Knowing which vibration type to pick can be tricky without really “feeling” how each of these vibrations are. And so, we’ll try to tell and describe to you how it feels exactly!

Pivotal or Oscillation Vibration

Pivotal or Oscillation machines clearly has the highest amplitude amongst all the different vibration types.

When you are on an oscillation machine, it behaves exactly like a seesaw, with each of your legs on either side.  When one side comes up, it lifts you up by pushing your ankles, calves, knees, thighs, and finally your hip bones.  Your hip will then straighten out your body but because the other side is dropping, you’re body is rarely horizontal and you will be lop-sided again.  The up and down motion happens so fast that when you drop, half of your body is essentially free-falling and once the platform lifts you up again, the up movement counteracts the gravity, causing your muscles and bones to bear weight, and hence, provide the workout.

Oscillation vibration is probably the harsher vibration type since it can agitate users with problematic ankles, knees, or hips. However, I personally think it also provides the best workout relative to its cost since I can feel my whole body shaking when I am on the see-saw platform.

We do recommend oscillation if your body is able to handle it.  Another good thing is the lack of head vibration.  Since you are going essentially side-to-side, there is no chance for your head to vibrate because your head doesn’t directly go up and down, but rather, side to side at a very high speed.

Triplanar Vibration

Triplanar vibration can also be known as Spiral vibration. The only difference being the way the two different types of motors deliver this vibration. When you stand on it, it almost feels like a high speed massage–you’re essentially standing on a giant vibrator!  Think of it as when you are sitting in your car with your gear in neutral.  You rev your engine to about 5000 rpm, consistently. Thats the type of vibration we’re talking about.

The super high frequency range causes your muscle to contract and relax extremely fast and can cause them to tighten up and tone fairly quickly.  That’s why standing there for 1 minute can cause you to itch and turn red, whereas standing on a pivotal machine for 10 minutes you’re actually okay with. The itchiness and redness is actually your blood vessels dilating and allowing more blood to flow through, warming you up at a faster pace, and causing you to feel itchy.

Standing on the platform with straight legs transfers the vibration right to my head and it doesn’t feel so good.  It makes me feel like I’m having a migraine.  A tip would be to always bend your knees when you are using Triplanar machines.

With Triplanar vibration, the vibration does not seem to vibrate up to the arms area and you must use the hand straps to get the vibration to the upper part of your body.  The vibration platforms are usually denser and a lot heavier and can support users holding free weights upto 500 lbs! I wouldn’t worry about these machines moving or jumping around since the base itself can weigh over 100 lbs.  Some fancier Triplanar machines come with a Personal Virtual Trainer and they help you target certain parts of the body with a predetermined frequency, amplitude and time setting.  There are a few implementations of Triplanar vibration where the manufacturer either uses a vertically mounted motor, or a horizontally mounted one.  You should ask as the horizontal mounted ones are higher grade, but comes at a steeper price tag.

Dual Vibration

Dual vibration machines are a newly designed type of vibration system in North America. It combines both the Oscillation and Triplanar vibrations into a single machine. Each motor or vibration motion can be independently controlled and offers the best of both types of machines–if you were to purchase individually, an oscillation and triplanar vibration machine. When utilized together, the vibrations produced by the machine is more powerful than that of a single vibration. The best way to describe this type of motion is the side to side movement that you will feel on the Oscillation machine while at the same time, a high speed, cellular phone style vibration integrated into this side to side movement.

Lineal or Vertical Vibration

Lineal or Vertical vibration machines do just that, move up and down, while the platform is horizontal. It is completely different to that of Tri-planar or Pivotal.

The movement is similar to that of an elevator. When you are descending, you are actually free falling for 3-10 mm and the machine forces you back up. This G-force is what causes your body to work and how your bones and muscles strengthen. Lineal machines offer similar frequency and amplitude settings compared to Oscillation but is more gentle on your joints because your legs are pushed back up completely straight, compared to an angle. When standing with knees slightly bent, you are moving completely up and down. True lineal machines are hard to come by and we haven’t really got to the point where we can recommend a really good one. As of now, I would however, stick with Oscillation or Tri-planar machines.

Sonic / Sound Vibration

Sonic vibration is a very expensive form of vibration.  Luckily we have the opportunity to try it out.

Similar to Lineal vibration, Sonic vibration is a true vertical vibration motion.  If you have a giant boom box at home, you can try standing on top of it and blasting music.  Thats pretty much the basics behind sonic vibration. Standing on my Logitech Subwoofer with music blasting somewhat simulates the vibration but a true Sonic machine is much more then that. When standing on the platform, the speakers are mounted right underneath facing your feet with 4 damping springs in each corner.  Sound vibration is regulated and transferred to the platform, moving you up and down.  The feeling is very gentle as you are moved up and down.

In case you are wondering, you don’t hear loud sounds when you are using it, it is actually very quiet in operation and feels a lot smoother compared to the other vibration types.  Sonic vibration machines have a fairly high frequency range with a fairly generous 5-13 mm amplitude, giving rise to the highest G-force producing vibration machine money can buy, but of course, it comes at a hefty price tag! They are of course, the most feature rich with the smoothest of operation and is worth it if your budget permits.