Whole Body Vibration

Over the past decade, the medicine field has had several developments. The area in injury recovery, range of motion, muscle strains, as well as strength and conditioning are among one of the several categories that receive a significant amount of attention. High interest is placed in these categories because some way or another they affect the daily lives of everyone. It could be common sports injuries and unique methods to assist heeling or devices that help build muscle, but one way or another, many people are doing what they can to increase the vitality of their particular life style. An adequate range of motion of different joints is very important for performance in sports and daily life. Factors such as age, gender, training background, active and passive muscle tension, ligaments, bone structure, and soft tissues influence the range of motion of the joints. Some researchers propose that insufficient joint range of motion caused by low muscle flexibility is a possible cause of muscle strain. Athletes look for results in the shortest amount of time. Many different ideas are being investigated by anyone who wants to be healthier, stronger, and more flexible and would like to recover faster from an injury. One concept that is emerging in North America is whole body vibration training (WBV).

The history of WBV goes way back. Historians have found the first applications of vibrations for the improvement of human performance were developed in ancient Greece; a saw covered in cotton was used as a tool to transmit mechanical vibrations to the part of the body that was not functioning properly. It was also believed the saw was used to massage the area because of the cotton ends and because of the tool that would reciprocate back and forth. Historians also believe that the Greeks used ointments and other forms of medicine that would help the injury and to assist in the relaxation of muscles. Research of whole body vibration really took off in the 70's under the guidance of Dr. Vladimir Nazarov. Dr. Vladimir Nazarov occupied a member of the chair for biomechanics and health for sports for the state college in Minsk. Research shows that Dr. Vladimir Nazarov lived a healthy life. He played a lot of sports in his life times and applied his research to the Soviet gymnastics team. This was the first time technology that was used for the space program was used on professional sport athletes. During the cold war era, the Russians and Americans were both racing to dominate space travel. Soyuz 4 launched January 14, 1969. On board was the cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov on his first flight. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crewmembers from that spacecraft and reenter. The last three Soyuz flights had attempted to do this but had all failed for various reasons. One of the reasons why previous attempts had had failed was believed to be caused by poor conditioning of the cosmonauts. After further investigation it was later determined that cosmonauts bone and muscle densities were decreasing. The Russian Space Program needed something to use for their astronauts suffering from considerable bone loss and poor muscle tone due to weightlessness. Living in zero gravity gives bones and muscles the message that they are not needed. They have nothing to push against. The result is a loss of muscle mass and bone density during space flights. Space researchers that collaborated with Dr. Vladimir Nazarov and created various exercise contraptions attempting to imitate gravity, and found that whole body vibration technology does mimic gravity. Low frequency vibrations with low magnitude force provide enough gravity resistance to protect and build muscle and bone strength. Once communism fell in Russia, the secrets of WBV made its way to Europe in the early 1980's. Just like in Russia, other European athletes began using this form of effective exercise. In addition, the European Space Agency also began using WBV with their astronauts as well. NASA is also actively using vibration in ongoing studies for the maintenance of muscle strength, mass, and bone density. Learning to function in a weightless or environment is simulated in aircraft and in an enormous "neutral buoyancy" water tank. Aircraft weightless training is conducted in a modified KC- 135 four-engine jet transport. Flying a parabolic course, the aircraft is able to create up to 30 seconds of weightlessness when flying a parabolic maneuver. These maneuvers are conducted for approximately one hour. Longer periods of weightlessness are possible in the neutral buoyancy tank. After the astronaut is finished this training, there are directed to do a recovery sequence in which WBV is one of the activities. They use them to counter the affects of being weightless for a prolonged time.

Before the physiology behind WBV is explained, it is important to understand the terms that are associated in this discussion or in less technical terms "the use of the lingo." Effects of WBV depend on the training parameters used. These include; Amplitude, which has units of mm or cm and is the extent of the vertical displacement.

Frequency, which has units of Hz and is the number of impulses delivered per second.

Magnitude, which are measured in G's or in m/s^2 and is the acceleration or the power/force of the movement. Last is the duration, which is measured in seconds or minutes and possibly hours and is the amount of time one spends on the apparatus. The physiology of WBV is mainly about working out the stabilizer muscles in the body. To explain what the stabilizer muscles are and how they work, one must understand the difference between simply benchpressing with a a bench and a bar and bench pressing on the universal machine. The universal machine has guides that only allow for one degree of freedom, this being the motion up and down. If the same person was to now use regular bar and bench to lift the exact same weight, it would feel though if the bar was slightly unbalanced. This is because the bar has three degrees of freedom; one that is up and down, one that is circulartory about a persons head and one that is left to right in which the shoulders are moving. The body must stabilize all of these degrees of freedom before a person can lift the bar straight up and down, or in essence use the stablizer muscles. The same concept and physiogy is used with WBV training. The training is done on a machine with a flat plate on which a person stands, that stimulates the whole body by tilting slightly around an axle. The person who stands on the machine tries to keep the head and body steady and upright. All the muscles that keep the body in this position are forced to react to the oscillatory movements provided by the machine, thus exercising them. Training sessions of only two to three minutes