Also, read my recent comments under the Acceleration heading. I just looked and Power Plate still has David Nieman listed as a PhD and heading the Power Plate Research Center (at Appalachian State). Nieman is a “doctor of public health” (DPH) and not a PhD. I just spoke with Dr. Jeff McBride Mon. McBride is a colleague of Nieman’s. McBride and Nieman did a grand total of two studies on Power Plate at the “Power Plate Research Center” at Appalachian State and don’t have plans to do anymore studies on Power Plate according to Dr. McBride. So, if Power Plate is so great why can’t they be honest on their website? This is just the latest in a long line of ethical issues. Why don’t you tell the Power Plate marketers to “pull their heads out” and correct the information they currently have about Nieman and the Power Plate Research Center on their website? Do all the marketing folks at Power Plate have IQ’s below room temperature? They must because I catch them on this stuff repeatedly!

Bella
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It would be interesting to know how members of Power Plate’s Sports Medicine Advisory Board are being compensated? One member of this board (Mark Verstegen) and his company Athletes’ Performance (AP) have been corporate partners with Power Plate for some time. This raises conflict of interest issues. Mark, as far as I know, has never revealed what Power Plate is paying him/AP. He certainly won’t tell me as I have called him numerous times.

One thing Mark/AP are doing with their corporate partner Power Plate is featuring this equipment in coreperformance centers they are opening. This is kind of how the marketing thing works I guess? It seems to be tied to $. I know Mark complexes Power Plate exercises with resistance training exercises for neural potentiation. Does this work? A scientist friend of mine who does not have financial ties to Power Plate completed a pilot study looking at this in college track & field throwers and saw virtually nothing. They will do more studies. Also, an MD told me on the phone he will not use vibration as a neural potentiation right prior to squats because it alters kinesthesia. So, at least some of Power Plate being integrated into fitness routines appears to be mainly based on marketing and not scientific evidence showing Power Plate protocols to be beneficial for aspects such as neural potentiation.

Our studio has not seen any drop off in clientelle, in fact we are ahead of the same period last year.

Quality of service and equipment, which leads to postive results, are essential factors for survival during tough times

We can’t sit here and pretend its just PowerPlate thats hurting. The whole fitness industry in general is tanking. Busy Body who distributed Power Plate and at one time the Ironman resulotion went under closing over 100 stores. Now many of the smaller independantly owned fitness stores are not making sales which is forcing them to slowly shut their doors. When those retailers start sinking, they stop paying their supplying manufacturer. It’s a trickle up effect here.

I know several stores that have gone BK here and not paid vendors like PowerPlate hundreds of thousands that they owed them.

Its going to be interesting to see how many of these big companies survive.