Massage guns explained: what they are and what they do

Combination of vibration and conventional massage

Massage guns are devices built to combine the two excellent therapies vibration massage and conventional massage into a compact hand held device. This is an excellent marketing gimmick, but do they actually do this or are they just an over-hyped fad? In this article we will explain what they are and what they actually do.

Massage guns (percussion massagers) are hybrid machines

In this section:

What does hybrid mean
The therapies massage guns try and combine
How massage guns work

Hybrid bicycles are reasonable good both on and off road

What does hybrid mean?

Hybrid machines are designed to do two things. As an example a hybrid bike (pictured) is designed for both the road and off-road. They are pretty good at both, but will will never win the Tour de France and would struggle on a tough mountain trail. On the other hand some hybrid machines try to do two jobs but do neither well. As we will show you massage guns fit into this category. In this section we will briefly show you the two therapies massage guns try and combine, and how they do it. In the next section we will discuss the marketing claims vs reality.

The therapies massage guns try and combine

Conventional massage

Most people will be familiar with conventional massage. Therapists use techniques like pressure, squeezing and rubbing to have a mechanical effect on the muscles.

Vibration massage

Vibration massage is where the pad of a vibration massager sits on the surface and sends in vibrations. This is similar to the way ultrasound (vibrations at a different frequency) works. Vibration massage has been used by professionals for decades and has excellent therapeutic effects as shown in this diagram.

How massage guns work

The easiest way to understand how massage guns work is to by using the following diagram showing a vibration massager, a massage gun, and a conventional massage tool.

Vibration massager

The machine on the left is a vibration massager. As you can see it has a vibration pad designed to send large amount of vibrations deep into the muscles.

Conventional massage tool

The tool on the right is a t-bar. Massage therapists use these to save their thumbs and to apply deep (painful) pressure.

Massage gun

As you can see massage guns are basically t-bars with a jack-hammer mechanism. Compared with the vibration massager the head of the massage gun goes up and down a lot more and is designed to drive into the muscle.

Massage gun claims vs reality

Summary of massage gun marketer claims

The idea of a hybrid machine is that it can do both things reasonably well, and specifically massage gun marketers claim that their machines:

give the benefits of vibration,
penetrate better, and
add the benefits of conventional massage.

Do massage guns give the benefits of vibration

Massage guns do not give anywhere near the therapeutic vibration benefits of a genuine vibration massager. They give a lot less vibrations, and they are at the wrong frequency.

Massage guns send in less vibration

It should be obvious looking at the diagram above that massage guns send in far less vibrations than a genuine vibration massager.

The vibrations are at the wrong frequency

As discussed in our article The scientifically proven effects of vibration massage- with clinical applications , the therapeutic effects of vibrations depends on their frequency. The best therapeutic frequency range is from 40-60 hz (cycles per second), with about 50 being optimum. Massage guns often come with hard plastic heads and can drive their heads in up to 16 mm. Doing that 50 time a second would do tremendous damage. Because of this more powerful machines are limited to about 40 hz, but even that is way too fast, as survey of professionals found that most use their massage guns on “slow” or “medium” (1)⁠. This is way outside the effective therapeutic range.

Do massage guns penetrate further

While massage guns drive their heads into your muscles it is the vibrations that have the therapeutic effects, and like ultrasound professional standard therapeutic vibrations can easily penetrate deeply into your muscles. Driving their heads in does not add to the penetration. As discussed later all this really does is make the machines likely to cause damage or injury.

Do massage guns add the benefits of conventional massage

While massage gun marketers claim that their machines add the benefit of conventional massage we know of no evidence that it does add anything significant. As an example, this video shows several YouTube gurus demonstrating massage gun usage. It is hard to imagine the bit of rubbing they are demonstrating providing any worthwhile benefit, let a lone be any way comparable to the massage a professional therapist would provide.

YouTube gurus demonstrating massage guns

Likely negative effects

Rather than add conventional massage benefits the “jackhammering" is likely to have negative effects. For example, the most widely marketed use of massage guns is post exercise recovery. After a workout your muscles will have suffered microscopic damage to their fibres. It makes no sense to pummel damaged muscles to help them heal.

Other issues you need to be aware of

In this section:

Safety
“Rigged” and deceptive clinical trials
The ergonomics of massage guns

Using the hard plastic head of a massage gun — There can be no doubt that "jack-hammering" hard plastic heads can be dangerous

Safety

Hard plastic penetrating heads

Most massage guns come with an assortment of hard plastic heads. Some would look at home on a jackhammer. These are potentially dangerous, especially if the user did not know anatomy and drove the head into a sensitive structure such as a nerve or blood vessel.

Driving the heads in general

Powerful massage guns can drive their heads into your muscles up to 16mm. Doing up to 40 times a second is a dangerous idea. There is even a journal report of a person nearly dying from internal bleeding after using a massage gun to recover after riding an exercise bike (2)⁠. In another case a massage gun user suffered hemothorax, which is a collection of blood around the lungs that usually results from blunt force trauma (3). This is why a survey found that most professionals with massage guns used them on “slow” or “medium” speed (1)⁠ which as previously mentioned makes any vibrations well outside the optimal therapeutic vibration frequencies.

Rigged and deceptive trials

When clinical trials are done two tactics are used to mislead you about the effects of massage guns. These are discussed in this video, but in summary:

Although marketers tell you that is it a good thing to drive massage gun heads into your muscles the reality is that this would be ineffective and hurt people. Therefore in trials the massage guns are made so they do not drive their heads in.
Trials are sometimes rigged to give the massage guns a huge advantage. In an example given where the massage gun was compared with vibration:

an ineffective vibration pad was used rather than a genuine vibration massager, and
the vibration was used for one minute while the massage gun was used for much longer.

How massage gun marketers mislead you

The ergonomics of massage guns

Like a real gun massage guns need to be pointed into the muscles to get the intended effects. However, as this diagram shows with their gimmick shape and aerosol can shaped handles you cannot do this for a lot of your body.

Summary advice

Massage guns are marketed as a compact, self use device that combines the benefits of vibration massage and conventional massage. This is an excellent marketing gimmick, but the reality is that they do neither well. The irony is that marketers spend a fortune on marketing, celebrity endorsements, commissions and so forth to convince you that they are good idea that they can be very expensive. To get the excellent therapeutic effects you need either genuine conventional or vibration massage.

Personal use recommendation

While professional massage therapists usually do an excellent job the expense and inconvenience usually puts them out of reach for most for very regular therapy. Foam rollers are an attempt to emulate this therapy, but as discussed in our article Do foam rollers work they are no where near as effective.

Genuine vibration massagers are best

On the other hand genuine vibration massage takes no special skills and can easily be self applied with the proper equipment. The only issue here is that when we were looking for something suitable for our patients to use at home the serious genuine vibration massagers were all built for professionals such as myself to use on patients, not for self use. As a UK University study (4) had found personal use massagers were not serious therapeutic devices and could not be recommended. With that we built our own. Their details are linked below. These are now widely used and recommended by colleagues. Please see the links below that take you to information about them and what colleagues say about them.

General Purpose Massager

Ultimate Quad Head Massager

Read what professionals say about DrGraeme massagers

Professionals

DrGraeme massagers were originally built by Dr Graeme for use in his clinic, and to prescribe to his patients for additional self use at home. Now these are used by colleagues and other professionals for similar purposes. If you are a professional and wish to know more about this therapy, or possibly get a sample massager to trial please check out our practitioner page.

References

Cheatham SW, Baker RT, Behm DG, Stull K, Kolber MJ. Mechanical percussion devices: A survey of practice patterns among healthcare professionals. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2021;16(3):766–77.
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)
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.
McDonagh D, Wilson L, Haslam C, Weightman D. Good vibrations: Do electrical therapeutic massagers work? Ergonomics. 2005;

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