PowerPlate training

[discoowl]

In soviet Russia - the weights push you...



anyone have any thoughts or knowledge worth passing on regarding these machine - vibrations? They claim to help recovery + add a sort of tension / strength. Their cosmonauts use them or something?

[red_donn]

There's lots of research out there on vibration plate training. The long and short of it is that it definitely isn't worth the cost of those machines for your average trainee.

Apparently it does increase muscle fiber recruitment by a small percent, but lifting while on the plate does not serve to increase overall power or force production, if I remember the studies rightly. Using it prior to lifting on a stable surface as a primer was thought to have potential for value. Other pre-lift primers are superheavy partials, stretching opposing muscles, and isometric contractions.

Vibration stuff for recovery may have some scientific evidence as well. Anyone who sacrifices force and power production during lifting for a very small boost to recovery has their entire regime ass backwards. Remember that if you have one hour in the gym, you have 23 hours to work on recovery.

Also, fuck anything that attempt to equate "CNS recovery/fatigue" with science. This is one of the most piss poor examples of sports science out there, and will hopefully one day be regarded as quaint as many of the old-time expressions from the 1890's.