Vibration Therapy for Blood Circulation

Vibration Therapy for Peripheral Blood Circulation Improvement

Vibration therapy has been well recognized for its effectiveness in blood circulation improvement. The rapidly repeated muscle contraction induced by vibration works particularly well with the functionality of peripheral vascular system.

Peripheral vascular system is part of the cardiovascular system. It relays, regulates and distributes arterial blood to tissues all over the body, and transport venous blood back to heart.

To understand how vibration therapy improves peripheral blood circulation, let's first examine how blood is transported to and from tissues around the body.

What Drives Blood Circulation?

Heart, vessels and skeletal muscles are the major organs that drive the blood flow.

Skeletal muscles also play essential role in blood circulation but often neglected.

Heart plays the center role driving the blood flow. Heart pumps and sucks blood through the involuntary contraction of the cardiac muscles.

Vessels of various sizes further relay and distribute the blood through out the entire body. Vessels push the blood through the involuntary contraction of their smooth muscles.

The wall of vessel is mainly comprised of a layer of non-striated muscle called smooth muscle. The smooth muscles contract involuntarily at a certain pace. The contraction pushes the blood to flow on its direction. Arteries push the blood outbound to tissues, and vines push the blood inbound to heart.

Besides heart and vessels, skeletal muscle plays an important role in blood circulation.

The Importance of Skeletal Muscle Contraction for Blood Circulation

Blood vessels are closely intertwined with skeletal muscles. Skeletal muscles contraction can produce pressure on the adjacent blood vessels, assisting blood distribution.

While muscle contraction producing external force to push the blood flow, the physiological process of muscle contraction involves influx and release of interstitial fluids in and out of muscle cells, creating internal drive for blood exchange.

As blood reaching to its tissue destination, the pressure from heart and major vessels gradually lose their strength. Skeletal muscle contraction become an important supplemental drive for blood distribution.

The importance of skeletal muscle contraction is more significant for returning blood to heart, especially for returning blood from feet and lower legs by overcoming gravity. That is why when you sit or stand for a long time, you need to do some walk to help circulation in your feet and lower legs.

Lack of physical activities, i.e. lack of skeletal muscle contraction, will result insufficient blood circulation.

In some situations, we need more effective muscle contraction to improve blood circulation. Vibration therapy can practically serve this role.

How Does Vibration Therapy Improve Blood Circulation?

While your cardiac muscles and smooth muscles contract involuntarily, skeletal muscles usually contract voluntarily as commended by your brain.

Skeletal muscles can also contract involuntarily to certain stimulations, like vibration.

Due to skeletal muscle's nature of stretch reflex response, we can utilize vibration to induce rapidly repeated skeletal muscle contraction.

The rapidly repeated skeletal muscle contraction creates fast-pace pump strokes on the intertwined vessels. This dynamic pumping pressure can efficiently facilitate blood distribution.

In the meantime, the physiological process of the rapidly repeated muscle contraction requires more vigorous influx and release of interstitial fluids in and out of muscle cells, effectively promoting blood exchange.

Through the rapidly repeated skeletal muscle contraction, vibration therapy can efficiently and effectively facilitates blood distribution and exchange, improving peripheral blood circulation.

The fast-pace muscle contraction pattern is unique to vibration stimulation, not achievable through regular cardio excise and strength training.

Muscle Perfusion and Oxygen Saturation Measured in Research Trials

Based on controlled research trails and quantified studies, scientists have observed significantly higher muscle perfusion from doing vibration exercise than from doing other physical exercises. Check the link at the end of this article.

Through measuring blood volume, flow velocity and vessel diameter using Doppler imaging devise, scientists can calculate the muscle perfusion for more accurate quantitative study.

Other quantitative studies on vibration therapy for blood circulation improvement were conducted through oxygen saturation measurement. Some clinical trials observed vibration therapy led to the increase of oxygen saturation rate.

Increased muscle perfusion and oxygen saturation are evidences of increased peripheral circulation activities, and therefore the proof of blood circulation improvement.

Applications

Blood Circulation Improvement for Senior People

Senior people and physically weak people may not be able to maintain sufficient daily exercise for healthy blood circulation. Vibration therapy, using external energy, with its effectiveness and efficiency, provides a practical solution for these populations to improve blood circulation.

Many senior users reported increased energy level after vibration exercises. That is because the increase of blood oxygen saturation level after vibration exercise.

Tissue Injury Recovery

Tissue injuries can cause circulation problems, hindering the recovery. For injured people, regular rehab exercise may not be practical or sufficient for providing needed blood circulation to the injured tissue for the repair. Vibration can be introduced to local area to improve the microcirculation.

Many profession related muscle injuries are because of overusing secondary muscles. These injuries often get unnoticed at the initial stage, until chronic muscle injuries have been developed.

Secondary muscle are usually remote from major vessels. Cardio exercise may not be effective to bring blood to these muscle for the recovery. Vibration therapy can be introduced to these muscles to improve the circulation.

Hard-to-Diagnose Hard-to-Treat Diseases

Many hard-to-diagnose hard-to-treat diseases are associated with poor blood circulation. Vibration therapy, with its unique effectiveness in blood circulation improvement, provides a practical solution for treating these diseases. With vibration therapy, you may achieve a result that could not be achieved through regular physical therapy or mainstream medicine.

Jay Tang

About

Interpreting life science from an engineering perspective.

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Devoted to making a better vibration plate.

• Resident of Minnesota
• Master of Mechanical Engineering; MBA
• Expert in metalworking and machine building
• Extensive research and experiments on vibration therapy
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