Real Life Fitness Questions Answered

How many calories from using a powerplate?

Hi, How many calories does a Powerplate workout burn? I have a home one which is gathering dust so I want to get it out and start using it again to help tone up, but I can't find anywhere how many calories I should allocate to it.

Our expert says...

Hi,

Vibrating plates (power plates), according to the research, enable you to activate closer to 100% of the muscle fibres as opposed to the estimated 45% activated in conventional training, so in theory you will burn more calories. However, essentially the process of calorie calculation is the same as for any type of weight training which makes exact figures very difficult to specify to particular exercises. Whatever exercises someone does on a vibration plate can be so varied in terms of demand and intensity that it is hard to assign a general calorie figure to it, I.e. one person merely standing and holding static positions on it compared to someone who is performing strict lunges, squats, press ups etc. 

The best way to quantify tend to be through the duration of time spent exercising for...so total minutes spent with the machine moving while you do your squats, press ups etc. I did find a figure from a web article from a site:    www.awholebodyvibration.com that stated using vibration technology could burn between 500-700 calories per hour. It seems to me that the potential for fat-burning with a vibration training machine has to do with the "after-burn" - the energy that is burned after the session. However, I think that if you were using a vibration machine with movement exercises. i.e. lunges, squats, press ups and so on, then a figure of around 400-500 calories could be realistic given the science regarding the increased body temp, circulation and muscle activation through the mechanism of vibration. 

I would stress though, that research is limited into the long term effects of vibration technology and research has already clearly shown that overuse can and does occur. I personally wouldn’t recommend anyone to use vibration technology more than 3 times a week and for no more than 25minutes at a time at the MOST! Also, it would be safer and more effective on the body if it is phased in and out of training and not used continuously!

Moderation and variety are VERY appropriate words for most things in life and also effectively apply to vibration technology! So, on reflection I suggest that for a 15 minute workout period on the power plate, with the exercises you have done, you should go with a calorie figure of around 45 calories as you will be recruiting more muscle fibres but the extent of the after-burn effect will equate to the 15minutes of actual work.

Hope this helps,

Kelly