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Health

Power Plates Really Shake Things Up

LA photographer Mark Hunter does resistance training to help keep his head in the game.

It was 2010 when Mark Hunter, a Los Angeles-based photographer, decided to turn his life around—whenever he felt like taking a nap, he decided,he would go for a run instead. "I really took the most lazy version of myself and made it the most active version of myself," he says. But it wasn't until a friend introduced him to power plates that he became passionate about a particular form of exercise. "Platefit is the most next-level workout I've ever experienced," he says.

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Power plates are machines that vibrate at a very high frequency to make your muscles contract more rapidly, making your workout harder. Exercise psychologists caution that they're best used as a supplement to other workouts, since the high-frequency vibrations can be hard on your nervous system and internal organs.

According to Hunter, the vibrations turn one squat into what feels like ten. "It has different levels of intensity of vibration, and is able to give you a really intense workout in a very short period of time," he says.

Physical change wasn't the only thing that power plates did for Hunter. Getting in shape has kept him on-point at work. "I think it's important to stay active so that I can keep my head in the game," he says. "I think fitness really plays a huge role in that."

"Every time I go to that studio, I'm leaving drenched in sweat and almost can't walk the next day."

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