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01.12.2008

Muscles use up ATP quicker on vibration plate

If you use a vibration plate for training you exhaust the energy in your muscles quicker, and therefore in theory you make your training more intense. We are talking a miniscule amount here, going by an article that sports scientists from the Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt will publish in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.

Vibration plates are still a hype. Even though the enthusiasm of celebrities like Madonna, Claudia Schiffer and Natalie Imbruglia is starting to wane, vibration plates can still be found in fitness centres. These are machines that vibrate and as a result – the manufacturers promise – speed up muscle mass increase and body fat burning.

Nevertheless, research continues. Physiologists want to know whether physical vibrations can help maintain musculature in space travellers and the elderly. The same goes for the German study.

The researchers describe the tests they did using healthy students in their early twenties. The students were subjected to two three-minute sessions during which they trained their calf muscles at forty percent of their maximum weight. [CON] A second group did the same but carried out the exercises on a vibration plate (20 Hertz, 3-4 mm amplitude). [VIB] A third group vibrated as well, but the researchers had temporarily blocked the blood supply to the subjects' calves by putting an inflatable band around the leg. [VIB+OA] The most interesting effect that the researchers found is illustrated in the figure below. The subjects in VIB+OA exhausted the supply of phosphor-creatine in their calf muscles more quickly: their muscles used up more ATP.

The vibration has a similar effect in the VIB group, the researchers suspect. But because the effect is so small it only becomes noticeable if you close off the blood supply and make it more difficult for the muscle cells to go over to burning glucose.

Just how minimal the effects are becomes apparent if you look at the force that the subjects were able to develop during their three-minute sessions. This remained constant, no matter what the treatment.

Reading between the lines, the researchers seem to suggest that the vibration treatment leads to a greater increase in energy expenditure during physical exertion. So the treatment makes muscles less efficient.

The Germans cite other studies, in which it appears that just standing up straight on a vibration plate increases the oxygen consumption by thirteen percent. And, according to yet another study, if you cycle while vibrating, your body produces more heat. All effects that the researchers mention, however, are modest.

Of course it's interesting, the effects of vibrations on muscle physiology. But what's the use?

Sources:
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2008 Oct 25. [Epub ahead of print].