The Acute Effect of Whole Body Vibration on Hip and Spine Flexibility

Nantia Karatrantou,VassilisGerodimos,SotirisSotiriadis,KonstantinaChanou,& IrenePapaioannou

Center of Research and Evaluation of Physical Performance,

Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Thessaly, Hellas

Abstract

Vibration has been widely recognised as an exercise intervention for rehabilitation as well as for the de- velopment of physical performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the acute effect of whole- body vibration (WBV) training on the flexibility of the hip and lower back. Sixteen young, physically active females (20.59 ± 1.9yrs) volunteered to participate in the present study. They took part in two protocols: the WBV protocol and the control protocol. During both interventions participants were standing at an upright position, maintaining their knees semi-flexed on a vibrating platform (Galileo Fitness, Novotec, Germany). The first protocol included a 6-minute training session at a fixed frequency and amplitude (25Hz, 4mm), while in the control protocol no vibration was performed. The flexibility of the hip and the lower back was measured using a sit-and-reach test before, immediately after and 15min after each intervention. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), (protocol x measurement, 2 x 3) was used with repeated measurements of both factors as well as a Tukey’s post hoc analysis whenever necessary. The level of significance was set at p< 0.05. The results showed statistically significant interaction between the factors protocol and measurement (p<.05). Specifically, the WBV protocol showed statistically significant difference between the measurements (p<.001), compared to the control protocol. Furthermore, there were no significant differences between the protocols at pre-test values, whereas in the second and third measurement there was statistically significant difference between the protocols (p<.01). According to the results, in the WBV protocol significant improvement of flexibility was observed (4.5 ± 3.5%). In conclusion, it seems that the WBV training positively affects the flexibility of young female adults.

Key words: flexibility, whole body vibration (WBV), acute effect