Effects on leg muscular performance from whole-body vibration exercise: a systematic review

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects on leg muscular performance from whole‐body vibration exercise. Literature search was performed on the databases Pubmed, Cinahl, ISI web of science (Sci‐expanded, SSCI) and Embase (Rehab & Physical Med). Rating of 19 relevant studies was performed (14 on long‐term exercise and five on short‐term exercise) using a score system for the methodological quality. Several randomized‐controlled trial studies of high to moderate quality show similar improvements from long‐term regimen on muscular performance in the legs after a period of whole‐body vibration exercise. As there were few studies on short‐term exercise and as they had no control groups, the same convincing improvements regarding muscular performance were not achieved. Preliminarily, there is strong to moderate evidence that long‐term whole‐body vibration exercise can have positive effects on the leg muscular performance among untrained people and elderly women. There is no clear evidence for effects on muscular performance after short‐term vibration stimuli.