2.3. Whole-Body Vibration (WBV)

A treatment protocol was adapted from Xiao [52] with slight modifications [28,49]. Vertical vibration oscillations were modelled using a 250 W APC Rain-60 vibration pump (AquaPlanet Company, Ilfov, Romania) with the maximum pressure of 7 bar and a voltage regulator of the AFC-120 model (SophPower Electronics, Dongguan, China). A vibrating platform with the container, where the experimental group of rats was placed, was attached to the stem of the vibrating pump. The level of vibration acceleration was 3.0 m/s² (0.3 g) with a frequency of 50 Hz and an amplitude of 1.2 mm. The rats were exposed to WBV constantly for 30 min (without interruptions), 5 days per week, which was similar to the protocol proposed by Flieger et al. [53]. During this weekly two-day break, rats were injected with the saline every 4 weeks to limit the effect of injection in the quadriceps muscle on vibration treatment.