My Mom & Her Vibration Exercise

Jay Tang 10/23/2020

As a huge advocator of vibration therapy, I certainly did not leave my 87 years old mom alone. However, I had big concern asking her to use my vibration plate because she had half of her right knee meniscus removed when she was 40 yo. Her knees have been very stiff. I was afraid that vibration would further damage her cartilage.

Last October (2019) when I visited her in Kunming, I brought her my VT003F vibration plate and persuaded her to give it a try. I believed the risk is controllable through slow pace progress and close obversation.

I had her to start with shallow squat exercise on VT003F, setting to 15Hz and low amplitude, 3 minutes a time, once a day.

After two days, she told me the vibration caused pain at around her right knee area. I asked her to take a break and try again.

Two weeks later after she felt the pain was completely gone, she tried the vibration exercise again. After a couple of sessions she got the same pain, which took another two weeks to relieve.

After these bad experiences, she refused to use the vibration plate again.

My mom told me that she got popping or cracking sound from her knee during the vibration. She was really afraid of that sound. I did research on the possible reasons about the sound, but I got no conclusion. As I was already back to the States, I could not see by myself what she experienced.

In February, because of the Covid-19 epidemic, most cities in China were locked down. People were requested to stay home. I was afraid of mom not getting enough physical exercise, so I called her and persuaded her to use the vibration plate again, only one minute a time, twice a day, and she did.

The one-minute vibration exercise session worked well. She did not report any pain. After about two weeks, she told me she was back to 3 minutes session and did not feel any pain. She said she was able to somehow control her muscles to avoid the popping (or cracking) sound from her knees.

I kept asking her if she felt her knees and legs are stronger after vibration exercises. She said she did not feel much a difference. One day she told me that she kind of felt easier up and down the stairs recently. Mom lives on the 3^rd floor of a condo building that does not have an elevator.

Anyway, the fact that her body was trained to endure some mechanical impact from vibration was a good thing.

Now she could do a full 10-minute session on VT003F @ 15Hz, low amplitude setting.

One day I asked her to try to squat a little lower. I thought that would improve her knee stiffness. However, that caused pain and popping sound again… Then I decided to let her to decide her own pace. I believe she will gradually progress to higher vibration intensity, building stronger muscles and easing her stiffness.

Mom has been fighting with serious bone loss issue for decades. She suffered compression fracture on a couple of her vertebrate bones 30 years ago. My goal is to get her gradually progress to 30 Hz and perform light-duty deadlift exercise on VT003F. I think that will enhance her lower back muscles, and help with her vertebrate bone density.

I have high hope for my mom using vibration exercise to improve her muscle and bone strength, balance, and mobility, for a better life quality.

About My Mom

Tomorrow mom will be celebrating her 88 year’s birthday. We are blessed that she is in good health condition at this age, except for her serious macular degeneration problem that affected her reading and watching TV.

Mom loves reading. My niece got her a big iPad. My brother installed an OCR-to-voice app, so she can take picture of her books and let the app to read for her. She is always a happy lady, always has peace in her mind.

Mom insists to live independently in her own condo in Kunming. She does grocery shopping and cooking all by herself. My sister and brother often come to help for other shopping and housekeeping. Salute!

I am proud of my mom. In her youth, she and her sisters and brothers had a very harsh time. Their father was purged during the revolution. Due to this family background, life was never easy for her from 1950's to 1970's. Her way of fighting for the life was working hard and being considerate, which is always her teaching on us.

Before her retirement, mom was the chief engineer of Yunnan Light Industry Institute. She designed and implemented the construction of many sugarcane mills in Yunnan province, and some projects in Myanmar. Because of this job, my family was never short of sugar when it was subject to ration in the 1970’s.

Mom enjoyed her retirement life by travelling around China and visiting many other countries.

In 2012, she stayed 6 months with us in Minnesota and celebrated her 80’s birthday here. We had a good opportunity to show her around the States during her stay.

Tomorrow she will be 88. Happy Birthday Mom!

Jay Tang

About

Interpreting life science from an engineering perspective.