♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi there folks I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're going to show you
how to choose the right massage gun to reduce pain,
improve healing and recovery.
- There's a number to pick from.
- Oh my God it's growing every day, Brad.
- But it's really not that hard.
We'll tell you the basics of what you want to look for
for your needs.
- Yeah and you can decide what's important to you.
- Right.
- We'll go over the characteristics you should look for.
- Right.
- We have found massage guns to be highly helpful
in treating like muscle soreness, knots, tightness, strain.
They're also good for tendonitis.
- Sure.
- Our muscle healing and recovery so...
- All right.
- Let's get started Brad. - Okay.
- Keep these features in mind
when you're looking at the models.
The first one is power.
So I consider it as three aspects to the power.
- Okay.
- One is the travel.
You want to show what that travel is, Brad?
- So the travel or the amplitude, depending on
who you're talking to, is it's goes back
and forth this way so that you can go in.
And that's what gets that power Bob's talking about
into the muscle and gets that energies
to loosen up the muscle.
- So it's the depth of percussions.
- Yeah.
- Is what it is.
And if it doesn't travel at all, it just be vibrating.
- They make them that way.
- Yeah. They do make them that way.
That's how they used to be.
I, and they weren't very effective.
- Now this one has less travel
or less amplitude than this one, but
- It's a smaller one.
- Right, we'll talk about stall force.
Cause that's another thing you'll see when
their specs are on them.
- So let's go into speed, Brad.
So a lot of them have two to five speeds.
Some people prefer a gentle low speed.
- Right.
- And others like things to be hammered.
So they, you know, you're going to have to decide
if that's important to you that, you know
if you're a larger person and you really want to get
into the muscle, you're going to have
you should try to have more amplitude and more speed.
- Right. Well the same gun won't, the amplitude won't change
but the speed will.
And you'll know cause you just go
on that sore area that knot and just,
you know, play with it.
These all have five different speeds.
- Well, I think a lot of them you can compare
you know, they'll tell what the amplitude is on a lot
of them and a lot will tell us.
- Yeah, when you're looking at them, right.
- And it'll tell the speed too.
Beats per minute, I don't know what is.
- The frequency.
- Frequency yeah.
- Yeah. And I think they usually give it in millimeters
the amplitude of the travel.
- Right, so the final thing for power is the stall force.
And that's the amount of force applied
to the motor to make it actually stall out.
- Now these little guns you think, oh, they're little.
- Right
- But boy they really have,
their travel's a little less than the bigger one,
but boy they really have a good stall force.
I can try and stall this one.
I'll push on it.
And it's really.
(buzzing)
- Don't burn the motor out.
- It's really got a great stall force.
- I have to admit that one is just surprising.
Well, we'll talk about this too, but we're going to talk
about design and this one fits right in your palm.
So you can really get pressure on an area.
- They're easier to hold on to,
they're lighter than the bigger one.
The big ones are going to have more power, more travel.
So you'll get deeper.
But if you're a smaller person
you actually don't want to have this.
If you don't have a lot of muscle mass
or if you're an older person,
I don't know if you want to...
- No, I prefer to use this one.
- Oh, of course.
- No, but I do because the muscles I have sore
are my calf muscles. - Sure.
- My quads, bigger muscles that I really want to get into.
- Right. I, at home, I have both of these.
- Sure.
- And I use them about 50/50.
It all depends on my shoulder.
I'll usually use this one if I'm getting up around,
- Sure, a little bit smaller.
- On the tendon because I need it.
- All right.
Well, let's go to the next thing, Brad.
For many of us, of course,
it's very important what the price is.
- Sure.
- And I want you to be warned though
that increased price doesn't mean increased quality.
I mean, I've seen some that are fairly good
good price, but, but they are good quality
and I've seen the opposite unfortunately, too.
So in fact, originally when these came out
they were $600 a unit and Brad and I actually,
didn't want to show it to anybody.
I mean, we refused to review them.
- Well, they're, you know,
- They were too expensive.
- They're very expensive.
And our, you know, that's just a lot of money.
- Yeah, that's just a lot of money.
- But now with, you know, they're so popular.
Manufacturing has changed and mass production and whatnot.
- So I would, you know, take into consideration price
but don't think you're getting quality just
because you're paying more
and also look for a coupon or sale.
They have them often, you know, especially your Amazon.
So certainly look for that.
Number three, reliability and warranty.
So like all these have a one-year warranty on them.
And as far as reliability, this is where I think
you try to pick companies that have a good reputation.
- Sure. Yeah.
And you can look at the reviews.
- Look at the reviews sometimes those are,
I don't know how they do it
but sometimes I think they manipulate it somehow.
- I know, you'll see good ones
and there'll be, it's just a whatever.
- But generally you can tell, you know,
if a company has been around a while
and tends to have good products
and tends to stand behind their products, you'll know it.
- You know I want to mention
this shape because you see, we got these
and this does have a reciprocating-
- And we're going to go into designs.
- Oh, okay.
- Why don't you to mention that right now Brad.
Let's talk about design.
- So originally, you know, we started, you know
these guns were came out, I believe before these
I guess I'm not a hundred percent sure,
but these don't have the travel.
So they're not going to get in as deep.
They're cheaper though.
Less cost.
- Aren't these like thirties quite often with a coupon?
- I think so.
Yeah. In the thirties.
The big advantage that this design has
is that you can reach like behind your back
a little easy, you have that length there.
- Even at your hamstring Brad.
- Sure.
- If you try to, you know, use a gun
it's a little more difficult.
- And you know, it can work out good on there.
You can just put some weight on there and work it this way.
But typically we say, if you're a smaller person,
don't have a lot of muscle mass or your older person
these are great because that's what you need.
You don't want to have something so aggressive.
You're not happy with it because it's painful.
- Right. Right.
So it's a good benefit for someone, like you said
maybe a senior citizen, a little on the elderly side.
So which reminds me, Brad, you never put it
on your neck do ya?
- Yeah. Don't massage your neck, especially, you know.
- Along the joints.
- Really upper traps and you're going to stop.
- That's fine.
- Because when you start percussing
on those vertebra in your neck you can be painful.
- It doesn't feel good.
- It's no good.
- So that was design.
Portability is another thing.
That's where this one kind of shines bright doesn't it.
I mean, you can put this in your pocket.
And a lot of them come with cases
which is good because we're going to talk about this.
They have different attachments and most of them
have like three to five attachments, pretty standard.
I would say, I liked the round one
for doing the cross fiber.
- Yeah, right here it is.
- And I like the pointed one for sometimes knots.
- That's getting in pretty deep.
You're not going to use that,
and none of these you're gonna use over a bone,
but the air one you can use the air one,
air cushion one over a bone and it's not going to hurt.
- Right.
- I mean you're not going to massage your bone on purpose
but it still can be nice when you want to get close to it.
- Yeah and in fact, on top of the knee cap
I like to get into the bone a little.
- Sure. Yeah.
That's one experience.
There's always this, we call it the field goal one.
That one you probably won't use so much.
- Right. It could go on each side of the spine.
If you have somebody doing it for you.
- Yeah.
I've heard, you know, I've tried it
and I've heard people comment that,
oh use it over achilles tendon
because it does cross over and that can work.
But again, if you're hitting your ankle bones with it
it's going to hurt and you don't want to do that.
So use that one with thought.
- All right.
So we're going to talk about battery life too.
Most of them are like two to three hours.
Some I'm going to warn you that they actually
turn off after 10 minutes.
We start at that. - Right.
- They are trying to prevent the,
I suppose motor from overheating, Brad?
I don't know. You're the...
- I haven't talked to the engineer about it.
I mean, I think they just have a timer on there
but you know, they can control the current.
- I think they also want to make sure
that you're not over massaging your muscles
that you're getting them to sore, but especially
in a big gun like this, where you could really pound it
for a long time.
- Sure, and then actually bruise herself.
- Right. Right, exactly.
So, and the final thing, Brad is sound.
And you may think that's not a big deal.
But we originally, when we were going to look
at one of these and they were going to send us one.
I looked at the reviews and people were
just complaining about this.
- Too noisy?
- Oh, they said it was like a chainsaw going off.
(laughs)
And you know, seriously though,
if you're going to use that on a day-to-day basis
and you're trying to relax and get muscle recovery,
you don't want to have a gun
that's going to sound really loud.
- This one is the loudest.
It's the biggest, you know.
- Well, they're going to be adjusting that, Brad.
- Sure.
- The sound is not going to be as much as that is right now.
So you can, and you can look into reviews for that.
People are going to pick it up if that's an issue so.
- I don't even think this one's that loud
and it's supposedly that's going to get quieter.
But yeah, this has got a metal head, which is unique
to the other ones and which is actually at first
I thought what's the difference, but it actually,
it does feel like it's getting deeper.
- It seems like it penetrates to me deeper.
And I know you can also heat it up and cool it down.
But I don't know where that would come in handy.
Maybe. I mean, if you heat it up
it would almost burn you, wouldn't it?
- You can use a torch Bob.
But I mean, yeah.
I could see put in a freezer and coming out cold
but it's going to change temperature.
- Why do you want cold though?
You don't want cold if you're massaging.
- I don't know, Bob.
They sure look nice.
- I thought you had all the answers, but I do like
that's the head I use when I use this one.
- Yeah. Right.
- All right.
Anything else you want to say, Brad
about choosing the right massage gun?
- Well, Bob. No, I don't think so.
I think we did cover most everything.
They're all rechargeable.
You just plug them in and they'll charge up.
- Yeah, I imagine it would be hard to find one that
they're usually a lithium ion battery, right?
- Yeah
- And I know Bob and Brad ones have like,
they talked about Tesla battery.
I don't know what that?
- Oh, using the same material that's in a Tesla battery.
- Yeah.
- Here, it tells you the lights, you know,
four lights means it's fully charged.
Three lights, three four is charged and so on and so forth.
- Some of them too, by the way, you got to hold the button
for like three to five seconds before it starts.
- Yeah. This one, if you just push it
it won't start and you're like, oh what's going on.
But if you hold it.
- There it goes.
And then to go upwards into the faster speeds.
- All right, Brad.
- Very good.
- Take care.
(Upbeat Music)