♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(clapping)
- Hi folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapist on the internet.
In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna discuss should you buy a massage gun?
We're going to give you 10 pros
but we're always going to give 10 cons.
And plus we're doing a big giveaway that ties into this.
- There you go, Bob.
- So if you are new to our channel, please take a second
to subscribe to us.
We provide videos, how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free
and we upload every day.
Also go to Bobandbrad.com.
Go to the giveaway section.
This week, we are giving away three massagers to one person.
We'll show 'em in just a minute.
- Yeah.
It's like the cornucopia.
- Cornucopia.
You used it correctly, I would say.
You can also go to Twitter, Instagram or TikTok
if you want a 60-second version of our program.
The giveaway is also on Facebook.
It'll be pinned to the top of the page.
- That's right.
- All right.
So we're giving away the Bob and Brad.
This is kind of our big massager, our most popular massager.
- Most powerful, yeah.
- [Bob] Most powerful, yeah.
This is probably the higher end.
- Yep.
- This is a mini massager.
This is really cool
because this one you could fit your purse
or your handbag or your murse.
- [Brad] Yeah, and it's got a lot of power.
- It's still got a lot of power.
- [Brad] It's very powerful.
- And then we have the economical model, I would call it.
This is more of a handheld massage.
These all come with five attachments.
- Five heads.
- Yeah, five hats.
And this one does, too
but this one is a little bit easier to get back here.
- Right.
- But this one's only like 30-some dollars, I believe.
I don't even want to quote the price
'cause they keep changing the price.
- This one is really nice, particularly
if you're an older person
and you don't want an aggressive massage.
- Yeah, we'll discuss that actually.
- Oh, sorry.
I don't wanna...
- Oh no, you can, I mean, it's all right for you.
All right.
So let's go.
This is going to tip over on here.
Okay.
Let's start off with a con.
I hate to be negative, but...
- Oh yeah, a con.
- This thing, really, these massages are not good
for neck pain per se.
Especially you get up in this area.
- Here or particularly back here around on the head,
low base of the neck, upper shoulder.
- Yeah, upper traps.
- Yeah.
- Perfect for that.
But this is just gonna rattle your cage.
- Oh yeah.
- Try it once.
- It's not a pleasant thing.
- Alright.
A pro now.
It's terrific for muscle strains, pulls or tears.
I don't know what else you'd do that would be better.
I've had several tears, muscle strains.
- Well, to be honest with you
I think the only thing better
than this is actually go to a professional masseuse.
You know, pay them their money.
Unless you have someone in the household that...
- Would do it, right.
But when you're able to do it
and also could they do it long enough
and you know, the whole bit
- Right, right.
- So, all right.
Another con, it's not good for headaches.
I, again, up on the head, it's just gonna thump away.
It's gonna probably hear a hollow sound
if it went on my head, huh?
- Say no more.
- All right.
Another pro.
It's terrific for many types of tendonitis, Brad,
I have found.
So like a tennis elbow
which is a lateral epicondylitis.
- Yep.
- It's good if you start in the muscle part of it first
and then you just kinda gradually move into the
where the tendonitis is, right?
It worked well on my quadriceps tendonitis too.
Terrific, in fact, for that.
It took it away.
- Yeah, they're great for any, where the muscle belly is,
where it goes into that tendon
that juncture's a really good place to get at it with these.
- And again, you're using the different heads.
All right.
Another con, it's not good for a pinched nerve in the neck.
The pinched nerve is often up in the neck itself.
It could be the hole where it's coming out
or it could be a disc.
- Right.
- And this is just not going to affect that.
And you know, if the pain is going down in the arm
it's certainly not going to help that.
- Right.
- So, we just want to be honest for people.
- Right.
It's not good for everything.
- All right
Now another pro.
It's a really, just a one-time cost.
And then there's no ongoing fee.
Like you would pay a massage therapist.
Now a massage therapist might be better.
But again, this is, you know, you can carry it with you.
You have your own massage therapist with you.
- Right.
- All the time, basically.
All right.
It's not good, just as we said,
it's not good for a pinched nerve in the neck.
It's also not good for sciatica
which is the pinched nerve basically in the back.
- You're not gonna massage a nerve, not like this.
You know, you're not going to get
on that nerve and beat on it.
But you know, not like a muscle belly
where you're trying to get that muscle to relax.
- Well, the exception would be then
if you have actually what we call false sciatica sometimes,
piriformis syndrome.
- Right.
- That's a small muscle in your buttock
that often gets, I think often it gets pulled
and torn too, we've decided.
And sometimes there's scar tissue on it.
And this works really well for that.
That's actually one of the better treatments for it.
- So you're massaging the muscle.
Not necessarily the nerve itself.
We don't want to hammer on a nerve.
- Right.
Another con.
It is portable, especially the mini one here.
This one, is this not cute, Brad?
- It is cute. Bob.
- But like you said, it's powerful.
- It is.
But you could slip that almost into anything.
You could probably take that into a concert or something.
- You probably could get in your back pocket.
You could with some of those big back pockets, cargo pants.
- There we go.
You still have those?
All right, let's on.
- I do.
(laughing)
- Another con.
It's not good for arthritis per se.
I mean, it's not good,
like if the pain is right, coming from the joint itself.
The thing with arthritis though, quite often, a lot
of the tissues have tightened up around it.
- Right.
So you can massage those.
- You can massage the tissue around it.
So it makes your arthritis feel better.
- Right.
But you're not going to go right on that joint.
- Right.
It's just not going to help with that.
So number five for the pros.
It's great for warming up muscles.
I like to use these.
I have a couple of muscles that can give me trouble
when I'm running
and these help keep me out of trouble when I'm running.
- It all has to do with that whole concept of pliability,
keeping the muscle soft.
And so that circulation.
- Good circulation.
- Exactly.
Get the fresh blood in, get the old blood out.
And it's a healthy tissue that way.
- Another con might be
if you're elderly or of a slight build, you know,
where you're not a big muscular person
the massagers, these massage guns might be too much.
- Yes.
You get too aggressive.
And who was telling me their grandmother,
Mike's, yeah, actually.
She uses this one.
- Right.
- It's not near as powerful.
And it works out really well.
- Not as much translation either.
- Right, exactly.
It's a different type and you know so there's something
for most people.
- For everyone.
But again, you may keep that in mind.
- Or if they have fragile skin,
then you're not going to use 'em.
- Yeah, if your skin tears real easy,
which we find a lot of times in the elderly.
Another pro, it's good for muscle recovery.
So like if you've been lifting a lot
or like an athletic event and you're sore,
this can help ease some of that soreness
and get you back running again.
- That relates to our previous point
of circulation.
Getting the nutrients in and the old blood out.
- One of the cons too, with some of these, not so much ours,
but some of them, guns are really quite bulky.
They're big and hard to handle.
- And in general, the older ones are.
Like anything, they get smaller and smaller
but there are still some,
you can see by the size of my hand, it's still not too big.
And that's the big one.
- Right.
And then we got the mini of course, so.
Another pro is that, let's see, oh.
Some patients actually prefer this.
Some of our patients actually prefer this
over actual regular massage.
- Someone's hands on 'em.
- Yeah.
I would say around 50%, Brad.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I would say, do you want Tim to give you a massage
or do you want the massage gun?
- And they're like, we'll take the massage gun.
(laughing)
Yeah.
It might've been massager too, (indistinct).
- Yeah.
But one way or another, we've had good positive results.
And personally myself, I would definitely go
to a masseuse before one of these,
if the price was the same.
- Sure.
Because you can tell what spots and stuff.
- Yeah, they definitely have their skills
that are unmatched by this.
- But then you gotta go there
and then you gotta drive there.
And then you gotta wear a mask now and all, that's all...
All right, another con.
Some of them can be pretty expensive.
Actually when they first came out,
we did not support any of them
because they were way too pricey.
They were $400-500.
And we just said, that's too much for people.
There was an expensive versions out there and...
- Sure.
- So, but they're coming, they're coming down now.
Like this one's around 90 to a hundred, depending
on the day and how much they're giving you back on it.
- Promotional things, yeah.
- And this one's less and this one's even down
in the thirties, usually, so.
- Sure.
- Another pro is that they all come with the five heads,
like we said.
You can, almost every situation that you can think of,
you can deal with it.
- Hit different parts of your body,
depending on how much muscle you have
that you want to get into, location, so.
And we did a video on all of that.
- Yeah.
The airhead is, the air-filled one is really...
Airhead (laughs)
The air-filled one is really popular 'cause it's...
- You callin' me an airhead?
- Yeah, yeah.
It's actually feels quite good overall on the surface,
even the bones when you go over it.
If you don't, another con is
if you don't spend enough money on these.
And this has happened to my nephew,
he bought an inexpensive massage gun.
He says, he just called me.
He said, it's a piece of junk.
He said it just doesn't work well, it's just.
So you want to buy one
from a reputable person.
- Right, right.
- Not on the street.
The last pro is that it's easy on your hands and fingers.
Like if you're the person giving massage, you know,
that's one of the things they're taught is
to try to protect their hands
because they become strained over a while
and it can even stretch the ligaments out.
- Oh yeah, you could really...
- That's why a lot of them use their elbows
and stuff like that.
- Yeah, they have a lot of hand tools.
It would be interesting to know
if many masseuses actually used these.
I know they have hand tools.
And again, they're very skilled
and they do a very good job, but they also use things
to avoid their hand from falling apart over the years.
- Right, right.
Another con, the final con is that these can be hard to,
certain places that can be hard to reach.
Like you, if you're back, you know, you can get there
if you've got pretty good shoulder range of motion, but.
- It's just still hard to get the right angle all the time.
- This one's works a little better for that.
You know, it's got the handle.
But still.
- If you're doing your low back
or your mid back, someone else pretty much needs
to be doing this.
- That would be good.
Right.
If you say you got to be friends with somebody.
All right.
So those are the pros and the cons.
If you guys have any pros and cons yourself
that you want to add, just put them in the comments below.
We always love to hear your feedback.
- That's right.
- And remember Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for...
- A broken heart.
- And these aren't gonna work.
- No, that's not gonna help that.
So that's a con.
- I tried that already.
- Yeah.