We suggest that whole-body vibrations during rest can provide fast, efficient fatigue recovery as a cool down exercise for women, the elderly, and patients without other activity after intense exercise.

Abstract. This study shows the improvement of muscle activity and muscle strength imbalance in the lower extremities through independent exercise loads in vibration platform. Twenty females of age 20 participated in this study. The subjects were divided into WBV group, with more than 10% of muscle strength imbalance between left and right the lower extremities, and control group, with less than 10% of muscle strength imbalance between left and right the lower extremities. As the prior experiment showed, different exercise postures provide different muscular activities. As a result, the highest muscular activity was found to be in the low squat posture. Therefore, the LS posture was selected for the exercise in this experiment. Vibration intensities were applied to dominant muscle and non-dominant muscle, and the vibration frequency was fixed at 25Hz for the WBV group. The control group was asked to perform the same exercise as the WBV group, without stimulated vibration. This exercise was conducted for a total of 4 weeks. As a result, the WBV group which showed an average deviation of 16% before the experiment, tended to decrease approximately to 5%. In this study, vibration exercise using load deviation is shown to be effective in improving the muscle strength imbalance.

This research was performed to assess the effects of angled whole body vibration on muscle activity of the lower limbs, by examining adults in their twenties during squat exercises, taking into account two variables of exercise intensity (vibration frequency and gradient). Twenty healthy males in their twenties with previous experience of more than 6 month's weight training and no past medical history were included in this study. The experiment was performed by participating in squat exercises which consisted of 3 sets (1 set = 5 seconds x 3 repetitions of exercise), and the muscle activities of the Rectus Femoris, Vastus Lateralis, Vastus Medialis were measured with variation in the gradients of 0°, 10°, and 20°, and vibration frequencies of 20, 30, and 40 Hz. At 30 and 40 Hz, the vastus lateralis showed the highest change in muscle activity, while activity of the vastus medialis also increased significantly. Analysis of muscle activity according to the gradient showed a significant increase of the vastus lateralis at 20°, while the highest muscle activity at 20° was observed for the vastus medialis. In comparison of the change in lower limb muscle activity according to simultaneous stimulation, at a gradient of 10°, high activity was shown in muscle, while at 20°, high muscle activities were produced at 40 Hz in the vastus lateralis, 40 Hz in the rectus femoris, and both 30 and 40 Hz in the vastus medialis

This study investigated the effect of whole-body vibration on muscle function and muscular reaction in the knee joint. We recruited thirty healthy subjects and divided them into a training group, who experienced whole-body vibration, and a control group, who did not. The training group performed whole-body vibration exercises for 30 min per day, 3 days a week, for 8 weeks. We measured knee joint torque to estimate muscle strength and reaction, using BIODEX System 3. Knee joint peak torque and total work performed increased significantly in the training group, and muscle acceleration time decreased. These results suggest that stimulation by whole-body vibration can improve muscle strength and reaction by improving muscle tone and increasing blood temperature and flow speed in muscular fiber. Our results also indicate that 4 weeks of exercise with whole-body vibration is required to improve the reaction response, and six weeks to improve strength.

Abstract. This study investigated the feasibility of the Infrared (IR) sensor-based walking aids for detecting the gait intention. To compensate for the defects of Force Sensing Resistors (FSRs) or force sensors, such as the velocity control problem on gait slopes, we used IR sensors to investigate knee joint anterior displacement in order to recognize the gait intention. We also measure leg muscle activities and foot pressure, in order to verify our investigation. We placed two IR sensors on the rollator center to sense left and right leg walking intentions. We took EMG signals of four leg muscles, and analyzed them. Foot pressure analysis parameters were the measured force and mean pressure. We conducted experiments on twenty young healthy adults. The results show that knee joint anterior displacement increases according to gait slope and velocity. We confirm similar results of knee joint anterior displacement through the IR sensors.