Should You Buy a Massage Gun? 10 Pros and 10 Cons

is article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in November of 2020. For the original video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG8p0wykCsY

Bob: Today we're going to discuss should you buy a massage gun? We're going to give you 10 pros but we're always going to give 10 cons.

Brad: There you go, Bob.

Bob: Okay. So we have three massagers.

Bob: There's the C2 Massage Gun, which is kind of our big massager, our most popular massager.

Brad: The most powerful one.

Bob: It’s probably the higher end model. Then, we have the Q2 mini massager. This is really cool because this one can fit in your purse, or your handbag, or your murse.

Brad: Yeah. And it still has a lot of power.

Bob: Then we have the economical model, I would call it. It’s the handheld massager. These all come with five attachments.

Brad: Five heads.

Bob: The handheld massager is a little easier to get your back.

Brad: This one is really nice, particularly if you’re an older person and you don’t want an aggressive massage.

Bob: Yeah, we’ll discuss that actually. Okay so, let's start off with a con. I hate to be negative, but…. These massagers are not good for neck pain per se. Especially if you get up directly on the neck or near the spine.

Brad: The back of the neck, particularly back by the base of the skull around on the head. The low base of the neck, upper shoulder might be okay.

Bob: Yeah, upper traps. Perfect for that. But anything higher is just going to rattle your cage. Try it once, you’ll find out.

Brad: It's not a pleasant thing.

Bob: Alright. A pro now. It's terrific for muscle strains, pulls or tears. I don't know what else you'd do that would be better. I've had several tears, muscle strains.

Brad: Well, to be honest with you I think the only thing better than this is actually go to a professional masseuse. You know, pay them their money. Unless you have someone in the household that would do it.

Bob: But when you're able to do it and also could they do it long enough and you know, the whole bit.

Brad: Right, right.

Bob: Another con, it's not good for headaches. I, again, up on the head, it's just going to thump away. It's going to probably hear a hollow sound if it went on my head, huh?

Brad: Say no more, Bob.

Bob: All right. Another pro. It's terrific for many types of tendonitis, Brad, I have found. So like, tennis elbow which is a lateral epicondylitis. It's good if you start in the muscle part of it first and then you just kind of gradually move into the where the tendonitis is, right? It worked well on my quadriceps tendonitis too. Terrific, in fact, for that. It took it away.

Brad: Yeah, they're great for any, where the muscle belly is, where it goes into that tendon that juncture's a really good place to get at it with these.

Bob: And again, you're using the different heads. All right. Another con, it's not good for a pinched nerve in the neck. The pinched nerve is often up in the neck itself. It could be the hole where it's coming out or it could be a disc. And this is just not going to affect that. If the pain is going down in the arm it's certainly not going to help that. So, we just want to be honest with people.

Brad: Right. It's not good for everything.

Bob: All right another pro. It's a really, just a one-time cost, then there's no ongoing fee. Like you would pay a massage therapist. Now a massage therapist might be better. You can carry it with you. You have your own massage therapist with you. All the time, basically. All right. It's not good, just as we said, it's not good for a pinched nerve in the neck. It's also not good for sciatica which is the pinched nerve basically in the back.

Brad: You're not going to massage a nerve, not like this. You know, you're not going to get on that nerve and beat on it. Not like a muscle belly where you're trying to get that muscle to relax.

Bob: Well, the exception would be then if you have actually what we call false sciatica or, piriformis syndrome. That's a small muscle in your buttock that often gets, I think often it gets pulled and torn too, we've decided. And sometimes there's scar tissue on it. And this works really well for that. That's actually one of the better treatments for it.

Brad: So you're massaging the muscle. Not necessarily the nerve itself. We don't want to hammer on a nerve.

Bob: Right. Another con. It is portable, especially the mini one here. This one, is this not cute, Brad?

Brad: It is cute. Bob.

Bob: But like you said, it's powerful.

Brad: It is.

Bob: But you could slip that almost into anything. You could probably take that into a concert or something.

Brad: You probably couldn’t get it in your back pocket. You could with some of those big back pockets, or cargo pants.

Bob: There we go. They still have those?

Brad: I do.

Bob: Let’s go on. Another con. It's not good for arthritis per se. I mean, it's not good, like if the pain is coming from the joint itself. The thing with arthritis though, quite often, a lot of the tissues have tightened up around it.

Brad: Right. So you can massage those.

Bob: You can massage the tissue around it. So it makes your arthritis feel better.

Brad: Right. But you're not going to go right on that joint.

Bob: Right. It's just not going to help with that. So number five for the pros. It's great for warming up muscles. I like to use these. I have a couple of muscles that can give me trouble when I'm running and these help keep me out of trouble when I'm running.

Brad: It all has to do with that whole concept of pliability, keeping the muscle soft. And so that circulation.

Bob: Good circulation

Brad: Exactly. Get the fresh blood in, get the old blood out. And it's a healthy tissue that way.

Bob: Another con might be if you're elderly or of a slight build, you know, where you're not a big muscular person the massagers, these massage guns might be too much.

Brad: Yes. You get too aggressive. And who was telling me their grandmother, Mike's, yeah, actually. She uses the handheld massager. It's not near as powerful. And it works out really well.

Bob: Not as much translation either.

Brad: Right, exactly. It's a different type and you know so there's something for most people.

Bob: For everyone. But again, you may keep that in mind.

Brad: Or if they have fragile skin, then you're not going to use them.

Bob: Yeah, if your skin tears really easy, which we find a lot of times in the elderly. Another pro, it's good for muscle recovery. So like if you've been lifting a lot or like an athletic event and you're sore, this can help ease some of that soreness and get you back running again or moving again.

Brad: That relates to our previous point of circulation. Getting the nutrients in and the old blood out.

Bob: One of the cons too, with some of these, not so much ours, but some of them, guns are really quite bulky. They're big and hard to handle.

Brad: In general, the older ones are. Like anything, they get smaller and smaller but there are still some, you can see by the size of my hand, it's still not too big. And that's the big one.

Bob: Right. And then we got the mini of course. Another pro is that some patients actually prefer this. Some of our patients actually prefer this over actual regular massage.

Brad: Someone's hands on them.

Bob: Yeah. I would say around 50%, Brad. I mean, I would say, do you want Tim to give you a massage or do you want the massage gun? And they're like, we'll take the massage gun.

Brad: Yeah. But one way or another, we've had good positive results. And personally myself, I would definitely go to a masseuse before one of these, if the price was the same.

Bob: Sure. Because they can tell what spots and stuff.

Brad: Yeah, they definitely have their skills that are unmatched by this.

Bob: But then you have to go there and then you have to drive there. And then you have to wear a mask now and all that. All right, another con. Some of them can be pretty expensive. Actually when they first came out, we did not support many of them because they were way too pricey. They were $400-500, and we just said, that's too much for people. There was an expensive version out there. They're coming down now. Like this one's around $90-$100, depending on the day and how much they're giving you back on it.

Brad: With promotions and such.

Bob: Another pro is that they all come with the five heads, like we said. You can, almost every situation that you can think of, you can deal with it.

Brad: They hit different parts of your body, depending on how much muscle you have that you want to get into, location, so. And we did a video on all of that.

Bob: The air-filled head is really popular because it actually feels quite good overall on the surface, even the bones when you go over it. Another con is if you don't spend enough money on these, this has happened to my nephew, he bought an inexpensive massage gun. He called me and said, it's a piece of junk. He said it just doesn't work well. So you want to buy one from a reputable person. Not on the street. The last pro is that it's easy on your hands and fingers. Like if you're the person giving the massage, you know, that's one of the things they're taught is to try to protect their hands because they become strained over a while and it can even stretch the ligaments out.

Brad: Oh yeah, you could really could.

Bob: That's why a lot of them use their elbows and stuff like that.

Brad: Yeah, they have a lot of hand tools. It would be interesting to know if many masseuses actually used these. I know they have hand tools. And again, they're very skilled and they do a very good job, but they also use things to avoid their hand from falling apart over the years.

Bob: Right, right. Another con, the final con is that certain places can be hard to reach. Like you're back, you know, you can get there if you've got pretty good shoulder range of motion, but.

Brad: It's just still hard to get the right angle all the time.

Bob: The handheld massager works a little better for that. You know, it's got the handle. But still.

Brad: If you're doing your low back or your mid back, someone else pretty much needs to be doing this.

Bob: That would be good. Right. Be friends with somebody. All right. So those are the pros and the cons. If you guys have any pros and cons yourself that you want to add, just put them in the comments below. We always love to hear your feedback.

Brad: That's right.

Bob: And remember Brad and I can fix just about anything.

Brad: Except for...

Bob: A broken heart.

Brad: And these aren't going to work.

Bob: No, that's not going to help that. So that's a con.

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