Good Vibe?

I've never seen or heard of anyone actually applying this in practice but my curiosity is piqued:

Flex It

Apparently a simple split is not enough. With degrees of flexibility correlating with tenths of points, US gymnasts will try any form of Voodoo to get that limb just millimeters higher. Well aware of the value of an extra degree the ears of Dr. Bill Sands, leader of the Recovery Center for the USOC, perked up 15 years ago when he read research citing 100 percent improvements in flexibility in male physical education students.
“In a lot of sports, just making the shape is part of doing well. The elegance of the position itself is what’s pursued,” said Sands “The higher you can hold the leg, the better.”

The source of the absurd improvement relied less on Voodoo than it did on vibration. Research had shown that resting a limb on a vibrating surface during stretching greatly increased the flexibility of that limb. Sands searched the literature but was surprised to find no attempts to repeat the data and capitalize on the potential advantage. Armed with $1,000, a local machine shop and an engineering intern Sands decided to make his own vibration box. The machine itself is surprisingly simple. It’s shaped like a small pommel horse and shakes continuously at 30 hertz. After trials with young male gymnasts showed 400 percent improvements acutely and significant increases at four weeks, Sands felt the device was ready for Olympic prime time. Three years later, with a series of peer-reviewed publications, Sands says the effect of the machine is indisputable.

“As a physiologist I’m struggling to find improvements of one percent and so when you can find improvements of 20 -100 percent, that’s big time,” said Sands. “The results have been staggering, not just small. It’s to the point where we stopped studying it because we know it works. It’s by far the biggest results in experiments that I’ve ever done”

While Sands is aware of full body vibration technology, he stresses that his research is based only on limb vibration. Research showing strength and weight loss potential from full body vibration has been contradictory at best. He also notes that full body vibration has a series of potential harmful effects and requires more data before widespread use.

To date Sands has worked with gymnasts, synchronized swimmers, divers and even figure skaters with universal results. The synchronized team like the contraption so much, they reversed engineered it and ordered one for each athlete to take home. The only problem Sands has is finding the right protocol. Apparently they all work. In different studies he’s altered the time on and off the machine and found positive results irrespective of timing. A welcomed complication, we’re sure.

I recall now an old video from Rick McCharles, dated July 2007:

Sport Scientist Jeni McNeal is researching the use of vibration to improve flexibility. Machines like the one she built were highly touted in the former Soviet Union gymnastics training centres.

I looked and found the accompanying blogpost:

using vibration to improve flexibility

Plus a follow up:

flexibility enhancement with vibration

Read the comments on both posts, as well.

Here is a research study by William A. Sands, Jeni R. McNeal, Michael H. Stone, G. Gregory Haff, and Ann M. Kinser:  Effect of Vibration on Forward Split Flexibility and Pain Perception in Young Male Gymnasts

Image still from Enrique Trabanino's "Rolling Flex to Improve Flexibility" video on Gymnastike Gold