Do vibrating plates work? |Good+Good

medium sizeYour mother-in-law owns a machine that’s been abandoned in her garage. We call them “shakers.” It was a vibration plate she bought from a TV commercial that promised to help her burn calories and build muscle in a fraction of the time of a traditional workout, which sounds great! ?

Recently, vibrating plates have made the jump from TV commercials to social media, going viral on TikTok (and being parodied on Saturday Night Live ), showing people tightening their legs and slimming their waistlines, allegedly in just a few clicks. Just stand on the vibration plate for 10 minutes every day – with a link to purchase the product (of course).

Are vibration plates really suitable for strength training? The answer is more complicated than you think. Research shows¹ They can be an effective health and fitness tool for those who are not or may be inactive, such as older adults or those with health problems. Vibration plate manufacturers and training enthusiasts often extrapolate these findings to suggest that vibration can affect anyone’s body in similar ways, positioning vibration training as a faster, easier alternative or even a powerful supplement to exercise.

However, there is no clear evidence of success with vibration plate strength training in a specific population and is beyond the scope of these studies to apply to the broader population.

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“For active, healthy people and those who already do some strength training, research does not support that vibration plates can be more effective than normal strength training,” says exercise physiologist Sharon Gam, PhD, CSCS, ACE-HC. .

How does a vibrating plate increase strength?

Lifting weights or pulling on resistance bands aren’t the only ways to build muscle. Performing activities that challenge your balance (such as standing on one leg) also causes your body to engage muscles (including small stabilizer muscles), which can build strength through repetition. The vibration plate makes the balance challenge supersonic, getting your muscles to work trying to stabilize you again and again while you stand on the vibration plate.

“Putting you in an unstable environment forces the body to respond and get better faster,” says exercise scientist, coach and director of fitness operations at Love.Life, a health, fitness and wellness club focused on longevity. Davon Murray said…

This idea that your muscles have to constantly work to maintain balance is called “increased muscle fiber recruitment.”

“The theory is that vibration causes reflexive muscle contractions, creating stimulation in the muscles and nervous system similar to traditional resistance training, which over time leads to increases in muscle function, strength and muscle mass,” Gam said. .

What is vibration plate strength training?

According to this theory, vibration plate strength training intentionally uses the tool as a way to strengthen muscles. You can do this in several ways.

First, you can stand on a vibration plate as a warm-up before doing traditional strength training. This is similar in theory to a dynamic warm-up in that it wakes up your muscles to prepare them for resistance training.

“It makes sense that it might be helpful as a warm-up before traditional strength training. [as] Muscles contract in response to vibration bringing blood flow and preparing the muscles and nervous system,” Gam said.

Or, some people just stand on the vibration plate for 10 to 20 minutes at a time. For people who are not normally active, this may challenge the muscles enough to help them develop.

Finally, you can combine vibration plates with resistance training by performing bodyweight exercises like squats, burpees, and push-ups (or even weights) on a moving plate. You can even take classes that use plates; PlateFit is a boutique fitness studio concept designed specifically for vibration plate classes.

“If balance allows, we do jumping jacks, burpees, core,” says Murray, who runs Love.Life’s vibration plate classes (there are two vibration plates on the gym floor). “Anything you can do on a power strip, you can do on a power strip.”

To some extent. Murray doesn’t recommend lifting maximum weight on a power plate because vibration can make the activity more difficult. Theoretically, you need to use lighter weights for maximum effort; Murray recommends aiming for 50 to 60 percent of normal lifts.

What does science say?

How effective is adding some rocking moves to your workout regimen? This may depend on how active you already are. Think of it like any activity: If you run or do push-ups regularly, a short jog or 10 push-ups probably won’t do much for you. But if you don’t do this activity regularly, it will help build strength.

The same goes for data.

“Research supports the use of vibration plates to build strength in older adults (usually those 65 and older), people with sarcopenia (an age-related loss of muscle mass and body function), and people with physical limitations that prevent them from exercising. and muscle. “Research also suggests it may be effective in people who were previously inactive and/or have low baseline strength and muscle. “

multiple studies² investigated whether generally healthy adults could achieve greater strength gains by exercising on a vibration plate. However, the results were inconsistent. For example, two studies examined the effects of performing squats on a vibration plate. Vibration was discovered gained more³,another Found no difference⁴.

“Even for beginners, they may get some initial benefits, but I think there will be diminishing returns as they gain strength and muscle mass,” Gam said. “That’s because once you build reasonable strength and muscle, you need to incorporate the principles of progressive overload to continue to stimulate your nervous system and muscles to grow and get stronger.”

Basically, once your muscles have mastered balancing on a vibration plate, continuing to add vibration plates is not enough to stimulate more muscle growth. You can only add more vibration, or heavier weight, until you reach an unsafe level.

“If you’re doing advanced bodyweight exercises or using heavy weights, the vast majority of stimulation will come from the exercises themselves,” Gam says. “The stimulation of vibration is relatively small at that point, and I don’t think it provides additional benefits.”

Murray would like to see more research on vibrating plates. However, he feels that the results and experiences of his students and clients speak for themselves, as does the fact that vibration plates are showing up in the training rooms and practices of professional sports teams.

“I really think we’ve just scratched the surface of what vibration training can do,” Murray said.

He found that performing any exercise on a vibration plate was objectively more difficult, while his clients felt they could complete challenging workouts in 30 minutes; cited by Murray Research⁵ The study showed that study participants exerted more energy and found exercise performed on the vibration plate to be more challenging than exercise without the vibration plate.

Optimizing your workout: a double-edged sword

While vibration plate training has been around for decades, in recent years it has become increasingly popular on social media, in gyms, and in studios.

“Research on this topic goes back about 30 years, but recently it seems to have really shifted away from specific niche populations (such as older adults with sarcopenia or musculoskeletal disorders) and toward the general population,” Gam said.

Murray attributes this to the efficiency benefits his clients appreciate.

“We recognize that a lot of people, they have an hour max, so this does allow you to be able to get in and out, but your workout won’t suffer because of it,” Murray said.

If you approach strength training with the mentality that you get what you pay for, you may be missing out on some mental health benefits.

However, there can be some drawbacks to trying to get the most benefit in the shortest amount of time.

“One of the great things about strength training is that it helps you reframe your thoughts and ideas about yourself, gives you the opportunity to achieve small goals, and helps you see yourself as a capable, strong, and resilient person,” Gam says. . If you approach strength training with the mentality that you get what you pay for, you may be missing out on some mental health benefits.

Ultimately, anything that can help people get active is a great tool. But a gadget can only do so much for building strength—the weight is mostly on you.