By standing on a vibrating plate roughly the size of a bathroom scale, you could shed pounds and build muscle. At least, that’s the claim you’ll find all over TikTok.
“All you have to do is just hop on this vibration plate, and it does all the work for you,” one user said.
Adding vibration to a workout isn’t new. But research on how vibration may (or may not) benefit your health is inconsistent, experts say. And vibration plates aren’t cheap: Many cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Here’s what to know.
What does vibration do to the body?
Vibrating the body stimulates muscle spindles, the receptors that help control when muscles contract and relax, said Brad Schoenfeld, a professor of exercise science at Lehman College in the Bronx.
Your muscles also contract during exercise, so it’s reasonable to think that using a vibration plate would tire them out and change your physique — especially if you perform exercises while on top of the plate. But data suggesting that vibration will help you gain muscle or lose fat is sparse, Dr. Schoenfeld said.
Vibration alone isn’t enough for most people to significantly challenge their muscles or heart, or to burn calories or fat, said Dr. Amy West, a sports medicine physician at Northwell Health in New York. To do that, you’d need to do resistance training and aerobic exercise.
People who are mostly sedentary or unable to exercise could theoretically see modest changes to their physique after standing on a vibration plate. This is because their activity level would increase “from nothing to slightly something,” said Dr. Rekha B. Kumar, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City who specializes in metabolic health. But even those people would eventually see diminishing returns on weight loss and strength without incorporating diet changes and exercise.
In a 2019 review of studies that involved 280 healthy-weight adults in the United States and Europe, scientists investigated whether using vibration plates between six weeks and six months, two or three times a week, could lead to fat loss. It found that vibration caused participants to lose a bit of fat, Dr. Kumar said, but not enough to meaningfully change their body composition.
In a small 2021 study involving older adults, researchers found that vibration used before strengthening exercises was not significantly more effective at improving muscle strength than stretching before the strengthening exercises instead.
Are there any other benefits?
Some studies suggest that vibrating your entire body can offer benefits, but the research isn’t robust enough to make recommendations for the general population, Dr. Schoenfeld said.
This is partly because devices on the market can vary widely: Some plates vibrate faster and more intensely than others. And vibration research involves a range of devices, so there’s no telling which settings or devices are ideal for particular health goals, said Rachele Pojednic, an adjunct lecturer in human biology at Stanford University.
Here’s what some of the evidence suggests.
Balance
Steadying yourself on a vibrating plate requires more effort than standing on still ground. That could potentially improve your balance over time, Dr. West said.
Most research on this topic focuses on older adults or people who have medical conditions that affect their balance, Dr. Schoenfeld said. In a 2023 review of 25 randomized controlled trials, for instance, researchers found that some forms of vibration could help older adults with their balance, but the studies included in the review were limited, so more research is needed.
Bone strength
Some limited studies have found that vibrating devices could help certain groups of people, like postmenopausal women, improve their bone density. This makes sense in theory, Dr. Schoenfeld said, since muscle contractions cause muscles to tug on our bones. This keeps them strong by prompting them to replace old tissues with new ones.
But don’t rely on vibration plates alone for stronger bones, said Julie Pohlad, a physical therapist with Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine in Tempe, Ariz. Use reliable exercises for bone health such as weight training, jumping, walking or running, she said.
Explosive power
Experts say that in theory, vibration may enhance how our nerves and muscles communicate, which could help our muscles activate more quickly, Dr. Pohlad said. That could allow us to jump a little higher, for instance.
However, as with any potential benefit of vibration, the research is too inconsistent and limited to suggest “what dose or correct frequency” would be necessary to see benefits, or if it even improves power at all, Dr. Pojednic said.
The Bottom Line
If having a vibration plate motivates you to exercise, there’s not necessarily any harm in purchasing one, Dr. Pojednic said.
But be wary of claims that seem too good to be true, she added. A vibration plate alone won’t help you reach your fitness or weight loss goals, Dr. West said.
“At the end of the day, these things just cannot replace good diet and exercise,” she said.