Science is beginning to reveal that vibration energy and its benefits extend far beyond what you can consciously perceive.
Our skin is the body's largest organ, rich in specialized sensors such as Pacinian and Meissner corpuscles. Each sensor responds to differing vibrational frequencies, relaying specific information to our spinal cord and brain. These sensors are tuned to detect touch, pressure, and the wind on our skin, allowing us to feel changes in our surroundings.
While human sensitivity is extraordinary and can detect mechanical oscillatory stimulations ranging from ~1 Hz to 100 kHz, these vibration frequencies reach deep body tissues, including ligaments, tendons, and muscles. Under healthy conditions, and based on animal studies, researchers estimate that our bodies undergo persistent, high-frequency (10-50 Hz) low-amplitude signals on a daily basis.
Day-to-day activities, such as commuting to and from work, school, or home by car, bicycle, or train, expose us to vibrations. Music and musical instruments also create vibrations through sound waves, and higher levels of vibration stem from activities such as cycling, skating, and horseback riding. Simpler motions, such as jumping, walking, and running, also create whole-body vibrations (WBV) and serve as essential signals for our health.
Movement-Induced Vibrations Promote Recovery
Everyday activities, such as standing up, sitting down, walking, and strength training, produce vibrations through movement. These internal vibrations are part of how the body builds strength, adapts to stress, and promotes repair. Movement-induced vibrations are sensed by proteins within the sensory neurons of the skin and the deeper tissues.
A process known as mechanotransduction converts vibration energy or mechanical input into biochemical signals. More specifically, vibration energy is absorbed by protein-based mechanosensitive ion channels, Piezo1 and Piezo2, found througout the body. The ion channels open in response to vibrations, triggering cell-level signals that can lead to various health benefits.
Similar to movement-induced vibrations, externally applied vibrations can activate mechanosensitive ion channels and trigger signals at the cellular level, thereby improving whole-body health.
Vibration Activates Skin Receptors
Research supports that external vibrations can enhance mechanotransduction, improving skin health. Below the epidermis (upper skin layer) is a secondary layer known as the dermis. The dermis is predominantly composed of connective tissue, including collagen and elastic fibers.
Enhancing mechanotransduction can influence specialized cells, such as fibroblasts. Skin health depends on the fibroblasts' ability to secrete extracellular matrix (ECM) components necessary for building connective tissues.
Moreover, vibration also activates mechanosensitive skin receptors, leading to changes in vascular tone. These changes can enhance microcirculation, thereby further contributing to skin health by facilitating the delivery of nutrients and promoting the removal of waste.
How Vibration Influences Microcirculation
Research has shown that vibration influences microcirculation by widening the skin's tiny blood vessels. Like heating pads, massage, and exercise, vibration increases the peripheral blood flow of the skin. The mechanical cues from the vibration reach the cells that line the blood vessels, which are stimulated via mechanotransduction, Figure XXX. The result is a gentle shift in how the nervous system controls blood flow.
Why does this matter?
Microcirculation is closely linked to your heart rate and blood pressure. Widening restricted tiny blood vessels can reduce blood pressure. Thus, research supports that passive vibration offers a means to achieve whole-body health by indirectly lowering blood pressure.
These benefits may be particularly beneficial for individuals who are unable to exercise regularly or who struggle to perform moderate to intense exercise. That said, when vibration affects blood flow at the skin level, it can improve overall cardiovascular health.
How Vibration Alters Blood Flow
Vibration can also increase local blood flow beyond the skin by inducing small contractions in relaxed muscles. The result is increased blood flow and nutrient delivery to the tissues surrounding the tendons, which can enhance muscle function.
Short durations of 10 minutes of vibration at 30 Hz applied locally to the lower leg muscles of healthy persons increased blood flow by nearly 250% within a few minutes. The increase in blood flow also raised skin temperature.
Additionally, whole-body vibration can significantly increase skin blood flow and temperature in older individuals when combined with moist heat exposure. The researchers propose that this combination may offset disease or age-related declines in microcirculation.
How Vibration Activates Deeper Tissues
Vibration is felt through the skin, but the energy extends to deeper bodily tissues. When exposed to vibration, the human body's tissues undergo adaptive changes because vibro-mechanical stimulus impacts muscles, tendons, ligaments, and the vascular system.
Mechanical vibrations applied to soft tissues, such as muscles or tendons, can cause them to deform and stretch. The deformation changes the length, activating muscle spindles. These spindles communicate changes in the length and speed of the muscle during voluntary contractions.
Thus, vibration mimics a voluntary contraction and triggers a reflex muscle contraction known as the Tonic Vibration Reflex, as shown in Figure below.
Strength Gains and Recovery
Research shows that EMG activity (muscle activation) often increases during vibration stimulation, sometimes even more than during voluntary muscle effort. These findings sparked studies that showed various effects, ranging from improved physical abilities, such as strength, to enhanced tissue recovery and repair processes.
One study showed that vibrating cables oscillating at 44 Hz and with an amplitude of 3 mm increased power output by 10.4% and 7.9% in elite and amateur athletes, respectively, during bilateral biceps curls. Later studies have shown an increased thickness of contracted muscles in individuals who supplemented low back pain exercises with WBV.
Researchers propose that adaptations known to arise from everyday activities are mimicked during externally applied vibrations. More specifically, vibration may stimulate satellite cells, which are essential for muscle regeneration and hypertrophy. In line with this notion, ligaments and tendons contain tendon stem cells or progenitor cells, and researchers have suggested that vibratory signals could activate these cells to aid in tissue remodeling and healing.