Vibration Plate Exercises for Fitness, Weight Loss and Health

This page highlights the many benefits of vibration plate exercises, including scientific studies, and technical information on vibration plate training.

The muscles of our body naturally exhibit a slight vibration and thus support our blood circulation and blood flow. Indirectly, they also help our heart muscle. 

Below we outline how vibration training can train our muscles and various muscle groups and alleviate and prevent many health problems.

Vibration plate exercises to promote fitness and health

A vibration device produces mechanical vibrations in a particular direction, followed by the reverse, creating a repeated motion. 

These movements are characterized by a direction, a certain speed, a length, and a specific frequency. 

Several scientific studies have shown that vibration training can improve our fitness and health (full details below). 

Vibration devices such as vibratory plates improve athletic performance and result in therapeutic benefits.

Vibration Plate Exercises For Fitness Weight Loss And Health

Vibration plates are ideal for improving individuals' vitality, health, and performance.

In addition, vibration plate exercises on a vibration plate increases your bone density. And this is particularly beneficial for (older) people with brittle bones.

But ordinary people and athletes also benefit from training on a vibration plate because it dramatically increases their explosive muscle strength. 

Vibration training can help improve people's fitness, health, and vitality. 

In other words, doing regular vibration plate exercises can improve your quality of life over time. And it's an excellent tool to maintain your fitness as well.

Below you can read all kinds of good reasons to get fitter, healthier, and make your body stronger. Be sure to read on and start your personal health program today!

Vibration plate exercises have been known for decades

This training technique is also known as vibration plate training, acceleration training, or vibration training.

Vibration stimulation as therapy

Vibration stimulation was originally used to relieve pain for therapeutic purposes.

Vibration training to strengthen and maintain muscles

Vibration Training One Leg On Floor Other Leg On Vibration Platform

Then, in the 1960s, scientist W. Biermann developed the principle of vibration training.

This professor studied cycloidal vibration and neuromuscular rhythmic stimulation, and his scientific research formed the basis for the vibration plate technology we know today.

He was the founder of vibration training and discovered through his studies that vibration triggers a stretch reflex and a contraction reflex of the muscles.

Soviet scientists then incorporated Biermann's scientific conclusions into various space programs (in the 1970s) with groundbreaking and stunning results.

Soviet astronauts could stay in space for as many as 437 days partly because of this while American astronauts were required to return to Earth after only 120 days in space. 

Soviet astronauts

437

Days in space

American astronauts

120

Days in space

The Soviet success was mainly due to the introduction of vibration training for the astronauts in question. They were able to use vibration training to strengthen and maintain their muscles despite the absence of gravity in space.

Intrigued by these groundbreaking achievements in space, several scientists studied the multiple effects of vibration training. 

In addition to the increased muscle tone, they observed other effects such as improved blood circulation, increased bone density, and enhanced flexibility.

34%
stronger bones

Nasarov, a renowned Russian scientist, has even found that vibration therapy is the key to stopping the progression of osteoporosis (as bones become up to 34% stronger thanks to vibration training).

Professional athletes and teams using vibration plate exercises as part of their training

Numerous athletes and professional sports clubs turn to vibration training to maintain and improve the fitness and musculature of the athletes.

Below you will discover which teams and athletes are doing vibratory plate training:

Baseball

  • Toronto Blue Jays
  • Atlanta Braves
  • Baltimore Orioles
  • Detroit Tigers
  • Pittsburgh Pirates
  • Oakland Athletics baseball team
  • St. Louis Cardinals
  • Boston Red Sox
  • San Diego Padres
  • Chicago Cubs
  • New York Yankees
  • Philadelphia Phillies
  • New York Mets
  • Tampa Bay Rays
  • Los Angeles Angels
  • Arizona Diamondbacks

Basketball

  • Los Angeles Lakers
  • Cleveland Cavaliers
  • The San Antonio Spurs
  • Indiana Pacers
  • Denver Nuggets
  • Dallas Mavericks
  • Memphis Grizzlies
  • Chicago Bulls

American Football

  • Miami Dolphins
  • Washington Commanders (formerly known as Washington Redskins)
  • San Francisco 49ers
  • Cincinnati Bengals
  • New York Giants
  • Green Bay Packers
  • Indianapolis Colts
  • Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  • Detroit Lions
  • Carolina Panthers
  • New England Patriots
  • Tennessee Titans
  • Kansas City Chiefs
  • Las Vegas Raiders
  • Atlanta Falcons
  • Baltimore Ravens
  • Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Seattle Seahawks

Scientifically proven effects of vibration plate exercises

  • General well-being and quality of life increase by exercising regularly on a vibration plate. 
  • Vibration training increases blood circulation and also improves cardiovascular function.
  • Vibration plate training is of interest to seniors in the context of fall prevention.
  • Increase in bone density and preventive exercise tool to counteract the age-related loss of bone mineral density.
Older Woman On Vibration Plate To Enhance Balance Coordination And Strength
  • Whole-body vibration is an adequate treatment for fibromyalgia, either as primary therapy or as part of a physical exercise program. Namely, because studies suggest it could improve balance, health, fatigue, and pain.
  • Better regulation of hormone production in the body (more growth hormone and less cortisol).
  • Vibration training provides improved flexibility and range of motion.
  • Vibration plate training offers benefits to the immune system. Whole body vibration stimulates circulation and the lymphatic system and helps relieve stress. All of this together strengthens your immune system and will make you less susceptible to disease.
  • Improves muscle strength and overall physical strength, perfect for improving performance in daily life and increasing life comfort.
  • Lowering cellulite on the buttocks, upper arms, abdomen, etc., which makes vibration training ideal for women wishing to reduce their cellulite.
  • Vibration training reduces stiffness in the muscles, reduces swelling, and it also has a pain-relieving effect.
  • Vibration plate training helps to rehabilitate after a severe injury or accident and can also help to manage pain.
  • Vibration plate training promotes weight loss, visceral fat loss, and fat tissue loss.
  • Improved sense of balance and improved posture.
Vibration Plate Training Stimulates Weight Loss And The Loss Of Unhealthy Visceral Fat

Additional information about vibratory plates for plus-size people

Check out the following articles for more in-depth information about vibrating plates and their use in the context of exercising more, burning calories, losing weight, weight control, and strength training for plus-size people:

Technical information on the effect of vibration plate exercises on the muscles

Vibrations trigger contraction reflexes in our muscles that lead to an increase in muscle activity. This principle is known as the tonic vibration reflex:

Myotatic reflex (tonic stretch reflex)

The myotatic reflex is a reflex contraction of a muscle induced by its own stretching force.

It is an automatic, natural, and involuntary process responsible for maintaining a stable body position to counteract the effects of gravity.

The neuromuscular coils that lie between the muscle fibers play an essential role in this process because they provide information about the length and tension of the muscle.

When the muscle stretches in response to a stimulus, such as a vibration from a vibrating plate or the weight of a shopping bag, the neuromuscular coils produce one or more action potentials that travel to the spinal cord. 

In response, a nerve impulse is then produced that will reach the stretched muscle, creating a muscle action potential that will cause it to contract.

From vibration to acceleration

Muscle fiber engagement

Vibration plate

95-97%
Current Progress
Current Progress
Current Progress
Current Progress

Untrained people

30-40%
Current Progress
Current Progress
Current Progress
Current Progress

High-level athletes

70-80%
Current Progress
Current Progress
Current Progress
Current Progress

Vibration is a back and forth movement from a medium mode to a high frequency and back again. 

The drive of a vibrating plate results in a continuous change of motion brought about by the vibrations of the vibrating machine. This causes rapid and intense changes in velocity acceleration. 

When a body or part of that body changes speed in a very short time, the assimilation of acceleration is increased. 

Since gravity is an acceleration, it is precisely because of the increase in gravity and the body's unconscious resistance to it that the vibrations of a vibration plate work so effectively to induce reflexive muscle contractions.

Thanks to these muscle contractions, 95 to 97% of muscle fibers are engaged and put to work on a vibration plate, compared to only 30 to 40% of muscle fibers in untrained people and 70 to 80% of muscle fibers in high-level athletes.

Traditional strength training versus vibration training

To understand the principle of vibration training on a vibration plate and why this type of training is so effective, if not more effective than traditional strength training, it is important to understand the differences between the 2 training methods.

Gravity affects everyone and has significant implications for our daily movements. And the strength of the muscles we develop is based on how gravity affects us. 

In fact, the force we develop is the product of mass multiplied by gravity.

Traditional strength training and gravity

Vibration Training Versus Classic Strength Workout No Dumbbells Needed

Traditional strength training, in practice, is based on the use of additional loads and weights to have a greater effect on the body. 

As a result of the influence of the additional load and, therefore, the extra mass, the body will have to adapt to handle the increased force and increase its muscle strength. 

In many strength training exercises, the additional load is brought about by elastic bands, dumbbells, rods, or manual resistance. 

By constantly adding additional load, the body must continue to adapt; therefore, muscle strength continues to increase.

Vibration plate training and gravity

When training with the vibration method, the body is exercised through the manipulation and augmentation of gravity during vibration plate exercises. 

The major difference from traditional strength training is that we do not affect gravity by adding an extra load (the mass) but by increasing the acceleration.

When an object or a person changes speed for a very short time, the acceleration assimilation is increased so that the force acting on the body is also increased very quickly and immediately.