Are massage guns worth it?

Video overview

Summary

Vibration massage is a proven therapy that professionals have been using for decades. Vibration massage machines work by having a vibrating pad that sits on the surface and sends in vibrations. Massage gun marketers came up with the gimmick “percussion” where instead of a pad the machines have a head that drives into your muscle like a jackhammer. They claim that this increases penetration and adds the benefits of conventional massage. However, as discussed below doing this reduces the amount of effective vibration while increasing the risk of doing harm and adding very little. You are far better off getting a genuine vibration massager.

Percussion massage explained

What this means for massage gun effectiveness

The benefits of vibration

The massage gun marketers will tell you about all the wonderful benefits of vibration. As discussed in our article Is percussion massage scientific this is very true. The problem is that massage guns don’t deliver anywhere near the amount of therapeutic vibrations that a proper vibration massager does.

Increased penetration

Massage gun marketers will tell tell you that driving the head in increases penetration. However, it is the vibrations that have the therapeutic effects, and if you've ever used a vibration massager you’ll know that the vibrations can go right through you.

More likely to hurt you

I don’t know of any scientific information that says driving the head in like a jack-hammer does anything worthwhile. Realistically the only thing it’s good for is hurting you. What’s going to happen if you use one of the hard plastic jackhammer heads and drive it into a nerve or blood vessel? Even using a percussion massager on muscles is not safe. There’s a journal report of someone nearly dying from internal bleeding after using one to help recover after a bike ride (2)

What scientists think of percussion massage

It’s not just me that’s saying that it’s a stupid idea driving the head in like a jack-hammer. When the scientists were asked to do clinical trials on massage guns they used special damper heads to stop the heads driving in and try and get a bit more vibration transfer (1,3). They did this to try and get better results and not hurt the patients. Of course this gets buried in the fine print and you are told that driving the head in like a jackhammer is a good idea.

My colleague's experience with a Theragun

The saving grace is that most of the massage guns that are flooding the market are not strong enough to do any serious damage, but I was speaking recently to a colleague who’d fallen for the marketing and brought a Theragun. They have a powerful jackhammer mechanism that drive the head in 16mm. She was telling me that she could only use it on slow speed, otherwise it would hurt her patients.

The main problem with this is as discussed in our article The best setting for your massager to get the proper therapeutic vibrations you need from 30-60 Hz (2,400-3,600 rpm) with the optimum being approximately 50 Hz. My colleague could not use her Theragun at anywhere near that speed because it would hurt people.

Are they even trying to make a serious therapeutic device?

Alternatives

So, hopefully you now understand that while massage guns claim to combine the benefits of conventional and vibration massage the reality is that they do neither well and are more likely to hurt you. You are best to stick to either genuine vibration or conventional massage. If you want the hand held device you can use yourself that will need to be a genuine vibration massager. Please see our article How to choose a massager

Personal use vibration massagers are not that common

That said, as discussed in our article Why most massagers are a waste of money serious personal therapeutic vibration massagers are not that common. Most genuine vibration massagers are made for professionals to use on their patients, not personal use. Because of this, to get something decent for our patients we built our own.

References

1. Garc M, Jurado-castro JM, Ben J. Acute Effects of a Percussive Massage Treatment on Movement Velocity during Resistance Training. Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jul 21;18(15):7726.
2. Chen J, Zhang F, Chen H, Pan H. Rhabdomyolysis After the Use of Percussion Massage Gun : A Case Report. Phys Ther. 2021 Jan 4;101(1)
3. Martin JD of H and WU of winchester. A critical evaluation of percussion muscle gun therapy as a rehabilitation tool focusing on lower limb mobility. A literature review. 2021.