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This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in September of 2022. For the original video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-6ip_CMZw
Brad: Alright, Bob. This is for people who are interested in buying a massage gun but not sure what to buy. You want to make sure to get something that fits your needs, the price is right, and the quality is there. We’ve got 10 things to answer all this.
Bob: You want it all!
Brad: You’ll know more than you want to know! I’ve looked on the internet. Both you and I have. We’ve worked with many many massage guns from years ago. You can get ones from $30 to $400. What’s the difference? We are going to show you the details of this.
Bob: There are some junk models.
Brad: There are and then there are some good ones.
Bob: Right.
Brad: How do you know? I need to mention, where are you going to find this information. If you go online and look at it. You look at the details of the gun. Sometimes they give you this information and sometimes they do not. Maybe that massage gun doesn’t offer that benefit if they do not offer the information.
Bob: Right. It should be offered.
Brad: Right, exactly.
Bob: Do you want to mention anything about the price range?
Brad: Yeah, if you’re going to buy a $30-$40 gun, it’s probably going to be loud, it won’t last very long. You get what you pay for.
Bob: It’s could be junk.
Brad: Maybe that’s all you want; you only want it to last for a couple of weeks. But yeah, that’s pretty low. But you don’t have to spend $400.
Bob: Right, the high range.
Brad: If you’re buying a massage gun for deep massage, you’re going to use it for muscles to get that tightness out, you want to make sure you’re getting a reciprocating massage gun. Here we have 4 of them that we represent and these all work very well. The head of the massage gun has to reciprocate in and out. How far it reciprocates is important to know. We are going to get into that in just a little bit. So, following up on that, how far it travels, I call it the travel. A lot of times it’s called amplitude, a little more technical term. Just think, if you have a tape measure and you can measure how far it goes in and out from one extreme to the other. For all of them that we recommend, I think you have to have at least 5 millimeters. Ours have 8-10 millimeters and we are coming out with one that has 16. That’s a lot.
Bob: Wow, 16.
Brad: That’s for people with large, bulky muscles. You really want to get in deep. Most people won’t need that much. Again, 8-10mm is a good distance and you should be able to see that easily in the description of the massage gun. Let’s go to the next point. The next important point is the head. You should get at least 4 heads. A round one, you really need to have. In a smaller one, the bullet head really gets into specific parts and it’s really aggressive. There’s a flat one that has a smooth, plastic surface.
Bob: It glides on clothing.
Brad: Yes, very helpful. There is the fork head. They can be helpful but it’s not a priority at all for us. The one that really is nice that a lot of guns do not have is the air cushion head. The reason this is so important and useful is that when you’re working a muscle and you want to get close to the bone where the tendon is on the muscle, you don’t have to worry. If you hit with a hard plastic one, and you hit the bone, it hurts. You’re safe with the air cushion one. The air cushion one costs more I believe; that’s why they don’t have them in their sets, but it’s worth the extra money in our opinion. And we use it all the time.
Bob: I concur.
Brad: The next one is right up my alley. This is a little electric motor. It’s a DC motor. I used to repair motors way back in the day. If it’s brushless, it’ll say brushless, DC motor. What that means is that there are no carbon brushes. Carbon brushes are an old DC motor. They’ve been around forever but they’re inferior to the brushless. The brushless will last longer, they’re quieter. They are more efficient. Everything is better about them. If it does not say brushless in the description, it probably isn’t. So, look for that, it’s definitely a valuable asset. The next point is the noise level. How noisy are they? That’s important because you want to keep them quiet especially if you’re watching TV or you have children around or parents or whatever. 55 decibels is a good quiet level. If you have less than that, that’s good. They almost always put this in the description. If there’s nothing in there about noise, it’s probably a noisy one.
Bob: I didn’t think that was a big deal until I heard one that was bad. Oh, my goodness!
Brad: If you get a loud one, you’ll know it! You don’t really want to use it. They probably won’t last near as long either. They are loud because their quality is not good. Another important aspect is the quality of the battery. So, there are two things you can look at. One, how long it takes for the battery to charge? Typically, it’s 3-3 ½ hours and that’s pretty typical. That’s what we have on ours. It’s not a big deal if it takes longer to charge because you can always charge it overnight.
Bob: Right.
Brad: Usually the better batteries take less time. Then, the battery life. How long does it last? Now, this is where you have to be careful because they’ll put it lasts for 6 hours. Now, does that mean you’re using it for 6 hours, or is it just sitting here without any load on it? A load means you’re pushing into it. They usually put non-loaded time or battery life, which is pretty useless. It’s the loaded time, which you have to search for to find it. Ours lasts from 1 ½ to 3 hours of loaded, while you’re pushing on it.
Bob: Aren’t these like the Tesla battery?
Brad: It very well could be. I didn’t look that detailed into the battery composition. The physical size of the gun, you want to be aware of. You’ll see the mini one, that’s really nice to hold in your hand. Not as much travel, not as much power.
Bob: It does have fairly good power for a mini though.
Brad: This is kind of the average size, the C2.
Brad: This one is the bigger size. It’s bigger and more powerful. If you’re young and you really want it in, you may want to go with this big one, the X6. There is a bigger one coming out than this one even. We’ll probably have that one out by Christmas.
Bob: The blaster.
Brad: All the competition has similar models. The weight isn’t a big factor.
Bob: You can put the mini in your pocket or your purse.
Brad: That is the nice one for the minis. The minis are a lot stronger than you would think, at least the Q2 mini is. It lasts just as long as well. We would’ve never accepted that if it wasn’t top-of-the-line. We love it. The next point is something known as stall force. In other words, how much force it takes to stall the motor out? This is really important particularly if you want to get deep into your muscles. We have gotten these brands new, and you can push and you can stop them with your hand. None of ours can you stop with your hand. And we aren’t weak. There are measurements for that. If you can find the measurements anywhere from 13 milligrams is what that is, and the X6 has 20 milligrams of stall force and that is more than adequate we feel to sell them.
Brad: RPM, you’ll see anywhere from 1500-3000 RPM. They are variable and that is more than adequate for the average person. Keep those points in mind, particularly the stall force. The last one is not a real big deal but if you’ve got a good quality gun it will have a timer inside. Ours are all set for 10 minutes. They actually turn off. It’s a protective mechanism for the gun.
Bob: So, it doesn’t overheat.
Brad: But they’ll turn right back on, you can keep going. If it does actually overheat, there’s a thermal mechanism in there as well. That’s going to turn it off. You may not be able to turn it back on until it cools down enough. It’s one of those things that you are not going to find very easily. Ours have good thermal protection as well.
Bob: We like our guns.
Brad: We really do, it’s a fun thing to brag about 😊
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