Hey friends! In this video I'm going to be giving you my honest physical therapist review of the
REATHLETE'S knee massager, and we're going to be talking about how to use it and some pros and cons
as well as my opinion. I'll give you my opinion as a physical therapist at the end of this video.
My name is Dr. David Middaugh, and I'm a specialist physical therapist with El Paso Manual
Physical Therapy. And this channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile,
while avoiding unnecessary surgery, injections and pain medications.
We make helpful videos with advice tips, exercises, and stretches for a variety of
problems. And you can find those videos over in our playlist tab here on this channel. Please
consider subscribing to our channel so that you don't miss out on any of the helpful videos we
post every week. So let's get into the RE athlete knee massager and I apologize in advance, I've got
all this packaging that came in that this came with in the mail but my labels on here as well.
So I can't and if I try to rip it off, it's going to mess up the box. So I'm just going to leave it
like that. But let's open up the box and show you what's inside the RE athlete express the massager.
It's got this very nice packaging on the inside. We've got our fliers here. So this is the one year
warranty you've got to go in and validate this warranty and they'll replace it or fix it if you
have any trouble with it up to a year. And then here's the user manual, it says calf knee and
thigh massager. And I'm going to run you through how to use it. It's very basic, it's just a to,
you know, a folding paper pretty much so it's not super complicated at all.
And here's the device. It's just got this inside the box and the charger cable is right here. So
real quick, let me just open the charger cable before I get to the device.
I don't want to rip this. I hate ripping packaging open. I just like to keep it nice and neat always
so I can put it back if I like to store nice and neat. Alright, here's the charger cable. It's a
older style USB with the newer style USB. So you would charge this from your computer
or a charger block like you would charge a phone with. And let's open the device here. Here's the
nice packaging. And this is a padded bag by the way, it's got like a foam material on the inside
between two layers of fabric. So this is very protective Scott this carrying handle Of course,
if you haven't shut it looks like that. And to take the device out.
It looks like this. It's got this big machine right here. embedded into the knee strap,
or the knee brace not really a brace, you wouldn't walk around with this, you're going
to sit down with this and let it do its job, it's going to massage your leg through compression
and heat you up as well. So here's so for this device. It's got two main straps,
this one goes on your, on your thigh. And it's made so that it folds like that
in your knee would sit here, the thigh would be up here and then your calf would be right here,
coming out the bottom of the device right here. And this, the display here, which I'll turn on in
just a moment would be facing out in front of you on your shin below your kneecap. So it's got this
strap right here. So it's got some Velcro, pretty powerful Velcro. And then you had this long strap,
good Velcro, long strap there that you would kind of fish through this
loop here, and then fish it back over the other loop right here.
And then fold the back over like that so that it grabs your calf, the lower leg behind your knee
right there, the power button is on the bottom right there, you would just hold that to turn it
on. And then the charging port is right here and the included charging cable and tie it for you.
And the charging port is right there and the power cable that it comes with plug in right there. And
this will go into your charger block that you would provide yourself it doesn't come with a
charger block. So I tried I plugged this into my computer, and it actually charged it just fine.
So let me turn it on. So you can see what it looks like when it's on. You hold the button down. And
there we go. We've got the display and you could see that there's a lot of glare, maybe like that.
So on the bottom here, we've got the pressure reading right there. And on the other side here,
we've got the heat reading, and you would just hit the plus sign. Sorry, I'm going to get my finger
out of the way. And it would increase the little bars right here for the pressure or the heat
You go, it starts an automatic 20 minute timer, which you could pause and continue with the play
button. And then this is mode one, mode two and mode three, and you would just
tap that to get over to the other mode. And if you want to pause it, it actually deflates.
And I don't have my leg in it, otherwise it would, it would deflate, you'd hear the pressure,
and the mode button will blink indicating that it's paused right now. And here's your battery
display right here on the bottom. So let me get this on, so you can see what it looks like.
Alright, so I've got the device down here, it's on pause, still, let's start getting it on, I'm just
going to take all this off so I can get my leg in. And you can do this over your clothes or under,
you know, with no with shorts on or directly on your skin, however, you want to decide to do it
back up a bit. So I'm going to start with the top strap and get that around my thigh.
We go. And then the bottom strap. So it's out this way, I'm going to flap it around through this bar.
And I'm going to pull it snug here not so tight that it's going to
compress me already, because it's going to add compression, I'm going to wrap it around and it's
already sticking to the Velcro there, then you want to just secure it. And the reason for so
much Velcro on this thing, it is going to compress you and so you don't want it to bust open once it
starts to compress you. So I've got the device already on, I'm going to hit the play button.
There we go. And I don't know if you can hear it, it's very silent, hardly makes any noise. And
it's already warming up. I've had it on for more than a minute, maybe about a minute. And
it already feels nice and warm. And I've used this at the maximum pressure and heat already.
And it gets decently hot not enough to make me sweat. But
for a moment, there I was, I was considering lowering the heat, but it never became too
uncomfortable or unbearable at all. So I like it, I think that it does a good job heating you up.
And then the pressure has not been so much that it hurts. And I'm sure you could tighten it up
a bit more once you get used to what the pressures like if you want more pressure than what it gives,
you got to be careful of course with over pressuring yourself, you could cause bruising or
other problems. And of course, you would just take off the Velcro here and or turn it off that the
buttons down here to deactivate the machine. Now this device is one big bladder that runs from
behind the machine right here and over the front of your knee, the bladder does not go around the
leg at all these are just empty straps back here, I don't feel any compression coming on
from behind. My leg is just compressing the front and it does pull the straps into your leg though.
It feels quite comfortable, it's gentle. This is something that I feel like I could fall asleep
with on or maybe kick back and watch television or YouTube. And it would be just fine. It wouldn't
bother me or distract me very much. And I think my knees would be nice and toasty afterwards.
Right. So there you have it. That's how you would use the REATHLETE Express knee Massager with Heat.
I think this device is great to give you some pros and cons about this device. The pros are a heats
very well the compression feels nice. I love that it's battery operated. So you don't have to stay
plugged into a cord all the time. And you know, you can't leave the wall socket. The touchscreen
is really nice. I like that it's lit up. And it's really easy to use. It's very responsive whenever
you touch it. I also love that it's quiet, I don't feel like I have to speak louder over this device.
It's almost silent. The cons I would give about this device is a displays upside down when you
have this machine on and you look down at it, you have to kind of read everything upside down.
It's not too big of a deal. I mean, I don't have any trouble doing it. But I can see how
some people that maybe have vision problems might struggle a bit with that. But once you familiarize
yourself with using the device, it's probably not that big of a deal. The battery life of this
is about an hour or so depending on you and how much you think you'll use it. If you're going to
use it on both knees, you might run out of power. But you're going to have to charge this right away
after you're done if you're going to be using it for any extended period of time because you
will run out of battery life. And for my opinion about this, I think it's a good device overall. I
love these types of devices because they're great substitutes for pain medications which of course
could affect your liver, your kidneys, other organs that you don't want to mess with. This
is nothing going into your body. It's a natural thing. It's just giving you mechanical force and
giving you some heat over the front of your knee. It may not be enough pain relief depending on the
severity of your situation, but it may be enough to get take the edge off just like acetaminophen
or ibuprofen might do for you as well. Now natural causes downside of using this is you can't move
once you're in this device, unlike taking pain medication, so you have to factor that in. This
is something that you do before you go move around or right after. This could help you avoid seeing
the doctor avoid getting injections. But keep in mind that this is just short term relief, it's not
going to give you long term relief of your knee problem. If you're suffering from something like
kneecap pain, like patellofemoral pain syndrome, cartilage damage in your knee, a meniscus tear,
knee arthritis or some sort of ligament injury or if you just a weekend warrior, or maybe you are
more of an athlete and you're looking to get some soreness down in your knees below this device,
I think it's a great option for you just to just be sure to understand that this is only going to
give you short term relief. If you're looking to fix a long term problem for your knee issue.
Then you've got to look at doing the right exercises, the right stretches and beginning
to take the right advice and tips which we talk all about on this channel. I've linked a bunch
of playlists related to these injuries that I just talked about for your knee down in the description
below. down in the description of course to find a link to purchase this device if you choose to
do your thing, whatever you want. You can also find a bunch of different videos
specifically related to knee arthritis patellofemoral pain syndrome or kneecap problems,
meniscus tears and so much more. So go check that out so you can begin to fix the long term
problem. Hey, If this video was helpful for you, please give us a thumbs up consider sharing this
with a friend that needs to see this and also consider subscribing to our channel so that
you don't miss out on any of our videos. And we hope to see you in the next video friends. Bye