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The first time I stepped onto a vibrating plate, I was reminded of vintage ads for the Mueller Exercise Belt, an archaic fat-jigging machine used by 1940s housewives to allegedly keep a svelte figure. Vintage slogans like “whittle your waist in minutes a day” flashed through my mind as my teeth chattered and I began to feel a bit nauseous. Was my body reacting negatively to the vibrations, or was it the three cups of coffee I had before hopping on the machine?
Vibrating-plate technology was originally created by Swedish physician Gustav Zander in the Victorian era, and has since been refined using modern-day science. It came from a desire to work smarter and not harder to improve physical fitness – which, of course, sounds like a dream, though maybe too good to be true.
Machines can run anywhere from under £100 to thousands, and tout benefits like increasing bone density, muscle mass, and lymphatic drainage, improving balance, and boosting memory. Recently, I committed to giving the device a chance for a few weeks to see what happened; testing machines from Power Plate (the Rolls-Royce of vibration plates) and Lifepro Fitness. For the first 15 minutes, I performed a guided warm-up with strengthening exercises such as bicep curls, squats, and planks, followed by a cool-down. When I was finished, I didn’t feel the same muscle fatigue I usually do on solid ground with heavier weights, but I was winded, as if I just did a 30-minute HIIT workout. Throughout the rest of the day, I felt invigorated. How could such a short workout make me feel so good?
Power Plate master trainer Laura Wilson vouches that whole-body vibration (or WBV) technology does things that nothing else can, which is likely why Serena Williams, Mark Wahlberg, and Stevie Nicks promote its benefits. “On the floor, you are going to do one to two muscle activations per second,” Wilson says. “You need your muscles to contract and squeeze and then release. Overloading muscles is how we get stronger. If you have the Power Plate on level one, it’s moving 30 times a second, so now you’re doing 30 muscle contractions a second.” Some quick maths means that 30 seconds on the machine will give you 900 muscle activations, while a lo-fi floor workout would be just 30 to 60 contractions.
Wilson also advises that it is best to drop to about 70 per cent of the weight you would typically lift while using a vibration platform, as you are doing more in far less time. She also adds that a 20-minute workout on the plate is equivalent to about 90 minutes in the gym. “You are going to get so much further than you think because the secret is it’s pushing so much circulation, getting blood flow and nutrients back into the muscles while you are working, that you are recovering at the same time,” explains Wilson. “So you are going to feel better despite doing so much more.”
What does a vibration plate do?
Beyond muscle gains, vibration therapy boasts other potential benefits – sitting or standing on the plate for just a few minutes can help with lymphatic drainage, in return reducing swelling, boosting the immune system, and lessening the chance of disease. For injuries, vibration therapy can shorten healing time. A 2014 study in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine tested whole-body-vibration results on strength and coordination of patients recovering from ACL tear surgery. It found that the time spent for rehabilitation exercise was reduced to less than half in the WBV group, and they had significantly better results in stability tests. The technology is good for injury recovery in both humans and animals, and has long been used in equine therapy for racehorses. A 2024 study about postural stability in horses found that four weeks of 30-minute daily WBV decreased thoracic pain and increased stability and muscle mass.
Vonda Wright, an orthopaedic surgeon and author of Unbreakable: A Woman’s Guide to Aging with Power, had optimistic thoughts: “I’m asked thousands of times a day, ‘What can I do if I can’t get under a heavy bar or do jumps?’” Wright is an advocate for lifting heavy weights and what she calls “bone bashing” or jumping at least 20 times a day, for optimal health. She is interested in vibration plates because it’s been studied for those with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and fibromyalgia. “There is a body of literature with meta-analysis that shows that it has been used to increase cardiovascular health, to increase stability in people over 80, and in athletes to make up for motion deficits. It requires not just the normal big muscle groups to balance, but because of the perturbation of vibration, it engages all of your small muscle groups just to keep you from falling off. So it’s more of a total body workout because it works muscles you might never reach in a standard workout.”
Vibration therapy may help prevent falls and frailty issues as we age. A study in the Journal of Frailty, Sarcopenia and Falls found that high-impact weight-loading activities performed at least three times per week were effective for improving bone health and muscle strength, which in turn lowers the risk of osteoporosis and increases balance. The study states that “other types of activities shown to be effective for bone mass maintenance, especially in postmenopausal women, include multicomponent exercise programmes consisting of strength, aerobic, high-impact and/or weight-bearing training, or whole-body vibration as a single intervention.”
Do vibration plates work for weight loss?
Another promising effect of vibration is its ability to cause thermogenesis, or heat the body, and increase metabolism. The European Journal of Obesity studied the effects of whole-body vibration on weight loss and found that WBV training combined with caloric restriction can help to achieve a sustained, long-term weight loss of five to 10 per cent. According to the study, “The data showed that WBV training may have the potential to reduce visceral adipose fat more than aerobic exercise in obese adults, possibly making it a meaningful addition to future weight-loss programs.”
After two weeks of using the vibration machines, I drew a few of my own conclusions. I noticed that I have more energy after a workout, I looked forward to a quick session and don’t procrastinate as much as I do on in-gym lifting days. My core, hips, and butt feel stronger, but my upper body doesn’t – perhaps that’s my own neglect of doing upper-body strengthening moves.
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
