Have you heard about massage guns and you’re wondering how they can help you?
in this video, I’m going to use the recoverfun massage gun and show you how to use it on different parts of the body and for different injuries.
Hi, it’s Ivana helping you get fit healthy and strong at any age.
These massage guns have been around for a few years now, but they became even more popular during the pandemic because everybody’s really stiff and sore because we’re sitting around a lot more than usual.
Now a massage gun is based on percussion therapy. So it’s vibration therapy. It basically changes the way that your body and your brain communicate, and it can help to reduce pain that way.
Not a lot of people know this, but I actually worked as a massage therapist and I did a diploma in sports therapy as well.
Treating The Whole Body With Massage Guns
Now I’m going to take you through this head to toe so you can see how the massage gun works on different areas. And I want to share how you can use this massage gun to help relieve pain and stiffness.
There are also a few safety precautions that I’m going to mention along the way, how you can get the most out of this gun in the most safe way.
Components Of Massage Guns
I’ve left it with the regular round head, but there are also other options.
Certain attachments are good for certain parts of the body.
So I set this up here so you can get a good look at it. First of all, there’s an on and off button here at the bottom. And then there are five different speeds for this. Actually, even the first one feels like it does quite a lot of work, and then you can kind of move it up.
It does become a little bit louder, but not that much. It’s still, I think pretty tolerable.
Treating The Upper Body
Let’s start at the top where most people are really sore. So it’s that neck. And then the upper traps, um, the levator scapulae, those areas are pretty tight, most people, and that’s what we want to work on. First. This head is good. There’s also a similar head for that sort of thing. Um, but you’re just going to allow it to kind of slide around wherever the tight areas are.
You’re kind of going around there, make sure that you avoid the bony areas because it’s kind of going to bounce off the bone. You want to just gently apply it. You don’t want to go around to the front, where your neck is here. You’ve got your carotid artery. You want to avoid that area for sure.
When you’re going into your shoulders, you can kind of work your way down as well. And into the shoulder, of course you can also do that sort of vibration just with your biceps or if your triceps are sore. That kind of thing.
Then you can work your way down the arm. Most people spend lot of time on the back because of course that’s what’s really stiff. You can kind of turn this around and put it onto your back this way. I prefer to kind of slide down and then, so you’ve got on either end.
You always want to avoid your spine as well, right down the center. So avoid that area.
There’s actually another attachment that’s sort of designed to go around. So this is the fork head and that can go around the spine.
It’s okay to use it on your own. If you want to do that. And you’re kind of reaching down, making sure it goes on either side of the spine. The thing about these is they’re great to use by yourself, but if you’ve got somebody to help you, they feel really, really good. And they can kind of find that area around the spine. That’s really tense.
Massage Guns For The Shoulders & Back
I’m going to switch it back here. So there’s a really soft head too. So if you’re very tender in the shoulders and you just don’t want to hit it too hard, then you can just use the softer head. It’s a little bit more spongy, and then you can take that to either side. It really does feel very, very good, right afterwards.
There’s areas that can be around the back here that often feel tight for me. That’s a big one that can actually lock up your shoulders as well. You’ve got that posture from perhaps sitting in front of your desk all the time, and this will help relieve the tension there.
Using The Bullet Head On Massage Guns For Trigger Points
I’m also going to show you the bullet head here. This is the really small one.
This is for trigger points and small areas. So movement is exactly the same, but this one, I kind of like you’ve got tennis elbow or golfer’s elbow. So tennis elbow here is lateral epicondylitis. If you’ve got that, that feels really good there.
Also golfer’s elbow on the other side, that’s medial epicondylitis. So if you’ve got some inflammation there, this is really, really nice to kind of trigger point that area. If it’s really, really inflamed, this is not what you want to do with it.
You wouldn’t probably want to be compressing it and perhaps a little bit of ice for pain relief, but this can be really good if it’s just a chronic condition and you want to relieve the tension in the arm there. So on either side of the elbow now just put the softer head on there.
Using Massage Guns On The Hip Flexors
Again, this is an area that a lot of people don’t think about, but we often get tight hip flexors.
The psoas, which is the one of the hip flexors that goes directly into the spine. If your hip flexors are very tight, you may find that it’s affecting your posture and you get lower back pain. I like to do what’s one of the most painful things that a massage therapist or a physio can do to you is like a psoas release. The psoas kind of comes in here inside your hip bone and you can hit that area.
So just be inside of the hip bone. Of course you don’t want to touch the bone, but it does help to release that area a little bit. It does become pleasant after awhile.
Treating The Lower Back & Glutes With Massage Guns
You can of course, bring it around into the lower back area as well. The QL quadratus lumborum is often very, very tight here, so that can relieve a little bit of tension there.
Now, as we kind of work our way around, a lot of people suffer from tight glutes piriformis syndrome. That means they have a lot of tension in the glute area there, the piriformis muscle, which is that really painful point that you can find if you feel around in your glutes. So you can also use it to find that point and apply a bit of pressure there. If you have a suffer from it, band syndrome or runners need, cause you’re getting too much pressure on the outside.
The IT band is really tight. So there’s a small muscle that tensor fascia latae that goes into that.
I don’t actually recommend that you go hard along the IT band. If it’s inflamed, it actually can make the inflammation worse. But if you find that spot and it’s pretty, for those of us who suffer from this particular element, it is a pretty obvious and painful.
You find that spot and then you can work your way into that. Just let the massage gun treat that area. And that can help release some of the pressure around the knee and make sure that that the tele, the kneecap is tracking properly as well.
Now, the standard stuff that everybody likes to do, the quads often get sore. They’re overworked. You can probably do the round head for that one. I’m just going to keep it on the soft one for now, and then just work your way around the outside. Even on the inner thigh, if you’re comfortable, that’s going to be a bit more tender. So it’d be a bit careful there.
Using Massage Guns On Your Calves
Now, one area that I really like is the calves. So if you put it on, on your calf, you can just like do its thing there. From either end.
If you’ve been walking a lot, you’ll probably feel a lot of tension in night, calf muscle, and this is a really great way to relieve it. You can kind of work both sides.
Using Massage Guns On Your Feet
Now I’m going to show you my favorite part for the feet. So this is the flat head, and this is really useful for certain areas where you want to pressure directly on it. I love it for the feet. This is, I just discovered this one. And uh, so you’re gonna hit it here and just slide along
Speaker 2: (08:25)
The feet.
Always control the pressure so it’s comfortable for you.
This is a really great one. Like obviously our feet get sore. If you’ve been working out a lot, if you’ve been walking a lot, just standing a lot feet get sore, but also if you have plantar fasciitis, which I have to have, this can help relieve some of that tension there as well.
Your feet really do feel a lot better after using this as well.
I hope you enjoyed this demo of the recoverfun massage gun.
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