More and more published research is coming out about the benefits of vibration therapy.
It has shown to be phenomenal for growing muscle mass, for improving your bone density, for improving the strength of your cartilage and your tendons and improving the connection between your brain and your muscles.
In this interview with Joel Gottehrer, Co-Founder of Lifepro Fitness, we talk about the affordable tools they have developed to help manage your disability or support your recovery.
Learn more at lifeprofitness.com
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Lifepro Fitness is a Wahls Protocol® Sponsor and their vibration platform is a device I have used for several years now. Please consult with your care team before adding to your health care routine.
Read the transcript below:
Dr. Terry Wahls: Hello, Wahls Warriors™. Thank you so much for joining me today. We’re going to be talking about some really great tools that we have to help support your rehabilitation, your exercise, your balance, your strength, your endurance. This is all just so phenomenal. That’s one of the reasons I so enjoy LifePro. They have a technology that you can get into your home, that is affordable, fun. So, Joel, thank you for being here. Thank you for developing LifePro. It is just so phenomenal. And I’m wondering if you could start off with telling us at a high level about LifePro and then we’ll come in and talk about some of these new technologies that you are now offering.
Joel: Awesome. I’m very excited to see you and be with you. And yeah, thank you very much. So for those who do not know, LifePro helps hundreds if not thousands with managing disabilities, some experience mild disability from stress in the workplace or life, others are recovering from more severe disabilities. So we have developed the LifePro personas to help our customers find the best products to help them recover and manage their disabilities. So we have some upgraded and we are trying to present better to our customers so they find what they need.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Okay. Great. Now, let’s talk first about vibration therapy, which I’m very, very pleased that you’re doing that. I’ll tell Wahls Warriors™ from the tribe and the research perspective. This is phenomenal for growing muscle mass, phenomenal for improving your bone density for improving the strength of your cartilage, your tendons. It’s also really good. And this is all research driven that it improves the connection between your brain and your muscles. It improves your balance. So Joel, can you tell us about your device and how it is taking advantage of all these wonderful research breakthroughs?
Joel: Right. So, as the story goes that we wanted to present something more affordable, you know, in the typical marketplace, you would find vibration plate, that cost several thousand dollars. So we developed and we tried to put together a model that will provide all those benefits that are backed by research. And, and how do you say from customer experiences, you know, people share their own experiences besides what research shows us, which I feel is more real and more relatable, but yeah, so, we, have several models that can help with many, many goals, like weight loss, like you mentioned, developing weak muscles, improving bone density, Pain relief.
Dr. Terry Wahls: So, can you speak more specifically when people are using a vibration plate that has a fixed frequency and intensity of the vibration versus some of the devices that you have that have programs that alter the intensity of the vibration and the frequency? Could you, can you speak to why you did that?
Joel: Yeah, very good. So, if you look at research, I mean, if you go in from the research perspective, there are research on all different types of vibration. There is, I’m going to try to use simple terms. There are vertical vibrations, which is just going straight up and down the vibrations that are just going up and down. Then there is an oscillation, which is like a Seesaw going side to side. And then there is a vibration that goes lateral. So what we did is, is we wanted to have a little of everything and provide, I mean, and then [inaudible 00:04:32] there is a fourth vibration was to just, vibration within itself, like it’s spreading from all angles. So we wanted to include everything to give everybody the ability to achieve multiple goals, multiple before whatever their goals might be.
So you will have vertical that, some studies. And if you look at a lot of these studies, you’ll see that it’s almost like they fight against each other. The vertical people will say that an oscillation is no good. The oscillation would say vertical is no good. So everybody. So I, the way we see it is let’s present everything, and everybody should have their own experiences and their own journey to figure out what works best for them. Of course, there are some, for example, the vertical is very intense. If someone has vertigo or someone, it’s going to be super intense and be very difficult to get on. But for those that have, so we have the oscillation, which is most, is much calmer, and not so intense and it’s easier to handle. So you have all these varieties. Yes. So for different goals, different achievements.
Dr. Terry Wahls: So for neuroplasticity, having a changing frequency intensity and type of vibration oscillation, vertical, horizontal, you’ll the maximal benefits. So I, I’m very pleased that you have that again, we’ve got wonderful research and the research continues to build that these are excellent tools to delay the adverse effects of aging. So this is a great youthening device. It is a excellent device for rehabilitation after a injury, an excellent device for rehabilitation due to a neuro degenerative problem, such as Parkinson’s such as Multiple Sclerosis. Okay. But that’s not all you have. So let’s talk about some of the other wonderful things that you have. And I’m really excited to hear about this hand foot and leg massagers. So tell me about that. I don’t have that device yet. Maybe I need to go get one of those.
Joel: Absolutely. No question consider it done. So we divided our brand into five different personas. So we’ll have vibration therapy, which we just discussed. Then we have wellness recovery, which is basically, there are a lot of people that sit at a desk all day who were swelling in the feet and their ankles or hands. So we offer a wide variety of different types of massage devices from compression, the heat, we even have a steam massage. So basically a variety of, of hand massage foot massagers, leg massagers, compression sleeves, all for those that have, that suffer from pain and swelling.
That’s another category that we have then we have the sports recovery. There’s a lot of people that I know your audience is mostly M.S., But we used to have a lot of our customers are from the sports recovery. So we, they wanted to have a personal massage at their fingertips. They didn’t want to go to a massage therapist a few times a week. So they want to be able to, from their own home be able to massage themselves. So we have massage guns. We have foam rollers, all these types of devices that allow for us to continue our sports. Recovery is a major factor in being able to perform. And then we have a fourth grader [crosstalk 00:08:23]
Dr. Terry Wahls: Let’s stop [inaudible 00:08:25] Joel. So again, Wahls Warriors™. We’ve been talking about the benefits of addressing fascia. That’s the connective tissue over your muscles. If that gets tight with fibrosis or scarring foam rollers, can, which you control, the intensity of the massage over that tight scarred fascia helps break up those Adhesions, break up the scarring and lets your fascia function more appropriately. So there are more chiropractors, more physical therapists that are advising their patients to get a foam roller and to begin doing this fascia treatment at home. And that’s, this is the brilliance of what Joel is doing. And it’s the brilliance of giving us tools that we can use at home at the frequency with far more convenience. So these foam rollers, do you also have a way to teach us how to use them?
Joel: Yeah, sure. So we have an online library and we constantly have new video instruction of how to use our products. The foam rollers are really awesome. So most people are familiar with the basic foam roller, but, we included vibration.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Wow that sounds pretty cool.
Joel: Recently. Yeah. And so we want to basically combine, right? The vibration therapy, we saw such good results, how people recovering. So why not pack it in a device that is much, you can put it anywhere you want it on your body and helps melt your fascia with the vibration. But what we did recently, which we just released, maybe not even two weeks is vibration formula with heat. So now you have the heating component, which also helps melt fascia and the vibration. So that’s very exciting. Yeah. So that’s really exciting.
Dr. Terry Wahls: That does sound incredibly exciting. and the massage guns, I can see where that would work well for a sore quads. Does that work well on stiff shoulders and back?
Joel: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So we are actually soon releasing another, like our flagship model where it’s going to have a very long handle and it can allow you to get into hard to reach spaces, and your back and again, using the same vibration technology.
Dr. Terry Wahls: So for many people with M.S. With a neurodegenerative problem, we begin to develop back pain and we have a lot of muscle spasm. So there’s two components as to why you’re having the muscle spasm in loss of strength is certainly one of them. So doing a strengthening program will help, but acutely doing massage therapy and using something like the massager’s Theragun would be helpful. And this massage gun would be, and tell me if I’m incorrect, Joel, I would be able to reach that in be able to do basically a massage of my back.
Joel: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Wow, That would be very much appreciated. And I think of my daughter, who’s the artist who tells me that her shoulders bother her. Cause she hunches over drawing all the day. I think you like, okay, this would be really wonderful for people who are having shoulder pain. And would that be true also for upper neck pain?
Joel: Yeah, sure. I mean, the beauty of a massage gun is that you have multiple settings. We have some of our massage gun, you can go from level one, speed, one speed five, speed 10, depending on the model that you choose. And now you have this variety of speeds and you’re able to, I give you an example between I’m selling now the massage gun right. I’m just, but everybody has to find what works for them. When you go into a foal roller, and you’re laying down on the foam roller, you can’t really adjust the intensity. It’s your body weight on the roller and gravity just pulls you into the roller. But with a massage gun you’re able to, when you hold it in your hand, you’re able to float and adjust accordingly. If it’s too intense then just raise it up a little don’t keep it so close to your skin. That’s the beauty of being so portable and it’s easy. And then we have our mini massage gun which is super portable. Yeah. I can go on forever, but basically a massage gun like this is so convenient to be able to adjust intensities according to what you need.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Okay. Well, this sounds wonderful. Then I see strength training and endurance training. What are those?
Joel: Yes. Very good. Very good. So what we noticed is now that all our customers are now able to move better, right? Because they’re massaging because they’re using vibration training and they’ve been asking for more, now what?, What do I do? They are, so we have a new persona, which is endurance training where we offer several cardio equipment, cardiovascular equipment, treadmills, exercise bikes, under desk bikes under desk ellipticals, all these types of products that are not super intense. Remember this is not designed for the intense athlete, it’s more about the recovery and people that are coming out of recovery that needs some equipment that will ease them into their new lifestyle now that they can move pain-free. So if you go to our website, you’ll find our treadmills, we have awesome exercise bikes and that whole lineup of endurance training.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Okay. Wow. Interesting. And a compression sleeve. So I’m curious about that. What are these compression sleeves?
Joel: So compression is basically like a boot and you basically, right now, we only have a leg. So basically you slide it on like a boot on to your leg and there’s, and you have a little device that has a motor that compresses air and it blows up the boot. It has these alternate programs where people that need to increase the circulation, the capacity, when you work out, then you have the lactic acid build up. You need a circulation, the push to help pump the blood and recover quicker because its helped improve circulation, and people that have swelling. So it just gets blood flow moving.
Dr. Terry Wahls: And are you developing one for arms as well? Coming in the future?
Joel: It’s coming. It’s too early to talk about it, but it’s on. [crosstalk 00:15:35]
Dr. Terry Wahls: Yeah. Okay. So let me speak to the Wahls Warrior™ community. If you have a neurodegenerative disorder, or if you have heart failure, you are more than likely to develop swelling in your legs. And so the conventional approach is to lay down, put your feet up. And so that is helpful. And we talk about the benefits of laying down, putting your feet perfectly on the wall, which helps stretch out your hamstrings. That is good. But we also know those. We have studies that have shown using a compression sleeve that Joel’s describing speeds removal of the excess fluid, removal of lactic acid, removal of the cider waste that is being developed just as part of being alive. And that actually certainly improves athletic performance, but it also improves cardiac performance and it improves functioning of the legs. It’s going to improve the neurovascular performance. So if you have issues with swelling in your ankles, again taking the time to lay down, if you can get up and down off the floor, laying down, putting your legs up vertically, nice strategy. That’s something I like to do several nights a week, exploring the sleeve can be another strategy to deal with those swollen ankles.
Joel: Right. Right. And it’s very important to mention that when you check compression sleeves, they can cost also 3, $4000. Like there’s, some of them are medical devices that you need to insurance. So we have a lineup, the radiate lineup, which we have three models that are super affordable. I don’t want you to mock me and my words, but I believe it’s under anywhere from 60 or $70 up to $150. They’re super affordable, gives the ability for many users to have that opportunity to try this this technology.
Dr. Terry Wahls: And did I understand that, so you have compression and gentle heat as well?
Joel: Yeah. So we have just remind them to say which one, yeah. We have two models that have heat as well. So you can tell I’m a fan of heat.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Well, I am also a huge fan of what we call hermetic temperature stress, so that you have occasional mild to moderate heat stress for which you recover and mild to moderate cold stress. I’m a fan of heat. I’m a fan of cold. These are very, very helpful interventions for us.
Joel: Then I don’t want to, how do you say talk a little too early, but we also have cold therapy coming soon.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Ooh, that’s exciting.
Joel: Yeah, that is. I don’t even have it in my office, but yeah. It’s coming.
Dr. Terry Wahls: We’ll have to have you come back so we can talk about cold stress as well. That will be very wonderful.
Joel: Very exciting.
Dr. Terry Wahls: There’s been a real boom now because of the pandemic, we’ve all had to learn how to live in a virtual world. And so that’s spawned a whole lot of very interesting innovation as we are now thinking about how to use this virtual technology. And Joel, I understand that you are giving us more virtual support. Can you walk us through that?
Joel: Yeah, absolutely. Before we do that, I just want to mention this before I forget that we have one other persona, which is for strength training. Once you recovered and once you’re doing your cardio training, we also have, we have a new lineup of dumbbells. So you have adjustable dumbbells. From two and a half pounds up to 15 pounds or from five pounds to 25 pounds, just to, again, I used to live in New York city. I’m used to not having space in my home. We have an adjustable dumbbell that instead of having a clutter full dumbbells, you’re able to have it in one dumbbell and you’re able to adjust it according to your needs. So that’s very exciting as well.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Oh my gosh, how on earth do we have technology that lets me have a dumbbell that I can adjust from five pounds to 15 pounds. I don’t quite understand how that works, but man, that would be really wonderful because I have dumbbells tonight and I don’t like having lots of dumbbells around.
Joel: Yeah, it’s really awesome. But to answer your questions sorry for jumping, we have, we currently have two, I believe it’s two right now because I’m already thinking for the future, we’re going to have many, but right now we have two presenters. We have Amber cavette and Roseanne zap. They supply us with fitness content. They do yoga, they talk about different, if you have different, if you have tightness, if you have certain pains and stuff that we able to talk about and educate all the users using our equipment, but what we’re doing now, the next step is we really going to go to the next level and have online training courses. We onboard physical therapists and we’re just trying to provide as much education and information about the product. So that’s going to be really exciting. And hopefully in the next, I would say four to eight weeks give or take, I wanted it done already in February, but you know how things go. So that’s really, really exciting. That’s going to keep
Dr. Terry Wahls: Yeah. And Joel, if people, I’m going to walk the tribe through this, so they decided that, okay, I’m going to pick up a vibration plate. I want to learn how to use it, given my personal limitations. So I get that plate. I take it out of the box, I hook it all up. And now if I want to learn how to use it, what’s the process for me to learn how I can fit that into my wellness program.
Joel: Very good. Very good question. For starters, we include a 15 minute consultation. So this consultation is just if you have any startup questions of what to do, how to navigate, how to find all this content or, any type of questions that you might have. So that is included. So if you open up your manual, it will show you, I think, is in the back page or the second to last page, a link where you can register for your consultation. We have our, a few fitness consultants on our team, so they help get that started. That’s the easiest way, because what would happen is even though I’m going to tell you where to go. So you go to, you go to our website, then you’ll find a link to our video library. Some people still need that hands-on guidance, okay, go to click this thing, do this, do that. So we include both. We have a YouTube channel. We have a Facebook community where we have live content streaming. So it’s not just prerecorded content. You actually can interact while you’re doing the session. So we found that people love that live factor, where they can, ask and yeah, so it was very exciting.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Absolutely live content is, so much more energizing. This is just phenomenal. Joel. Also, how long have you been doing all of this?
Joel: Which part? LifePro, or me?
Dr. Terry Wahls: Well, LifePro first and then you, so when did you get your company going and how long this is an amazing, products to support athletes and people interested in rehab.
Joel: Good. And so we started about, I mean the idea started about three and a half years ago. I would say we started about three years ago, give or take that’s when we started our journey in LifePro. My background is I’ve been a personal trainer for the last 14 years. Being in the fitness business and training, probably thousands of people at this point is when I realized I really want to impact people on a much wider audience. Of course, I had my journey, why I chose my vibration therapy, I had an ACL reconstruction done.<
During my recovery, I used a whole body vibration platform to help speed up because I was certified by the early organizations, probably about 12 years ago. I was aware of the technology. It wasn’t like a new concept. I included it in my therapy and my therapist at the time told me that, wow, your recovery is much quicker than a typical ACL recovery patients. So I attributed it to whole body vibration. I met my partner and he also had an ACL injury and he also, so we basically combined my recovery and his recovery and then the lack of material and products that make it easier for people to recover with. So that’s where the idea started and that’s when LifePro was born.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Okay. So Wahls Warriors™. I had a profound health experience, which has led to a transformation of how I practice medicine and ultimately the creation of the wall seminar, our online courses. Joel has had a health event that transformed how he practiced it has created his business. So for all of you who are having health amounts, we’d much rather not have them, but they happen. There is a gift, things that you will learn that will transform how you understand the world, how you will move forward. That is quite profound. And I want you, I encourage you to think deeply, what is it you’re going to learn? How are you going to be transformed? And how can you give back to your, own life, to your community, your tribe, and hopefully the world. Cause we’d love to see that, now joel, can you give us, would you consider your three most important takeaway messages that we want the Wahls Warriors™ community to know, and then I’m going to ask you how people find you. So what are the top three things that we should,
Joel: Which is a very good question. I didn’t prepare for that question. So I’m going to try to come up with the answer, but number one is never give up and there’s always, it’s always worth to try another method, just because you’re in pain or you’re having immobility or for whatever things, if you have pain and swelling, sometimes we give up and we think that this is it. I came, I I’ve spoken to so many people and a lot of people are so skeptical about whole body vibration, right? That’s why I’m saying never give up because explore, be willing to try. I’m telling you we helped thousands. I mean, right now I would say we have probably impacted close to 400,000 lives and I will get nonstop feedback of how transformational the products. And we are international at this point we have in Germany and in UK, Canada. So it’s just give yourself a chance. We provided a product to be super affordable and can just try it. And you’ll be I mean, as much as I really believe in that product, I think it’s worth, just try it, see if it works, if it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, but at least you know that you have tried every method out there. Now for the other two products is listen to Terry, whatever Terry says.
Dr. Terry Wahls: You’re very generous there. Joel, thank you.
Joel: Right. And what would be number three? How about this Terry you suggest number 3.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Well, number three is give back, whatever your state of health is. There are things that you can do to give back to your family and your tribe, and that giving back provides more meaning for your life in my experience, providing that deeper meaning makes it easy for you to commit towards doing the work forward progress
Joel: A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. That’s the only reason why I’m here. I just wanted to help more people and say you’re right. Meaning deep meaning is very, very important.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Okay. Joel, so, how do people find you
Joel: LifeProfitness.com l I F E P R O fitness.com.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Excellent. Joel. This has been wonderful. I am so grateful that you were part of my tribe and I love my LifePros. A matter of fact, I was doing my LifePro thing this morning.
Joel: Awesome. So exciting. Awesome. So thank you so much for your time. And I hope we continue to stay in touch.
Dr. Terry Wahls: Oh, we will. I’m not letting go of you, my friend.
Joel: Thank you. Take care.
Joel Gottehrer, Co-Founder of Lifepro Fitness!
Joel Gottehrer is the Co-Founder of Lifepro Fitness. He and his Co-Founder, Abraham Brach, founded Lifepro together after they both suffered from physical injuries. After failing to find any promised relief from current products on the market — Lifepro Fitness was born.
Joel is very passionate about helping people find ways to transform their lives. Over the past 12 years, he has helped to transform thousands of lives as a personal trainer and owner of two personal training studios. He currently oversees all product development and customer service of Lifepro products and is on a mission to further grow the impact on millions of lives with the Lifepro brand.
In his down time, you’ll find him playing basketball, spending time with his family and reading a good book!
