oh my gosh, I just typed for 50 minutes, and I gotta do something before the next whatever call it is.” Then it’s, “Let’s crank it up, get this thing over with, and get back to it.”

Scott Hopson: That might not be bad though because you’re doing those movement snacks. Because the volume of work is low, you can take up the intensity; That’s the point, you can do that.

[00:58:19] Choosing the Right Model: Power Plate MOVE for Home Use and Versatility

Ryan Sternagel: A few questions on, “Can you show a picture?”

Guys, you can go on the link—PowerPlate.com/stern—and you can see what it looks like. They have the dimensions on there as well, so you can get a feel for how much space it takes up. Like, this much space—there you go.

Scott Hopson: The new ones are incredible because the new ones you’ve got now, especially the MOVE—which is, if you said, “What’s your most bang for the buck, Scott?” There’s no doubt. They’ve got so many models, and it’s like going from the basic car model to the souped-up one—you get more with it. That MOVE is so robust for a home user.

Ryan Sternagel: That’s all you need.

Scott Hopson: It’s unbelievable. It’s got the full frequency amplitude range, the full duration range. You can jump on it, you can bound on it—it’s stable. To your point, you could put it in the trunk of your car, and it’s smaller than a suitcase. For me, for the home user, I think it’s the best model they’ve come up with.

All of them are good, but that one is so good. It depends on your own strength. You can move it around—it’s heavy-ish, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s not like a treadmill; You can pick it up and move it. When the weather’s nice, I put it in my yard and use it outside. I like that. That MOVE, pound for pound, I think it packs the most punch.

Ryan Sternagel: He’s talking about the MOVE, which I think is like the second-to-bottom in terms of how much you can spend in their tiers and stuff like that. It’s the Power Plate MOVE. I think the very lowest one doesn’t have the range of frequency.

Scott Hopson: The Personal—it’s got less range of frequency and amplitude. It’s a smaller platform, and it’s not quite as stable and robust. I’m five foot seven, it’s fine. But if one of my rugby guys—six foot two, six foot three, six foot four, 250 pounds—it’s a bit too small; They can’t get the width they need in their squat, push-up, or whatever.

Some of it’s being pragmatic; Does that size fit you? If you’re someone who needs a more stable base, then the MOVE’s going to suit you better. If you need it even more stable, you can get the support bar that comes with it. A lot of my clients—65, and 75, working on bone and strength—use it because fall prevention is a big thing since they’ve lost their balance. We use the extra support bar that you can order with it too. The MOVE is an amazing platform.

[01:01:05] Barefoot Benefits: Enhancing Stability and Circulation with Power Plate

Ryan Sternagel: “Is it best to be barefoot?”

Scott Hopson: Oh, that’s a great question.

Ryan Sternagel: No shoes, at least.

Scott Hopson: If you can get to it pain-free and stable, without a doubt. Ground-up stimulation—that’s what we do. We walk, we jump, we run; This is what we’re supposed to do. The foot is the gateway to everything upstream, no doubt.

When you look at the receptors in the foot, 80% of them respond to mechanical vibration. If you can get your bare feet on there—from circulation to pain to stability—it upregulates everything.

One caveat: if you’re not stable with your shoes on, because you’re maybe new to movement or don’t have good movement efficiency, whatever it is, you might need to build up to that. In my experience, the quicker you can get to barefoot, the more benefits. I’m not a fan of saying everyone should be barefoot, because you don’t know if they’re in pain, if they have foot dysfunction, or if they’re so unstable that being on a moving platform is too much, and they might need the shoe to dampen it a bit. But in reality, we want to move towards barefoot as quickly as possible; Definitely more beneficial.

[01:02:17] Clearance for Use: Addressing Medical Concerns with Power Plate

Ryan Sternagel: I don’t know if you’re going to refer folks to a medical professional, but there was one question about titanium hip replacements and cardiac stents as well.

Scott Hopson: First of all, when you talk about stents or pacemakers, they’re affected by electromagnetic waves. This is mechanical; There’s nothing electromagnetic about it. If you can walk on a treadmill—because that treadmill is plugged into the outlet, but the treadmill itself is mechanically operated—then you’re fine for a mechanical platform.

As for joint replacements, there are studies on it. Knees, hips, ACLs—everything. We know that it’s safe and effective.

In fact, if you look up the American College of Sports Medicine, one of the governing bodies around exercise with conditions, they highly recommend vibration as a training intervention following joint replacement.

I can say that because it’s been published by medical associations. I’m not saying you should do it, I’m saying that research shows, medical associations show, and governing bodies show it’s safe and effective following an implant or a joint replacement, just as it is in spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s. All of these things have been studied. What research shows is, yes—with the caveat: do you need to be in the presence of a qualified practitioner when you do it? Ultimately, let’s look at my job as a coach and a practitioner. If someone comes to me and they are cleared for weight-bearing and ground-based exercise—they can walk, they can carry, they can lift things up, they can walk on a treadmill or ride a bike—if they’re cleared for strength and cardio ground-based stuff, they’re cleared for Power Plate. That’s because they’re cleared for the responses to exercise.

It’s not the technology that’s the problem, ever. Bike, treadmill, weights, squat rack, vibration, Pilates, Reformer—it’s not the environment, it’s how your body responds to the stress of exercise.

For example, if someone has an issue with their immune system or lymphatic system, an increase in circulation could be a problem for them. Then massaging on the Power Plate would be a bad idea—not because of the Power Plate, but because their doctor has told them, “I don’t want you to stimulate your lymphatic system.” Anything that would do that is a contraindication.

The contraindications are the person’s health and response to exercise, never the technology. The list is long—from pregnancy to detached retinas. If you’ve got an acute detached retina, you won’t be jogging on a treadmill anytime soon, which means you’re not cleared.

Ryan Sternagel: That was another question.

Scott Hopson: If you’re not cleared, go to your doctor. “Am I cleared to jump up and down on the ground? Am I cleared to walk up and down steps? Am I cleared to run on a treadmill?” If the answer is no, then don’t get on a Power Plate—not because of the Power Plate, but because you’re not cleared for exercise.

It always comes back to: are you cleared for the responses to exercise? If yes, you’re fine. If not, then we need approval from whoever is your qualified practitioner. But it would be the same for any other training device too.

What it comes down to today is: are you the contraindication—meaning your health, your physiology—not the technology?

Ryan Sternagel: That’s an easy answer. That’s good. I like that.

Stacy, congratulations in advance—You’re going to be happy with yourself, that’s for sure.

Scott, do you know if they’re still offering upgrades for those who own a Personal—I take it that was a trade-in program at some point?

Scott Hopson: I’m going to say that I don’t know. I’m deliberately not involved in sales and marketing so I can have an honest conversation.

But I will say this: if you tell them you want to upgrade, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t say yes. I can’t imagine any business surviving today turning down somebody who says, “I want to give you more money for a better car” or “more money for a better whatever.” I’d imagine they’re going to say yes.

[01:06:47] Comparing Tools: Power Plate, Rebounders, and Electronic Lymphatic Drainage

Ryan Sternagel: There was one question that I forgot. Here’s an “in the weeds” question, the kind that I love. I don’t know if you’ll have an answer for it or not: “Anything to say on the efficacy of Power Plate as far as lymphatic stuff goes versus electronic lymphatic drainage versus a rebounder?”

Scott Hopson: I think you might be asking me, what do I think the differences are? Or maybe potentially, how would I say, on a continuum—what’s good, better, or best? Is that maybe what you’re going after?

Ryan Sternagel: Tell us this is the best for everything, Scott.

Scott Hopson: They’re all going to have—it’s a different stimulus for the same response, which is either I’m adding motion into your tissues, or I’m adding pressure into your tissues. It could be external pressure coming in or internal pressure pushing out. All we’re trying to do is say, “I’m creating pressure and tension in the system to stimulate circulation.” All three of those would do that. The question is, which one serves you best, given who you are and your goals?

If all I want is lymphatic drainage, that might be a different answer than, “I want lymphatic drainage plus strength, bone, recovery, pain reduction, and movement.” Then the electromagnetic stimulation is not going to give you that. For me, it’s what recipe you want. They’re all proven to have efficacy, without a doubt.

If something says, “I can give you this plus that,” that’s like saying, if you’ve got two planes going to the same place, one’s economy, one’s business class—which depends on how you want to fly; It’s that simple for me. It might be, “I want to fly business, but I can’t afford it.” Then I’m going to go economy—I still get there. But if something’s offering me business class, I’m probably interested to know what the upgrades are.

Ryan Sternagel: The electronic lymphatic drainage, that’s for lymphatic drainage. This is for everything we talked about for the last 77 minutes. Which is a lot more than lymphatic drainage.

Scott Hopson: I guess it ultimately comes down to the tool in the toolbox because if all you’ve got is a nail, then everything looks like a hammer; And the other way around if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

What I like about Power Plate is it diversifies my toolbox. It’s this plus.

[01:09:33] Power Plate vs. Micro-Impact Platforms: Comprehensive Benefits Beyond Bone Health

Ryan Sternagel: “What’s the difference between a Power Plate and a micro-impact platform?” I’m guessing that’s probably for bone.

Scott Hopson: I don’t know what that is, to be honest. I might know if I looked at it.

I’m guessing from what you said, it’s applying microdoses of force to the body so that we can stimulate osteocytes and bone formation.

Then it’s very similar in intention. However, that thing won’t also stimulate the central nervous system, it won’t stimulate the fascial system, it won’t stimulate—dot, dot, dot.

Ryan Sternagel: It’s the same answer, but this is a lot more.

[01:10:12] Understanding Microdosing: Power Plate’s Small Movements for Big Impact

Ryan Sternagel: “Do you happen to know how far it travels in millimeters?”

Scott Hopson: Up and down is the only one that you can measure, and it’s the only one that matters because if it doesn’t leave you and come back, you don’t get any of those benefits. The low amplitude is two millimeters—tiny. The high amplitude is four millimeters—still tiny, but double. Why it’s important though is, you’ve got your frequency—how many times a second, 25, 30, all the way up to 50. You multiply it by the distance it travels. Those two factors create what we call acceleration—the amount of force that you’re working against.

You can turn it up, or you can turn it down. If I’m doing mobility and flexibility work, I turn it down—I don’t need a lot of force when I’m stretching; It’s not desirable.

But if I’m doing strength training, I turn it up, because now I need load. It travels two to four millimeters—it doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s so rapid, and you do so many per 30 seconds or 60 seconds. It’s cumulative, like compound interest.

Instead of doing one big drop jump, 20 inches, you’re doing these tiny little microdoses. Every time you squat, push, lunge, or pull, you’re getting this, but at the end of that workout, it’s thousands.

Microdosing is the key. When we look at what microdosing is—from sleep hygiene to fueling, nutrition, hydration, to movement snacks—I would make a big argument that for most of humanity today, microdosing is better than these big macro doses of, “Twice a week, I’m going to be a weekend warrior at the gym and kill myself.”

I would say microdosing on a daily basis is probably habitually better for your health and mental well-being than setting yourself up for—more often than not—a failure which is not sustainable to go throw up in a bucket twice a weekend because you did high-intensity so hard that you couldn’t walk, breathe, or see straight.

Ryan Sternagel: There’s probably arguments to be made that’s less healthy than not doing that at all.

[01:12:21] Max User Weight: Power Plate Models and Their Load Capacities

Ryan Sternagel: There was one more: “Do you know of any max user weight or max weight that it can hold?”

Scott Hopson: Every plate has a different max weight. I think—I could be wrong—but I know I could find it for you, or you could go to the website. When you click on a product, it tells you the actual maximum weight limit. They range from 250 up to 500 pounds, depending on which plate you go for.

For example, the professional ones—the huge ones—they’re designed for the fact that an NFL lineman could be jumping on them all day. You don’t need that one; That will go up to 500 plus, but I think the lowest is 250. I think the Move is closer to 300 pounds. It’s easy to go on the site and click on “Technical Specs” or “Dimensions,” whatever it’s called, and it will show you the height, width, and all of that. It’ll also tell you how much it weighs and the maximum weight tolerance or load. But between 250 and 500, they all take a decent amount.

[01:13:24] Lymphedema Research: Promising Studies with the Cleveland Clinic

Ryan Sternagel: Susan, lymphedema—that’s pretty much everything we talked about with lymphatic and circulatory stimulation. It’s going to help with lymphedema as well. I don’t know if you have anything to add to that, Scott.

Scott Hopson: Oh, I do. We’re in the middle of doing multiple research studies with the Cleveland Clinic, which is one of the world’s most renowned lymphedema institutes for clinical-based research. This isn’t academic—it’s clinical. It’s real doctors, nurses, and practitioners. We’re in it right now. Research is painful; IRB approval, then they’ve got to do it, then they’ve got to write it up and submit it.

I would imagine the first study is probably going to come out in the next six to nine months, and then the second and third will come out in the next year to 18 months.

What I can tell you is they’re looking at not only comparing it to the traditional medical models of assessing and diagnosing lymphedema, which is interesting, but more importantly, clinical intervention in people’s homes.

Don’t know the results yet, but I can tell you that the Cleveland Clinic finds it so fascinating that the head of lymphedema research is doing multiple studies on it.

Given what Ryan said, it makes the physiology and principle make sense. Now we’re in the middle of a two-year process to find out what it does and doesn’t do—in people, in their homes, who can’t get to a gym because they not only have lymphedema, but you always have concurrent other things like obesity or low bone mineral with it. You never have just one thing, because all systems are connected.

I think that could be a real pivotal study in the next year or two to come out. The fact they even want to do it and are doing it shows us that some of the best brains in the area say this makes sense.

[01:15:12] Power Plate’s Widespread Use Among Elite Sports Teams and Athletes

Ryan Sternagel: “Are they used by sports teams?” I’m guessing the answer is yes.

Scott Hopson: I’ll stick to the U.S. as we’re here, but I know we’ve got a lot of internationals on. All but one of the NFL teams use it. Eighty-five percent of the NBA use it. Ninety percent of MLB use it. World Cup soccer teams, Olympic associations from Japan to China, the UK, the U.S., Brazil—they all use it.

I’ve always said it’s like the best-kept secret because the world’s best have been using it for two decades. I’m fortunate enough to be one of the guys who goes and shows them how to integrate it into physiotherapy, return-to-play protocols, performance protocols, and how to combine it with technical tactical fieldwork. I get to do that all around the world. They’ve been doing it for 20 years. You’d be shocked at how many of the world’s best have known about it.

It’s like the world’s best secret. If they’ve known about it, why haven’t we?

The difference is, at that level—both at the medical and performance level—you have practitioners who do their homework. They base their decisions on science, research, and clinical applications. Often, in the other parts of the industry, like the health and fitness industry, gyms, and studios, it’s not always the same thing. They see this device show up, but they know nothing about it. They weren’t taught about it in their education, so they give it a, “I don’t know what that is,” whereas a strength and conditioning coach or a performance coach at the Olympic Games—they know everything. They use them. That’s why we see, at the highest level of performance, great efficacy and use—because it makes sense. They’ve read the research, and they see the results.

Ryan Sternagel: What are the three baseball and basketball teams that aren’t using it? Chumps.

Scott Hopson: That’s crazy. We have a bunch of NFL teams. Years ago, we built what we call the high performance. It’s like the Move on steroids. It was about four times the size of a Move so that the big boys and the big girls could get on the plate with the extra load. Like, you could put a plate under a squat rack, for example, and now you get the best of both worlds.

Then we had to build cases because they would put them—if you watch professional teams get on the coaches and drive cross-country to play other teams—underneath the coaches, with all the gear they need: medical gear, the drugs they need to take when they’re playing with dislocations, and all their pads. There’d be stacks of Power Plates on those coaches, getting driven cross-country to Super Bowls, to World Cup finals.

Like the German national team winning a World Cup with Power Plates on the sideline. They’ve been doing it for so long. We don’t have that awareness in the commercial health and fitness industry because we’re bamboozled, unfortunately, by—I won’t even say it—but a bunch of stuff that I don’t think serves health and wellness in our industry.

Ryan Sternagel: Things out there.

[01:18:07] Using Power Plate for Limited Mobility and Everyday Movements

Ryan Sternagel: I would guess we’re going to direct to the information that PowerPlate provides, but can you direct us to a place to learn how to use PowerPlate when you can’t stand, lunge, jump, squat, and so on?

Cheryl, a lot of times, I stand on the thing, or even sit on it. Ryder, my son—I don’t know how he does it—but he likes sitting on it and reading at the same time. I can’t. But I tell him if he wants to sit down, sit down and enjoy the vibes.

Anything else to say on that, Scott?

Scott Hopson: Number one, on the app and the academy, we have programs for active aging, longevity, bone health, and fall prevention. We’re talking about populations where people are saying, “Hey, I can’t do what I perceive as exercise the way most people describe it.”

When I say squat—if you are on this call and you use the toilet every day—you sit down and stand up; That’s a squat. If you get in your chair and stand up, that’s a squat. If you get in the car and get out, that’s a squat. And, in different directions, getting in and out of the car is movement.

When I say squat, I mean sit down and stand up. If you can do that, whatever you would do on the ground, you would do on the plate. If that’s balancing on a single leg, stepping down off the plate, or getting back up, it all applies.

We have a whole movement library around this stuff. We have programs for it. You can have your one-on-one session for free, so people can help guide you on how to use it.

I’ll tell you this—the studies, testimonies, and videos you’ll see on the PowerPlate website around spinal cord injuries, quadriplegia, and paraplegia—these are people who are likely a lot less capable of ambulation than us on this call, and they’re using it.

Children with cerebral palsy, where they can’t even be in quadruped—meaning they can’t be on their hands and knees without their face going into the floor—are using it, and they’re improving.

There are no barriers. The simple answer is that whatever you do on the ground now, you can do it on the PowerPlate and turn it up. If you want more specific programs, they’ve got those too.

I can’t recall a time when someone couldn’t use it unless weight-bearing exercise was a contraindication. By exercise, if you get on the toilet and get off, you’re exercising. If you’re getting in and out of the bath, you’re exercising. We give these things silly names in the industry—like a squat or a deadlift. Did you bend down and pick up your groceries? That’s a deadlift. Did you pick something up off the ground? That’s a deadlift. If you take out the exercise names, the chances are, you’re already exercising and don’t even know it.

Ryan Sternagel: Quadruple. I said my one regret was not getting it sooner. One of my best friends from childhood was a quadriplegic—or became quadriplegic later in life—and he passed away this last year. That was my biggest regret, not thinking to get him on that sooner.

(Sorry to dampen the call.)

Scott Hopson: That’s not dampening at all; That’s human.

Ryan Sternagel: Cheryl: “Doesn’t it jiggle his…?” I don’t know. I think when he sits down and reads, it’s on the lowest setting. I don’t think he does it at the highest.

[01:21:27] Blood Clots and Power Plate: The Importance of Exercise Clearance

Ryan Sternagel: “Anything to say about blood clots, Scott?”

Scott Hopson: Two things. First of all, what I already said—if you, for example, are told: because of your blood clots, don’t ride a stationary bike; because of your blood clots, don’t do strength training; because of your blood clots, don’t you dare go for a massage—because your clots are a contraindication to that circulation, then don’t use the PowerPlate because it’s the same thing. It increases circulation, and muscle pump—even more so.

So the answer is, if you’re cleared to do movements and exercise that will increase blood flow and potentially push those clots around because of muscle pump action, then you’re fine to use it.

If you’re not cleared for that, it’s your physiology that’s the contraindication to exercise—not the technology.

Ryan Sternagel: Fair enough. It always comes back to whether you are cleared for exercise or not.

Scott Hopson: It does. What’s funny is, like what we know today—10 or 15 years ago, they would have said, “Don’t you dare do it.” Now, we’re like, “It’d be nice if you did it.” Like exercising while pregnant—if you’ve got all kinds of problems, hyperemesis, or whatever, then you’re probably not cleared for a lot of forms of exercise. If you’re healthy and were exercising before you got pregnant, you can run a marathon eight months pregnant.

What we used to say before is, “Ah, maybe,” but we’ve changed our opinion. When we look at these health contraindications—blood clots, detached retinas—it freezes us into, “Oh my gosh, that’s got to be a hard stop.” It might be.

Are you cleared to do A and B—ground-based cardio, ground-based strength because that’s going to increase circulation, it’s going to create muscle pump, it’s going to increase blood pressure—all those things; That’s what exercise does. Exercise increases blood pressure so that afterward it decreases it. It increases heart rate so that afterward it decreases it.

If you’re someone who’s told, “Don’t increase your heart rate,” then exercise is a problem, period. That’s what we know today. It sounds simple, but it’s the truth. If you don’t know, you need the clearance.

[01:23:40] Closing Thoughts: Transformative Benefits of Power Plate for Health and Wellness

Ryan Sternagel: I think that might do it, Scott. I was thinking ahead to my Instagram post about all of this—what was the equivalent of how many minutes on a bike was 20 or 25 minutes on the plate equal to?

Scott Hopson: Oh, they started at 16 and moved up to 90 minutes of steady-state cardio.

Then, in the other group that did their 15 to 25 minutes of vibration—because it progressed over time—they had the same uptake in VO2.

VO2, we know what that is. If you’re a bit of a fitness geek or whatever, VO2 is the standard benchmark for improving your aerobic capacity. The idea that you did aerobic work and I did some movements on the PowerPlate and they got the same result—that was crazy.

What’s great is it was in an older population too, who can’t go out and do 90 minutes of steady-state cardio all the time. I found it fascinating.

There are so many studies like that like Speed work—they’ve compared vibration to so many other forms and modalities and found very often we’re getting the same results.

Ryan Sternagel: They were doing some sort of—they weren’t just standing there.

Scott Hopson: They were doing their movements like again, squats, sit down, stand up. Sometimes they would sit down and hold it—it could be what we call isometric work, single-leg balance work, planks, whatever. They had probably five to six movements they would do; One to three sets of it progressed over time. It would have started at 30 seconds and then went up to 60. We’ve got multiple sets—all that usual program design.

The good and bad thing about research is they have to keep the program so basic so they can eliminate any other factors of influence.

They’re not programs you would necessarily do at home or the gym. You’d be like, “Okay, that was good for research, but that’s not how I’m going to use it at home,” because after about two weeks, you’ll be bored. You’ll have adapted and need something else. It shows what it shows. I could send you the paper; It’s an older one. It was probably a good 10–12 years ago. I thought after that, we’d see it explode in health and wellness literature and media. It gets buried because, like I said, there are other agendas that are a little bit more prevalent.

Ryan Sternagel: They don’t want you to know. All good stuff, Scott. I think that might do it.

Everybody, again, this is not the first health and healing device we’ve talked about on these deep-dive webinars, and it won’t be the last, but it’s one of my favorites, as you can see, for a whole big, long list of reasons, and the way it makes you feel at the end of the day—I love our light therapy devices and things of that nature, and sauna makes you feel great too, but nothing quite as pronounced as a few minutes on the good old PowerPlate; It’s pretty amazing.

Good deal, Scott. Thanks for coming to talk about health, healing, and whole-body vibration with us. It’s been fun.

Scott Hopson: Thanks for having me. That was fun. It was a good conversation.

Ryan Sternagel: Until next time, everybody. See ya.