As the country prepares for the start of this year’s X-Factor at the weekend, Dannii Minogue has flown off on holiday to get some rest - and, no doubt, top up her tan - before heading into the live rounds of the series.
And having her seen her out in her teeny-tiny shorts in the past few days, it’s unlikely the judge will be doing what most of the rest of us do on holiday – hiding behind a sarong for as much of the trip as possible. And now we know why. Because the Aussie popstar has been using celeb favourite, PowerPlate, to get into shape.
The vibrational plate exercise machine intensifies the effects of exercises, making muscles rapidly contract which builds lean muscle mass. In other words, you get greater results in less time. Dannii says she’s been ‘hooked’ on the machine ever since discovering it.
"It didn’t take long after I started my sessions to see a visible difference and now I’m in the best shape ever," she reports. "For me, it’s the quickest, easiest way to tone up and create a lean body. My friends have noticed the difference in how I look and it has made me look forward to exercising." And Dannii’s faith in the machine may be well placed because a study presented at the recent European Congress on Obesity in Amsterdam found machines such as Power Plate that use vibration to intensify exercise results could be effective in long-term weight loss that targets harmful fat between organs, too.
The study split 61 overweight people into four groups, one of which dieted only, with a second adding in exercise, a third adding in vibrational exercise and a fourth doing nothing at all. During the first six months, the diet-only group lost about 6 per cent of their initial body weight, but could not maintain a five per cent weight loss in the subsequent six months.
The group that dieted with conventional fitness routines lost about seven per cent of their initial body weight in the first six months and, by the end of the study, had managed to keep off a 6.9 per cent loss. The vibration group lost 11 per cent of their body weight, maintaining 10.5 per cent loss by the end of the year. The control group gained about 1.5 per cent of their original body weight.
