Titulo

Journal of Biomechanics

Volume 39, Issue 6, Pages 1056-1065, 2006

Vibration training: benefits and risks

J. Mester, H. Kleinöder, Z. Yue

Institute of Training Science and Sport Informatics, German Sport University, Cologne, Germany

Accepted 16 February 2005, published online 19 April 2005.

1. Introduction

Vibration, as a special method for strength training, has attracted attention for two decades. The vibration training design can be roughly described as follows. Some or some groups of subjects are chosen for single case or group studies. All the subjects are required to do vibration training a few times a week for some weeks. Certain parameters, e.g. the maximal force of certain muscle, the height of counter movement jump, the height of drop jump, contact time to the ground for drop jump, force endurance, etc. are taken as indicators of the training effects and measured before, during, and after the entire training period. For maximal muscle strength, most studies showed significant (10–50%) improvements due to vibration training. A few studies showed no significant improvements. For other indicators, e.g. the jumping height, some investigations showed moderate (up to 10%) improvements, while some other studies showed no significant improvements or even negative results. Obviously, different designs of vibration training made the difference to the training results. In addition to the expectation of good training results, safety consideration is another issue related to vibration training. Actually, the laboratory investigations of various possible damaging effects to animals and humans caused by vibrations as well as those in the field of work science can be traced back to 1950s. In the field of work science, the safety standard has been formulated as a region in the plane of acceleration vs. exposure time.
It would be more difficult to formulate the corresponding safety standard for vibration training because many more