How to choose a massager

Phone: Australia 03 51161298, Overseas 61 3 51161298, Email: graeme@drgraeme.com

How to choose a good massager

We've been prescribing supplementary home massager for patients for several years now, using a variety of products. It has given me the opportunity to see what is effective and what patients find easy to use. On top of that, sourcing my own meant I've had to work with manufacturers and study a large number of designs. What I’m going to do now is share with you what I've learned.

Percussion

If you want it to be effective it has to be a percussion machine. Percussion machines have hammers that that send vibrations into the muscles. Forget the machines that kneed or vibrate across the surface. They don’t penetrate deeply.

One person machine v two person machine

Professional machines tend to be what are known as “two person machines". That simply means they are designed for practitioners to hold on patients, not patients to hold on themselves. One such machine weighs 3.2kg. With that I just sit the machine on the patient and the weigh of the machine is all the downward pressure I need. However, if I’m doing the back of my shoulders I’m going to need a lighter machine with a completely different handle. I’m going to want something like consumer massagers you buy in places like Myers and Harvey Norman. They’re lighter with better shaped handles for self use.

Power

It’s not much use putting on some little buzz box that only massages the surface. Hand held percussive massagers need plenty of power to penetrate deep tissues when they need to.

You'd think that comparing power would be simple: look on the box and see how many Watts the motor has. Unfortunately it's not than simple.

Manufacturers may add in the power used by the infra-red to make the "Wattage" bigger;
We had one manufacturer claim his machine had a 35W motor. When we checked the motor's model number on the manufacturer's web site we found it was only 25W.
Some massagers may have decent motors but their hammer/drive mechanism is so flimsy that a lot of the power that should be penetrating the muscles is dissipated before it even gets there. (If you want to see what I mean go down to the shops and pick up some of the consumer massagers and push firmly on the hammers, and see how much give you find.)

Perhaps one of my patient's inadvertently came up with the best way to measure the power once when he commented about our general purpose massager. He said "I can tell that one has a lot more power. The one you used to use made my nose tingle when you put it on my neck. This one makes my nose tingle when you put it on my shoulder".

Weight

If you can sit the machine on a level surface you don't have to support the weight. If you are a person using a machine on yourself you can often do the same thing. However, this can take some skill and knowledge. Sometimes it also requires excellent joint flexibility to adopt the correct positioning. On the other hand lighter machines are defiantly easier to use, especially for those who are not very strong.

Our Deep Tissue Massager is relatively light and easy to use. The General Purpose Massager on the other hand is a lot heavier If are not very strong stick with the lighter machine, and if you are frail or elderly consider one of the lighter consumer machines we have left over.

Shape

A massager for self use should have a handle that curves downwards so you can easily get to important but difficult to get at parts such as the back of your shoulders. Our General Purpose Massager does this moderately well, and the Deep Tissue Massager is exceptionally well designed.

The ball like expansion at the end of the Deep Tissue Massager is also a very desirable feature as it stops the machine slipping through ones grip when the grip is relaxed. On the other hand the tapered design of the General Purpose Massager means you have to grip it tight all the time.

The Deep Tissue Massager's design is extra-ordinarily good. The General Purpose Massager's design is good but could be better. It was the best body we could find though to take all the power.

Durability

Apparently the average home handyman only uses his power tools every now and then, so a lot of consumer electrical tools are designed to last for about 12 hours of actual running time. The last thing you want is to have a massager that does a great job, but starts to rattle, have it’s switches vibrate to bits, or just stop.

I’m not an expert, but I gave both machines an incredible work out before going ahead with a production run.

Electrical compliance

Everyone who sells legitimate massagers in Australia has had to jump through a lot of hoops to get electrical safety accreditation. Part of this process includes having an independent laboratory test the machine and prepare a 50 page report. It’s a pain in the butt, but I’m glad its like that because the last thing you want in a strongly vibrating machine you hold against your body is some crap electrical parts or wiring.

We had a factory in China accidentally send over same samples that were meant for the Chinese market rather than for western countries. The internal wiring connections were definitely sub-standard and would have eventually broken off. I've also purchased similar standard machines locally off Ebay.

If you buy something from myself or a reputable outlet such as Harvey Norman or Myers it should be fine. However, some of the stuff available through alternate outlets such as markets and Ebay are very suspect. You might like to do what I did once; send a question to each of the sellers selling new massagers on Ebay and ask if their product is electrically accredited and see how few replies you receive.