I get this question asked regularly as people in our studio observe me with my clients exercising in Redcord ropes and slings. Here I’d like to present a summary of the paper <strong>“The Effects of Vibration Stimuli Applied to the Shoulder Joint on the Activity of the Muscles Around the Shoulder Joint”</strong> published in <em>Journal of Physical Therapy Science 2013;25:1407–09</em>
The present study compared the muscle activity of the muscles around the shoulder joint to examine the effects of vibration during sling exercises. The vibrations were manually administered to the rope of the sling during the isometric-contraction stage. They were applied for five seconds at 3 Hz and 3.5 Hz, respectively, as the subjects performed push-up exercises on a sling and maintained isometric contraction in the final stage.
<strong>The muscles around the shoulder joint showed prominent changes in muscle activity in response to the vibration stimuli. As vibration frequency increased, the recruitment of the muscles around the shoulder joint increased.</strong> To perform exercises that selectively strengthen one group of muscles around the shoulder joint, namely, the serratus anterior, the exercises should be performed at a vibration frequency of 3 Hz.
Shaking the ropes increases muscular activation across a wide spectrum of movements. This is one of many unique advantages of Redcord. You can work out smarter, not harder and achieve better results in less time.