This article is being written to highlight the shear ridiculousness of some individuals and companies claims, that they should be listened to because they are "experts in the technical field of Vibration Training machines" .
Firstly lets look at the tools these experts use .........
The main tool used is an accelerometer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer This is a small device attached to the machine ( usually by using a powerful magnet or glued on ) which uses simple physics to calculate how fast a machine is vibrating, how far it is vibrating and in what direction ( sometimes multiple directions ) . Most attach to a computer nowadays that calculates everything for you , giving you a simple to read chart. Funny enough most accelerometers are used to measure vibration so it can be worked out how to stop the vibration, not create it like we do in our industry, because most machinery does not like vibration at all. "Vibration analysts" will do multiple tests on a piece of machinery until the engineer has fixed the excess vibration issue.
Does being able to use such a device or read a report make someone an expert in our industry...?
The simple answer to that is NO !. Vibration Training is all about the interaction of vibration with the human body. The perfect melding of Physics and Physiology.
The Physics....
This side of Vibration Training machines is the simplest to understand. So simple in fact that almost everything about it has been understood for hundreds of years ( Sir Isaac Newton's 3 laws of Physics was first published on July 5, 1687. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion ) More has been added to Newton's work since then, but really the basics has not been changed. But you would be surprised at how many "experts" still miss important parts to our machines equations. From a Physics point of view a fair bit is going on, so instead of admitting they cant comprehend the entire equation, they usually dumb it down to what an accelerometer can tell them.
The Physiology.....
This by far is the more complicated side of our industry. In fact I would be willing to say it makes up 99.9999 % of the knowledge required to even start understanding Vibration Training, and we are still learning new stuff all the time. I mean what do you think is more complicated, a machine that vibrates or the human body. Hell my little finger is more complicated than any machine ever built, and I don't just mean Vibration Training machines, I mean ANY machine ever built.
It is as mind numbingly ridiculous for an engineer to claim to be an "expert" in our field, as it would be for the person who did the welding on a piece of gym equipment, to say they are automatically a highly qualified personal trainer or even go so far as to say a brain surgeon. Or saying you are an English teacher but still only figuring out where A comes in the alphabet. That is exactly the scale of pretentiousness we are discussing here.
We are not machines....
One major problem with coming to any conclusion about what results a machine will give you, by simply using an accelerometer test, is that we are far more complicated animals that an accelerometer. We are also not attached to the machine with super glue. Just because the accelerometer is doing something does not mean our bodies will follow. For a start we are designed to not only absorb vibration but react to it with equal and opposite force. That is where so many other variables come in most peoples head would explode, to dumb it down to a graph with only 3 things on it is unbelievably misleading.
Important note: This is the exact reason so much research has been contradictory in the past. The so called "experts" were fooling themselves ( and others ) into thinking it was all just about how the machine vibrated in an engineering test.
Why are these claims popping up now...
Simply, because the industry is doing quite well globally. And sales are to be had for anyone claiming to be a Vibration Training Expert simply because they can read or compare a graph. By all means hire these people to test your machine to ascertain the basic characteristics of a Vibration Training platform ,( I have recommended plenty of companies to do just that. ). But to take their word on what machine works best, how they work best on the human body or how you will react to that vibration is pure folly.
