JTX Fitness Expert Interviewed for 'How To Lose Weight and Keep It Off'

We were delighted to see our Fitness Consultant Dan Meredith interviewed for the TV programme 'How to lose weight and keep it off'. Vibration plates can be an incredibly effective form of exercise. Watch the video of Dan sharing his vibration training tips below.

Still have more questions about vibration training? Find out more about how vibration plates work here.

Fitness Video Transcript

My name’s Dan Meredith, I’ve been in the fitness industry on and off for about 12 years now. I’ve worked as a personal trainer, fitness consultant, speaker in the fitness industry; I’m now working with JTX Fitness as a fitness consultant.

JTX Fitness is a fitness brand, we predominantly sell vibration plates / oscillation plates as well as other fitness equipment such as treadmills and cross trainers. We’re able to be very competitive on price unlike some of our competitors due to the fact we don’t pass anything onto middle men or the shops, we sell directly to the consumer.

In a nutshell vibration plates are a simple was of increasing the intensity and the workload of your training, what you do and exercise by vibration. So the human body accepts vibration at between 30 and 50 hertz so it basically allows your body to contract that many times a second whilst you’re stood on the plate so if you’re if you’re doing a press up position or a squat position for example it makes that contraction happen 50 times a second when you’re doing that exercise.

The technology originally came from the space programme in the soviet union it was designed by a scientist in Russia to help their cosmonauts lose less muscle mass and bone density when they’re in space and they found it actually worked as they planned and the Russian cosmonauts were able to stay in space much longer than the American ones so it’s adapted from space age technology for want of a better word. It’s obviously very easy to have in a small area of space and you’re able to have every bit of exercise done. The main things are it obviously improves the intensity of the work out so you can get more done in less time, which is one of the key factors of it and you can do short 15 - 30 minute sessions supposed to hour, hour and half sessions, it improves bone density, it improves circulation, it helps to reduce body fat, there’s been quite a few studies that have shown it can reduce abdominal fat in trained people and in untrained people, and it’s also good for injury, rehab and massage too.

It can be as difficult as you make it so the machines are set so you can have different frequencies you can make it from basically easy to hard, you can have different intensities so the amplitude it actually vibrates at so you can change it depending on your goal. So it can be relatively easy if you’re a new comer, you can make it very hard if you’re an athletic person so it’s really down to the individual. I mean there are gyms around the country that do have them and various studios, but the main benefit of a vibration plate is the fact you can have it in your own home, so a lot of people, a lot of my clients when I was a personal trainer didn’t like necessarily being in a gym environment with other people around, you can have one of these in your home, put it in the corner near a plug it’s as simple as that so you’ve got no real excuse not to train which is the only down side I’d say.

As a personal trainer, when they first came out I was a little bit sceptical of them, however the large body of research out there showing they do work I started to integrate them into my clients routines and did see beneficial results. It’s like anything, if you rely on one modality for too long your body will adapt so I advise people to mix in using vibration training, resistance training, cardiovascular training as well as a good diet, healthy nutrition so on and so forth to get the best results. There’s no one thing that will give you the miracle body, it’s a combination effect but the vibration technology can go a long way to helping you get to where you need to be. A lot of the big issues I’ve come across in my fitness experience is that people are either really happy to do a diet, they’ll spend ages planning it and following it and sticking to it to the letter or they’ll train five/six times a week but they won’t often put the two together so trying to get someone to improve their eating and improve their exercise at the same time is probably the hardest things, trying to get those two together because they work best when they’re done together. You will lose weight on a diet and you will lose weight just training however you put the two together they work far far more effectively I’ve found over the years. I’ve found that if you just try to change one thing a month so for example, just adding in breakfast or putting in a extra session at the gym it’s far more easy to stick to that suddenly changing lifestyle, eating habits, training habits, sleeping habits all in one go. It’s all very well having those good intentions but actually sticking to them, most people do fall by the way side after a few weeks.

The best tip I say is to make a list of goals plan it over six months and try and just change one of those goals each month so as you slowly integrate it into your life its less of a shock to the system and before you know it those habits have been formed and you stick with them. OK five top tips I’ve advise anyone to integrate into their training, sounds like a unusual one but its one most people miss, try and get breakfast every day. There have been loads of studies saying that those people who have breakfast every day are generally leaner, healthier and have less fat on them. It’s just a really simple tips, put five minutes a side for yourself in the morning no matter how you do it, get out of bed five minutes earlier if you have to, get it ready the night before, have some breakfast that’s one of the first top tips I’ll always get people doing when they start any sort of training programme. Secondly a really good thing you can do is switch out fizzy drinks and high caffeinated beverages for water, fruit teas so on and so forth and have snacks available to have so when you get that energy lull and you do feel it having things like fresh fruit, nuts on hand, I always tell my clients if possible to always have a little box of fruits and nuts that they like in their desk at work, in their car if you’re feeling like you’re hungry or going to grab a chocolate bar grab a handful of that, get yourself a glass of water you’ll be amazed, twenty minutes later you feel full. It’s a really simple way of avoiding some of the bad snacks. Try and seek out the advice of an exercise professional there are a lot of good trainers out there, there are a lot of good gyms there’s a lot of good information on the internet. Do your research, find someone who can help you find a company who can assist you with your goals they love talking about fitness they’re often very passionate about it, very into it themselves, they’ve often trained an awful many years themselves so seek someone out who knows what they’re talking about and get them to put you on the right path. Another key area I advise people to do is not just to stick to one thing, so combine resistance training and cardiovascular training you find a lot of people who are really set in their ways and like doing a certain type, a lot of guys who only want to do weights or a lot of ladies who only want to do just classes and cardio but mixing those two together you’d be amazed at the benefits and results so don’t be afraid to put in resistance training, vibration training, core work, posture work, cardiovascular work so having a nice mix will make you an all round better healthy person. Finally the key thing I can say to people is just to eat as healthy as possible I know that sounds really patronizing and it sounds so easy just to say it when I’m sat here, consume lean protein, good quality vegetables, lean pulses and rice’s and consume as much water as your feel comfortable with throughout the day will go a long way towards helping you have a happier healthier fitter life. Try and avoid processed food as much as possible if it comes in a packet, if it’s colored funnily, if it’s fizzy generally as a rule it’s not natural so if you can limit the intake of those foods, I’m not saying don’t have them but just slowly start to limit them in your diet and increase more of the healthy food you’ll be amazed at the effect on your body.