What do chiropractic adjustments do
As a Chiropractor for over 27 years a lot of information I’ve seen about chiropractic adjustments has been misleading or just plain... Read Article
If you have cellulite marketing like this can give the impression that foam rolling will be a great help. The reality is that at best foam rolling will give you a slight temporary improvement in the appearance of your cellulite. It will not give you any significant long term changes, and certainly will not have you looking like the marketing pics.
The good news is that there is one easy to apply form of self massage that clinical trials show does give excellent lasting results. In this article we’ll show you:
To put it simply, treatments such as foam rolling only temporarily squeeze fluid from the tissues and maybe flatten them a bit. It does nothing to reduce the amount or size of the fat cells that cause the cellulite tissue to be enlarged and have it’s dimpled appearance. Details follow.
If we look at the pic comparing normal tissue and cellulite we will see that the main problem is that the fat cells have enlarged, causing the tissue to expand and bulge out. This is caused by increased fat being deposited. It increases the size of the fat cells and gives cellulite it's dimpled appearance.
In the pic above we also see that those cells are surrounded by fluid and encased in strong connective tissue pouches. Foam rolling (and other forms of fluid reduction such as lymphatic drainage) help squeeze out some of the fluid from around the cells and may also mechanically flatten some of the tissues like a steam roller. This will temporarily improve the appearance, but the fluid will gradually seep back in, and the elasticity of the flattened tissues will cause them to “bounce back”. In other words it’s a matter of time before everything returns to the way it was.
You may read that foam rolling (and some of the other therapies) help increase circulation. They do, and as we discuss next increasing circulation is very important, but the amount and duration of any increase is too small to have a significant long term effect.
We will give an overview of how scientists have actually reduced the size and improved the appearance of cellulite long term. In this section.
Scientists have found that fat accumulates in cellulite tissue because the circulation in these tissues is poor (1). Your body stores excess energy as fat, but when it needs it the poor circulation means that it is not efficiently reabsorbed. The fat gets absorbed from the parts with good circulation, but left in the areas of poor circulation.
The way scientists successfully reduced cellulite in clinical trials is by regularly applying massage that increases circulation. This allows the body to normally reabsorb the excess fat, reducing the size of the cellulite part and improving it’s appearance.
For your body to re-absorb excess fat the circulation needs to be maintained over a long period of time, but massages only increase circulation for a limited time. This means the massages must be regularly repeated. Many trials used daily massages for weeks or months. This would be very expensive if using a professional therapist, which is why our ideal way uses self massage.
The key difference between the way the scientists have done it and the way foam rollers are said to help by improving circulation are:
For your reference we have summarised the results of the clinical trials in the appendix and have pasted a table of data below from one of the trials showing the reduction in size of patients hips, thighs and waist.
In this section we will show you:
The following three types of conventional massage were used. They all had roughly similar results.
Most professional massage therapists would use a combination of one or more of these therapies. However, because of the large number of applications needed the cost would be prohibitive.
Some studies applied vibration massage using a vibration platform. These are usually used by people standing on them, but the scientists used them to directly apply the vibration. In other words people did things like sit on them to directing apply vibration to their backsides.
Vibration platforms are not designed to be used like this so they are not optimised to directly apply the best vibration to increase circulation. Therefore, there are better options, but if you have one the scientists found that they help.
Vibration platforms are marketed as a help for cellulite. However, the intended use is to stand on them while you do exercises. Your muscles work harder to maintain balance so you will burn more calories, which will help reduce your total amount of fat. However, practically speaking just standing on vibration plates does not increase circulation so "normal" usage is for weight loss rather than specifically targeting cellulite.
Massage chairs were successfully used in some of clinical trials. They are expensive, take up a lot of room, and it is hard to specifically apply vibration to parts of your body such as the front of your thighs. Also, their vibration frequency is usually not optimum to increase circulation. However, if you have one the scientists found that they helped, and you can easily sit relaxed having a massage while watching your favourite TV show.
Vibration using massage chairs and vibration plates were successfully used in several of the trials. While they are convenient do improve circulation they are not optimised for doing this. The machines built for this purpose are the genuine vibration massagers used by health care professionals. These are suitable for self use, and better optimised for increasing circulation because:
In this section section we will look at:
Vibration massagers are therapeutic devices used by professionals. They have a vibration pad that is optimised deliver the therapeutic vibrations that are ideal to increase circulation. The picture shows a professional model.
Basically you just sit the machine on where you want to massage and let the vibrations soak in, however this video shows the precautions and how to make it easier and more effective.
You will need a genuine therapeutic vibration massager. Unfortunately most of the vibrating massagers you can buy will be inadequate for the purpose because do not deliver serious amounts of vibration at the right frequencies. For more information please see Why most massagers are a waste of money , and How to choose a massager . In particular you need to avoid the following.
These are designed to drive their heads into your muscles rather that deliver therapeutic vibrations. Because of this:
These are not serious therapeutic machines. They are usually underpowered and their mechanisms not suitable to deliver enough vibrations.
A few years ago when we were looking for a suitable vibration massager for our Chiropractic patients to use at home the only serious vibration massagers we found were professional machines made for colleagues to use on their patients, not for the public. Massagers built for the public were all ineffective machines as described above. Because of this we built our own, and now supply them to colleagues (for their own use and for patients), and supply them direct via our website. For more information please see the video or the links below.
General Purpose Massager
Ultimate Quad Head Massager
Scientific studies have shown that 30 hz (cycles per second) vibration will increase circulation, but 50 hz will give you a bigger and more longer lasting increase (2). This means that you need to apply vibration at approximately 50 Hz. Many machines give their specifications as revolutions per minute (rpm). That is 3000 rpm. Please note that:
In the trials longer applications such as 30-60 minutes were used. However, it would be much more effective to uses several applications a day of a few minutes each. The reason we say this is that studies show that when 50 hz vibration is applied the circulation will rise to the much higher level in about two minutes. When the vibration stops circulation gradually decreases back to normal over about 30 minutes. Therefore, each time you apply the massager for a few minutes you will get 30 minutes of residual increase in circulation.
For your body to re-absorb excess fat the circulation needs to be maintained over a long period of time, but massages only increase circulation for a limited time. This means changes will be gradual and the massages must be regularly repeated. Many trials used daily massages for weeks or months. This would be very expensive if using a professional therapist, which is why our ideal way uses self massage.
We have seen massage gun advocates claim that their machines disperse fat cells or break them up so they can be reabsorbed.
DrGraeme massagers were originally built by Dr Graeme for use in his clinic, and to prescribe to his patients for additional self use at home. Now these are used by colleagues and other professionals for similar purposes. If you are a professional and wish to know more about this therapy, or possibly get a sample massager to trial please check out our practitioner page.
Trial |
What they did |
Results |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
30 or 60 minutes vibration daily for three weeks |
Reduced grading+ of cellulite |
||
Used 17.5-46 Hz vibrations for 30 or 60 minutes a day for three weeks |
Reduced grading+ of cellulite. Increased skin temperature |
Sub optimal vibrations |
|
15x 30 or 60 minutes locally applied 18-39 Hz |
Reduced grading+ of cellulite, increased skin temperature |
Sub optimal vibrations |
|
24 weeks of using hand held vibration wand. |
Visual improvement |
Used a device marketed as a cellulite wand, but no where near a serious therapeutic device. |
|
15 applications of 18-39 Hz vibration over three weeks. |
Decreased symptoms. Increased skin hydration. |
Sub optimal vibrations |
|
4 weeks of 17.5-46.5 Hz vibrations |
Decreased measurements for thighs, hips and waist |
Vibrations only 0.5mm so extremely poor penetration |
|
10 sessions of whole body vibration |
Increased skin temperature |
||
Tested three types of conventional massage++ |
All gave a reduction in sub-cutaneous fat |
Professionals would likely combine all three for excellent results |
|
NOTES: |
For research or description cellulite is graded as follows. Where the grades were reduced in the trials that means that the cellulite improved.
We are continually adding more information on research and uses. Subscribe below to have us email them to you "hot off the press".
Several years ago Dr Graeme, a Chiropractor practicing in Victoria, Australia was looking for a serious hand held massager his patients could use at home to get the extra quality massage they needed. The ones he found in the shops and on-line for home use looked nice but were not serious, and... read more
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