Can Vibration Training Damage My Brain?
As anyone in this industry will tell you, this is one of those questions that makes you put your head in your hands and cry when asked. I sometimes wonder if the person is pulling my leg, but to be fair some people cannot correlate everyday experiences into new experiences.
So I answer the question with another question……… ” Do you get brain damage from jogging?”
Clearly your head receives far more impact while jogging than remaining static in a correct pose on a vibrating platform where you can’t even see a person’s head move. Even standing lock-legged on a platform, which is the worst pose to directly transfer all energy from the plate into the head, comes nowhere close to what we receive when running.
All other sports involving shocks or contact such as rugby, soccer (think heading a ball ), gymnastics etc… have even greater impacts. Even riding a bike down a rocky road will get you shaken up far harder than anything I have seen in Vibration Training.
You have to look at sports where deliberate high amplitude shocks to the head, such as boxing, to consider getting brain damage. The fact is your body’s own defense mechanism will make you stop any risky activity by “knocking you out” should your brain start being smacked around too much.
Research
The brain is encased in Cerebrospinal fluid that acts as a very good shock absorber against blows to the head and a sudden stop or massive change in direction is needed for your brain to hit the inside on your skull.
The dynamics of this action and the body’s limits have been tested and never greater than by Dr. John Paul Stapp (1910 - 1999). Over a long career with the U.S. army as a Doctor, he volunteered to be a “human decelerator” to test the limits of how the body coped with change of direction in the name of aviation safety. He regularly underwent 25g sudden stops with 1 record breaking 40g stop where he went from the speed of a .45 caliber bullet to a dead stop in 1.4 sec. During these tests he never knocked himself out.
He died in his sleep at age 89 .
In Conclusion
In the cold light of reason and science these types of questions may seem kind of silly, but the fact is we are responsible for introducing people not only to a new form of training but a new experience as well and must continue to remind ourselves that this will bring up fears and concerns we don’t think about because it’s not new to us.
6 Comments
- Wilton Pena
July 6th, 2008Lloyd - I have been pointed to a Dr. Rubin @ Stony Brook University to research this matter. Are you familiar with this gentleman?
Yes I know about Clintons research. I have a certain amount of respect for him , but he sometimes crosses the line in my opinion.
Eg…Be aware his statements about amplitude/G-force do not appair to be always science driven and are sometimes commercials for his own machine ( Juvent).
He misses out huge amounts of information that is very relevent to our industry and the consumer. I am yet to conclude if this is deliberate or he truly does not understand as much as I think he should.
Or maybe I expect too much.
Regarding Dr. Rubin:
He has done a lot of good research on low-level vibration and bone density.
However, he has made statements about other platforms, indicating that organ damage may result from their use.
At the present time there is not one scientific study to back up that claim.In fact, he uses ISO standards but leaves out the areas which deal with the resonance frequency for the organs (less than 20 Hz.) and the amount of vibration exposure (months and months@6-8 hours per day) required before symptoms appear in industrial settings.
No one should compare supervised WBV training to an uncontrolled work situation!- nat
July 17th, 2008in relation to vibrations affecting the brain. From personal experiance every time i had vibration near my head such as a massage cusion or leaning on a bus or plane my head felt strange and i couldn’t keep it up. a couple weeks ago i fell asleep on a couch window with a pillow and when we arrive an hour later I had such a terrible head pain it lasted through the night the next day and the next night. Perhaps the US army guy had a toughened skull or brain or something or perhaps vibrations dont cause death but memory loss or tissue damage there is no doubt people do damage by jogging and bouncing aswell as everyone loses brain function in the end.
I dont doubt that uncontrolled, incorrect posture and long term exposure could cause issues, to the head and neck. Like sleeping on a vibration device.
But thats not what we do.
June 22nd, 2008
Thanks for the article Lloyd. I think it’s reasonable that people ask as the vibrations can seem like small electric shocks into the back of the neck and the head of some people who are new to Vibration Training. It’s one of the common complaints I’ve heard from people who “tred it once and didn’t like it”. Also some people complain that they had headaches after their workout.
Once again, education is the answer. As you’ve pointed out, any vibrations going into the head are not sudden and forceful so can’t cause the brain to be suddenly moved. Most often, I believe, the discomfort is caused by the new person tensing the back of their neck and shoulders (bracing against the vibrations) - you know how much I’ve done that and I know better. Again the reminder is that one is to remain in relaxed pose on the machines! Another reason for discomfort can be that the person’s head is out of position and that’s the responsibility of the Instructor, to see that the person is in perfect position.
Headaches are always, I believe, caused by lack of fluids either before, during or after using the Vibration Machine and in a few highly stressed people maybe concern that the whole first experience felt so weird and they disliked it. Those who come back for more soon find that the strangeness (isn’t anything new strange!) soon goes away and the “feel good” feeling that vibration training brings becomes addictive.
Then again, a rumour was spread by some who had low quality machines, that certain (high quality) machines were too powerful and would hurt your brain. You were too kind in your article, Lloyd, and didn’t even mention this.