The Air Force Studies Rebounding

I first met Maj. Ward Dean, M.D., United States Air Force,over the telephone. He had just read The Miracles of Rebound Exercise, and decided that he didn't like some of the things I had said. His major complaint was that I was making statements that were not supported by scientific studies and documentation."Sure, I can handle criticism," I remember saying. He then spent the next ninety minutes telling me what was wrong with my book. Personally, I was devastated. That telephone conversation left me weak. To make things worse, I received a letter a week later enumerating the many fallacies of my work. I did study his suggestions and corrected the mistakes of the book during subsequent printings.

I was surprised one day when Dr. Dean called me and asked me what he could test in his laboratory in Korea. I suggested that he establish how many G's a person could develop on a rebounder."Okay." He said, "It's as good as done.

Near the end of January, 1983, I received a copy of his Master's Thesis for his Master's Degree in Physiology from Kyungbook University, College of Medicine in Taegu, Korea.The subject? How much G force can be developed by an athlete in good physical condition bouncing on a quality rebounder at maximum attainable altitude. His scientific conclusions are 3.24 G's.

In a chapter of Medical Physiology, entitled, Space Physiology, Guyton points out that the normal human can handle as much as 8 Gs momentarily, and 20 Gs in a sitting position before vertebral fracture occurs. If the transverse acceleration forces are applied uniformly over large areas of the body, as much as 15 to 25 Gs can be withstood. The point being, that if the best athletes can develop only 3.24 Gs, rebounding is a safe whole body-exercise for virtually everybody.