Here is another thought on your athlete’s interset rest/recovery period. How about introducing whole body vibration (WBV)?
We did this 15 or so years back when WBV was becoming topical. At the time whole body vibration had been found to be effective in developing strength and power; improving postural stability and balance; and increasing leg muscle activity. So, the thought was, can we use WBV in the interset rest period as another method to add mechanical overload to the session. As always with this interset activity, you need to check out whether session quality is affected?
We found no significant differences between WBV active recovery versus non-WBV passive recovery in terms of muscle activation, force, power and velocity output during each set. Blood lactate accumulation between the two modalities was not significantly different either. So, it seemed we could add WBV without unduly affecting session kinematics and kinetics.
It was an acute study and I always wondered what the outcomes would be if taken into a longitudinal design. Anybody done something similar or know of any research in this area?
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