“Do you vibe?”
It’s a question that’s been reverberating around TikTok as users flood the platform with videos of themselves balancing on shaking vibration plates, bodies quivering, often in an attempt to hawk the devices as the latest cure-all.
Their efforts have certainly made waves. Online searches for vibration plates — which look like a hybrid between a griddle and a trembling surfboard — have sharply increased since April, and products on TikTok Shop have racked up tens of thousands of sales.
People use them in different ways. Some focus on standing upright while the plate shakes them; others go further and engage in various exercises like squats or pushups.
The purported health benefits of whole-body vibration range from weight loss and increasing bone density to promoting lymphatic drainage, improving circulation and beyond.
But what does the evidence actually say?
Do vibration plates have health benefits?
“It’s not a silver bullet, but it has its certain merits,” said Dr. Jörn Rittweger, head of the division of muscle and bone metabolism at the German Aerospace Center and a professor of space physiology at the University of Cologne in Germany.
He said the calorie-burning and cardiovascular benefits are similar to “brisk walking for the same amount of time.”
It also matters how much exercise you’re already getting in. “If people don’t do anything” in terms of exercise, Rittweger said, “then the effects are moderate or even better. For the general public, if they’re exercising already, the effect is marginal or nonexistent.”
For example, Rittweger said he uses the device in the children’s rehabilitation unit to help ward off muscle atrophy in kids who can’t walk.
What about strengthening bones? Rittweger says the evidence is mixed. “The effects are probably not tremendous,” he said.
As for improved circulation and lymphatic drainage, Rittweger said there’s “evidence suggesting that the vibration actually does help with removal of fluids from your legs,” although it’s unclear whether the fluid is being removed from the lymphatic system or the veins.
Two related diseases have also received a lot of attention on TikTok for potentially being helped by vibration: lymphedema, a form of swelling that results from more severe backup of lymphatic fluid, and lipedema, a form of swelling usually seen in women that’s caused by fat deposits that are typically hard to burn off.
There’s “no convincing evidence that vibration plates alleviate lymphedema or lipedema,” Dr. Håkan Brorson, a professor of plastic surgery at Lund University Cancer Centre in Sweden and the former president of the International Society of Lymphology, wrote in an email.
So although the evidence is mixed, it may be helpful for people who can’t exercise in other ways.
But it also matters how you use the device. Rittweger recommends seeking guidance from an expert, like a physical therapist, who can ensure that you are maximizing the benefits without hurting yourself.
Are vibration plates safe?
People who are exposed to whole-body vibration for extended periods of time, like bus drivers and heavy machinery operators, are known to experience lower back pain.
Peter W. Johnson, a professor emeritus in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington who studies ergonomics, said this probably isn’t a concern for most users of vibration plates. “I don’t think that these vibrating plates would create much of a problem, because most of them are just used for bouts of six to 15 minutes,” he said.
“The other important thing is the frequencies that the plates operate with,” Johnson said. “A lot of people use the plates at higher frequencies,” which don’t affect the spine.
The devices often come with warnings for certain people.
“An important one is any active clotting disorder. If you have a clot, you could displace the clot,” Rittweger said. A displaced clot could travel to the brain and cause a stroke or to the heart and cause a heart attack.
He also said that vibration could dislodge kidney stones, which can be extremely painful.
Lifepro, a popular brand of vibration plate, says on its website that people with heart conditions, muscle or bone injuries, as well as medical implants such as pacemakers, shouldn’t use the devices, nor should pregnant women or young children.
Lifepro did not respond to a request for comment.
Although vibration plates are safe for most people, ultimately, Johnson says, “when we make changes, we tell people to listen to their body.”
Deja Mason of Roanoke, Virginia, said she first heard about vibration plates on TikTok.
“I had heard it helped with poor circulation,” Mason, 29, said. Instead, she said that it made her feel worse.
“I used it for maybe three minutes tops, and immediately got very dizzy and lightheaded, couldn’t really stand up straight or focus on anything with my eyes,” she said.
One thing people don’t need to worry about is the itching sensation they may experience their first time on a vibration plate.
Rittweger said it’s a reflex that results from the skin vibrating and sliding against blood vessels, triggering the release of a chemical called histamine that expands the vessels and makes the skin itchy.
“It’s something that passes away with one, two or three sessions at the most,” he said, adding that “it’s not harmful.”
Wait, haven’t we seen these before?
As vibration plates experience a resurgence, some hear echoes of past fitness fads.
“This feels rather retro to me,” said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of history at the New School in New York City and the author of “Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession.” “It probably is connected to some of that resurrection of early-2000s culture.”
In addition to intensifying workouts, there’s something tempting about how easy it seems, she said. “You don’t even have to sprint on a treadmill to get a benefit of this. You can just stand there and it’ll do something.”
Modern vibration plates are the latest iteration in a long history of vibrating exercise devices, from belts to couches. From the 1940s to the 1960s, “what was being sold, almost entirely to women, was the notion of passive exercise,” she said, something “that didn’t at all disrupt notions of ‘appropriately ladylike movement.’”
“It would be totally inappropriate for her to be lifting heavy weights or going for a run, God forbid,” Petrzela said.
So why did they become popular at the turn of the millennium?
“There was a lot of enthusiasm over what technology can accomplish,” she said. “Remember, that’s the Y2K, dot-com era. And so, my hunch is that it was a little bit of, ‘How can we make the gym high-tech?’”
But soon they faded away. “Trends come and go,” she said, pointing to other trends that displaced vibration plates, like group fitness and CrossFit.
For now, they’re fashionable. But just as vibrating plates shake users up and down in quick succession, trends too are always oscillating. Something that’s up today can be down tomorrow, just as fast.
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