Active Recovery on a Whole Body Vibration Platform

Active recovery is a term used to define those workouts that are completed at a lower intensity, usually 30%-50% less intense than a regular training session. The purpose of active recovery is to help your muscles recover faster and to reduce soreness and cramps after an intense workout.

In people who train daily at a high intensity, soreness it’s less likely to occur, as the body is already adapted and muscles are used to this level of effort. However, it’s common for muscles to feel sore after training for several days or weeks in beginners. Depending on one’s fitness level, muscle fever can be so intense that it can prevent one from practicing any form of physical activity for a couple of days.

Here’s where active recovery comes into play: instead of completely abandoning workouts for several days in a row, one trains at a lower intensity, allowing their muscles to recover without losing the strength and gains. Active recovery reduces the level of lactate in muscles, so it’s actually more recommended to practice light activities instead of being completely sedentary after training hard for days.

Good examples of physical activities that can be practiced during your active recovery days include brisk walking, cycling, jogging, elliptical training at a low intensity, swimming, dancing, pilates and yoga exercises, or any other routine that still stretches your muscles and works your heart, but doesn’t require that much effort. At the end of an active recovery session, you should feel energized, not drained, and your muscles shouldn’t feel tense or painful.

Now that you know what active recovery is and why it’s beneficial for your body, let’s see how it can be done on a WBV machine.

Active recovery on a vibration platform – how does it work?

When it comes to whole body vibration platforms, people tend to be divided into two groups: those who believe these machines are useful only for massage and relaxation, and those who know that high quality, powerful WBV platform can be a great tool not only for rehabilitation and recovery but also for strength training.

The results one gets from training on a vibration platform are strongly linked with the value of the G-force produced by the machine. For a machine to be powerful enough to be used for both training and recovery purposes, its technical parameters need to meet certain levels. The G-force produced by a WBV platform for example should be at least 6G, and the frequency higher than 20Hz, for training. For massage and relaxation, these values can be lower.

Now, moving to active recovery. We’ve said that to recover actively one needs to exercise at a lower intensity. On a vibration machine, this means that instead of choosing a frequency of 20 Hz for example, one will limit this parameter to 10-12 Hz or so. This way you will still exercise and your muscles will still work against a resistance force, but the stimulation won’t be powerful enough for the workout to be defined as high-intensity training.

Active recovery on a vibration machine provides numerous benefits, among which a better flow of blood and lymph, reduced muscle tension, enhanced mood, balanced hormone levels, and improved flexibility and posture.

On our Support Site you can find a gallery of exercises that can be practiced during the active recovery days – remember, the only difference is that you have to keep the frequency and G-force at lower values. Other than that you don’t have to change too many things in your WBV routine; just choose those exercises that feel comfortable and don’t require too much effort on your part, and combine them with some light jogging or walking for an even more relaxing day.

Given below are some movements you can do on the Hypervibe machine at a lower intensity, to help your muscles relax and recover faster.