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Specifications for the Perfect
Rebounder
Most important for excellent rebounding is the mat
material.
It should give no stretch during the downward landing, while at the
same time providing a resilient rebound. Such a mat will be made from
Permatron ®
material, which has a smooth finish. The
Permatron®
is resistant to ultraviolet rays, doesn't break down as do other fabrics, and
allows no moisture absorption. Part of the specifications for a perfect rebounder is that its mat will be sewn together using 5760 stitches of
high-grade nylon thread with two layers of strong polypropylene webbing stitched
around the mat's edges.
Attached to a heavy-grade, all steel round frame
should be an oversize spring mechanism holding four-inch-long, custom-made jumbo
springs which deliver a soft bounce. Thirty-six springs made of quality wire
will hold the mat to the frame. The springs should be shielded by a protective
cover. Individual spring mounting pins prevent frame wear. Tapered coils help to
give extended wear ability to such springs. (Un-tapered coils allow low-quality
springs to break frequently, requiring replacement.) Replacement springs must be
available directly from the manufacturer since retail distributors seldom stock
spare springs.
To jump for health,
rebounding devices that exhibit
all of these features of excellence I've been describing are the Needak ®
Soft-Bounce™ rebounders. They meet all of these
specifications for the ideal rebounding device.”
T he
complete text of Dr. Walker’s article is outlined below.
Dr. Morton Walker
Article Published in
"Townsend Letter for Doctors"
Featuring NEEDAK® Rebounders
In the spring of 1981, 28-year old Samuel J. Kofsky of Manchester, New Hampshire, a
Ph.D. candidate attending the School of Economics at Dartmouth University, lay in a
Hanover, New Hampshire hospital room, recovering from the surgical excision of an apparent
cyst.
Soon after the operation, his surgeon and an oncologist entered the room and walked
hesitantly to the foot of the patient's bed.
The surgeon said, "Sam, I don't want to
shock you, but our hospital pathology department reports that your biopsy shows you have a
connective tissue cancer. It's a rare form of fibrosarcoma, which develops suddenly from
small bumps on the skin like what I thought was your cyst. Sam, I'm sorry to tell you that
there's an 80% chance it will take your life within four years."
The oncologist had come along to confirm the young man's diagnosis and prognosis.
Then he suggested further treatment.Soon Sam Kofsky found himself
faced with daily radiation therapy and then intravenous chemotherapy which the
late Senator Hubert H. Humphrey had once referred to during a TV interview as
"bottled death!"
For graduate student it was
devastating treatment routine. He felt that his body being assaulted, burned,
and poisoned.
To sustain himself through chemotherapy, and to believe that he was doing something
positive to help himself, Mr. Kofsky took up exercise of the aerobic type. Aerobics is the
steady state of exercising which, when performed over a period of months or years,
develops the cardiopulmonary system's ability to take in and utilize more oxygen.
This
elevated amount of "oxygen uptake" increases cellular metabolism of oxygen
molecules as nutrients. Besides competitive team sports such as football, basketball,
racquetball and tennis, aerobic exercises include speed walking, running, sustained
jogging, swimming, rowing, bicycle riding, calisthenics performed in a specific time
frame, and rope jumping.
As it happens, Mr. Kofsky became intrigued
with rebounding, which is similar to jumping rope except that it's performed on a kind of
mini-trampoline (see Photograph 1).
Since the jumping surface
of a
rebounding device has cushioning spring to it, any jarring to one's ankle joints,
knees, and back is removed. While rebounding, too, a person can work out outdoors or
indoors and simultaneously speak on the telephone, watch television, listen to music, and
do other things.
Jumping on the mini-trampoline is the ultimate aerobic exercise
able to
be performed anywhere, even in hotel rooms with a carryon, foldable-type rebounding device
As he was being treated with toxic chemicals, Mr. Kofsky engaged in
rebounding
for his health several hours every day, including 60 minutes before breakfast,
lunch and dinner.
Whenever possible, he carried his
rebounding device out-of-doors to bound under the trees. Also he ate a
nutritious diet, took supplements, and engaged in other exercises for diversity.
At regular intervals he swam a full mile at the local health club, furiously
punched the heavy bag, and ran a consistent six-minute mile over a ten-mile
course.
His weight plummeted 36 pounds from a high
of 193 not from cancer, but from his strenuous amount of daily exercising.
The exercise was good psychologically for
Mr. Kofsky, since so much activity had him believing that he was "winning" his
battle against cancer.
Philosopher Michael Novak has described winning as "a form of
thumbing one's nose, for a moment, at the cancers and diseases that, in the end, strike
down all of us."
The patient pushed himself harder each day. By the end of a year, he
had doubled his daily rebounding time and was seemingly able to go into a meditative state
even as he bounced on the device. Mr. Kofsky additionally increased the number of swimming
laps, miles run, and time punching the bag. He gained a new confidence.
Since he needed to research his Ph.D.
thesis, later the student was forced to drop back on his two more time-consuming sports at
the gym and swimming pool.
But he never diminished the amount of his jumping for health,
because he travelled with a portable rebounder which folded into its own airplane carryon
bag.
I met Sam Kofsky 120 feet below the ocean's
surface at Grand Cayman Island when we buddied during a morning scuba dive on the North
Wall's underwater drop off. Returning aboard our dive boat, he enthusiastically told me of
his involvement with rebounding. I told him then of my having authored a book on the same
subject.
We met often during that vacation trip and spoke about other alternative methods
of healing. Our conversations took place in January 1995, and we've stayed in touch since. Kofsky, now age forty-two, had already lived well past his prior dire prognosis. He
attributed the circumstance of his thriving to his jumping for health and life.
The same time that he took chemotherapy and
engaged in his prolonged exercise therapy, the Dartmouth student finished his doctoral
thesis. He is now an assistant professor of economics at a midwestern university.
Dr. Kofsky needs no chemicals for cancer and feels fitter than ever today. Perhaps the
malignancy still lurks somewhere in his body, for once cancer has been present the
potential for its return always remains. Still, this economics professor knows that he has
fought it off the best way he could. Dr. Kofsky continues to rebound and participate in
other sports activities.
Rebounding Benefits the Body in
30 Healthful ways
Rebounding is an exercise that reduces your
body fat; firms your legs, thighs, abdomen, arms, and hips; increases your agility;
improves your sense of balance; strengthens your muscles over all; provides an aerobic
effect for your heart; rejuvenates your body when it's tired, and generally puts you in a
state of health and fitness.
You can easily perform this exercise in your
living room, your office, and your yard. The traveler may wish to carry a portable rebounder
aboard an
airliner for use in a hotel room. It's the most convenient, metabolically
effective form of exercise around.
How Rebound Exercise
Accomplishes Its Benefits
Rebounding involves aerobic movements
performed on a bouncing device that looks like a small trampoline. It has you jumping up
and down for health and fitness. As an ideal jumping device, the mini-trampoline or
"rebounder," has a strong woven mat attached by coiled steel springs to a
circular steel frame.
The rebounder
usually is round, although some models have been made
oval, rectangular, square or polygonal. The entire jumping surface of the mat is
twenty-eight inches in diameter, stands on six legs with spring coils of their own, which
are seven to nine inches high.
Sometimes, for people who feel unsteady on
their feet or for the elderly, handicapped, and disabled, a stabilizing bar may be added
to the rebounder's frame (see Photograph 2). It's attached to
two of the frame's legs so that the individual needing more security can hold onto this
bar and still bounce aerobically.
In jumping on a well-made rebounder, the
exerciser usually feels invigorated and filled with a sense of well-being.
People who rebound find they're able to
work longer, sleep better, and feel less tense and nervous. The effect is not
just psychological, because the action of bouncing up and down against gravity,
without trauma to the musculoskeletal system, is one of the most beneficial
aerobic exercises ever developed.
Rebounding aerobics is working with gravity
to cleanse your tissue cells and act as an oxygenator, which, in turn, lightens the load
on the heart. Also it's fun to bounce!
Much more than fun, however,
rebounding
provides a number of physiological pick-me-ups for the person who sustains this
activity for at least ten minutes, four times a day, or for a single daily
session for 40 minutes.
As you bounce, your feet hit the mat with
twice the force of gravity.
Then just as the astronauts experience while
floating in space, your body is in a state of weightlessness at the top of the
bounce.
Jumping on the mini-trampoline is remarkably
un-strenuous on the Joints. There's no solid ground to suddenly stop the bouncing of your
feet. Your movements are perfectly safe, and they make the effect of gravity beneficial.
By working against constant gravitational pressure while bouncing, you resist the Earth's
pull. Your resistance is subtle, but it builds cellular strength. Rebounding's alternating
weightlessness and doublegravity produce a pumping action which pulls out waste products
from the cells and forces into them, oxygen and nutrition from the bloodstream.
Jumping's Oxygenating Effect
If you have a resting heart rate of less
than 60 beats a minute, don't smoke, don't have chest pain, live a healthful lifestyle,
and engage in rebounding for 40 minutes or more each day, at least five days a week,
theoretically it's not likely that you'll ever develop a heart problem if you have none
now. Jumping on a rebounder helps you to attain your heart rate target zone every day
that
you rebound for the recommended 40 minutes.
Rebound exercise strengthens your heart in
two ways: It improves the tone and quality of the muscle itself, and it increases the
coordination of the fibers as they wring blood out of the heart during each beat. The
aerobic effect while you are rebound-jumping equals and often surpasses that of running.
Your rate of
rebounding will vary, depending
on how vigorously you bounce and how high you lift your feet off the mat. Rebound exercise
offers the ideal aerobic effect with almost any rate of performance, because it fills all
the requisites of an oxygenating exercise. It's likely that the vast amount of oxygen
taken in by Dr. Samuel Kofsky over a sustained period was the true source of his cancer
remission. Rebounding might be considered a precursor movement for better achieving the
oxygen therapies.
|
Rebounding offers a less stressful means of reducing body fat
and
simultaneously firming body tissues. Running in place on the rebounder burns calories
effectively. According to a person's body weight, Table A shows how
many calories from running on the rebounder may be expended per specified period of time
in minutes. |
Table A
Total Calories Spent Per Minutes of Running on the Rebounder
(1) |
|
Lbs. Body Weight |
90 |
100 |
110 |
120 |
130 |
140 |
150 |
160 |
170 |
180 |
190 |
|
1 Min. |
2.9 |
3.4 |
3.9 |
4.4 |
4.9 |
5.4 |
6.0 |
6.5 |
7.0 |
7.5 |
8.0 |
|
5 Min. |
14.5 |
17.0 |
19.5 |
22.0 |
24.5 |
27.0 |
30.0 |
32.5 |
35.0 |
37.5 |
40.0 |
|
10 Min. |
29.0 |
34.0 |
39.0 |
44.0 |
49.0 |
54.0 |
60.0 |
65.0 |
70.0 |
75.0 |
80.0 |
|
15 Min. |
43.5 |
51.0 |
58.5 |
66.0 |
73.5 |
81.0 |
90.0 |
97.5 |
105.0 |
112.5 |
120.0 |
|
20 Min. |
58.0 |
68.0 |
78.0 |
88.0 |
98.0 |
108.0 |
120.0 |
130.0 |
140.0 |
150.0 |
160.0 |
The
Detoxification Effect of Rebounding
The
lymphatic system is the metabolic garbage can of the body.
It rids you of toxins such as dead and cancerous cells, nitrogenous wastes, fat,
infectious viruses, heavy metals, and other assorted junk cast off by the cells.
The movement performed in rebounding provides the stimulus for a free-flowing
system that drains away these potential poisons.
Unlike the arterial
system, the lymphatic system does not have its own pump. It has no heart muscle
to move the fluid around through its lymph vessels. There are just three ways to
activate the flow of lymph away from the tissues it serves and back into the
main pulmonary circulation. Lymphatic flow requires muscular contraction from
exercise and movement, gravitational pressure, and internal massage to the
valves of lymph ducts.
Rebounding supplies all three methods of removing waste products from the cells
and from the body. Then arterial blood enters the capillaries in order to
furnish the cells with fresh tissue fluid containing food and oxygen. The
bouncing motion effectively moves and recycles the lymph and the entire blood
supply through the circulatory system many times during the course of the
rebounding session.
Rebounding is a lymphatic exercise.
As stated earlier, it has the same effect on your body as jumping rope, but
without any jarring effect to the ankles, knees, and lower back that comes from
hitting the ground. Better than rope jumping, however, the lymphatic channels
get put under hydraulic pressure to move fluids containing waste products of
metabolism around and out of the body through the left subclavian vein.
Rebounding's
Stabilizing Effect on the Nervous System
Bouncing on a rebounder is an excellent method of reducing stress.
It can put the bouncing person into a trance like state and totally relax him or
her. Jumping for health and fitness not only stabilizes the nervous system
during the exercise period, but continues to help maintain equilibrium after one
steps off the device. The result is increased resistance to environmental,
physical, emotional, and mental stress. It may possibly help an individual to
avoid psychosomatic disease and mental or behavioral instability.
Rebounding may be enjoyed for a lifetime
and adjusted to your own particular level of fitness. It is safe, convenient and
inexpensive, and its protective effects against degenerative diseases make it
one of the most effective forms of motion in the work place, in recreational
pursuits, or in simply exercising for the care of your body and mind.
The Physical Muscular
Effect of Rebounding
James White, Ph.D.,
director of research and rehabilitation in the physical education department at
the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), has explained how jumping for
health offers a true physical strengthening effect to the muscles. He said,
"Rebounding allows the muscles to go through the full range of motion at equal
force. It helps people learn to shift their weight properly and to be aware of
body positions and balance."
An advocate of
rebounding for athletic conditioning, Dr.
White uses the rebounder in his rehabilitation program at UCSD. "When you jump,
jog, and twist on this (jumping) device you can exercise for hours without
getting tired. It's great practice for skiing (see
Photographs), it improves
your tennis stroke, and it's a good way to burn off calories and lose weight,"
said Dr. White (see
Table A). "My students
tell me it's so much fun that they often exercise on the rebounders for their
own enjoyment."
Dr. White added that
jumping for health is more effective for fitness and weight loss than cycling,
running or jogging (see Table B), and it has the added advantage of producing
fewer injuries.
As illustrated and
explained in my book, Jumping for Health, there are 33 different exercises that
may be performed advantageously on the rebounding device. Eight popular rebound
movements are shown below
The
gentle
bounce of rebounding
is effective in returning natural, regular bowel movements to chronically
constipated persons. The steady bounce sets up a pulsating rhythm transmitted by
the nervous system to the brain area responsible for regulating the intestinal
system, which reestablishes one's rhythmical bowel activity. Digestion is
improved as well.
Depending on the quality,
rebounding devices may be relatively low in cost, especially a department store
model that's no more than a toy. Bouncing on such poorly-constructed models,
usually imported from Asia, may actually be harmful to one's muscles, joints,
and nerves. There's no yield to them and the abrupt jarring effect is the same
as landing on the floor. My recommendation is that one should avoid purchasing
these cheaply priced models.
Rebounding devices can be
acquired from sporting goods stores, department stores, by mail order, and in
some health food stores. No one manufacturer has a lock on the market for
rebounders, but some are better manufactured than others. It's best, perhaps, to
purchase your exercise unit directly from the manufacturer. (See Resources.)
Most important for
excellent rebounding is the mat material.
It should give no stretch during the downward landing, while at the same time
providing a resilient rebound. Such a mat will be made from Permatron®
material, which has a smooth finish.
The Permatron®
is resistant to ultraviolet rays, doesn't break down as do other fabrics, and
allows no moisture absorption. Part of the
specifications for a perfect rebounder
is that its mat will be sewn together using 5760 stitches of high-grade nylon
thread with two layers of strong polypropylene webbing stitched around the mat's
edges.
Attached to a
heavy-grade, all steel round frame should be an oversize spring mechanism
holding four-inch-long, custom-made jumbo springs which deliver a soft bounce.
Thirty-six springs made of quality wire will hold the mat to the frame. The
springs should be shielded by a protective cover. Individual spring mounting
pins prevent frame wear.
Tapered coils help to
give extended wear-ability to such springs. (Un-tapered coils allow low-quality
springs to break frequently, requiring replacement.) Replacement springs must be
available directly from the manufacturer since retail distributors seldom stock
spare springs.
The spring-loaded legs
should fold for easy storage under a bed or behind a door. For a folding rebounder,
the frame should fold in half to be packed into its carrying bag, allowing for
storage in a car trunk.
To jump for health,
rebounding devices that exhibit all of these features of excellence I've been
describing are the NEEDAK®
Soft-Bounce™ rebounders.
They meet all of these specifications for the ideal rebounding device. The
stabilizing bar is an optional accessory that is easily attached to the NEEDAK®
rebounder.
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Starbounding
Join Michele Wilburn on the
Greek Island of Zakynthos in the summer for 'Energyia Holistic
Fitness Holiday Retreats'
