A case study about the load effect on the mechanical performances in a commercial WBV platform for clinical applications

The use of whole body vibration (WBV) platforms in neuromuscular studies has grown in the last years, especially for the interest of the technique in fields such as rehabilitation and sport training. Different studies have dealt with the correlation between biological effect and frequency or acceleration magnitude, but little has been told regarding the influence of the applied weight on the performances of WBV plates. In this work a commercial WBV platform, has been tested with different loads measuring the accelerations of the footboard. The results show that the system has a reduction of the mean acceleration at high loads, although the variability of the system response at fixed load is noticeable. The high variability is then an actual and very challenging issue and an in-depth characterization of the WBV plates must be done before making reproducible studies on the biological effect of vibrations in clinical applications.