While we're lambasting recovery trends...

Remember when massage guns were big? 

It seemed like everyone in tights was buying or promoting these little muscle-dildos for an extra 1% of recovery. 

But are they worth it? 

What if you’re gearing up for a tough session, and you're still a little sore from yesterday’s session? In the past, maybe you’d reach for a foam roller or spend a few extra minutes stretching. A therapist on hand might be ideal, but would a massage gun be the next best thing? 

A recent study took a look at this.

The study explored whether using a massage gun on major muscle groups could impact performance, muscle soreness, or recovery. Participants gave themselves a little massage tickle before exercise, and the results were interesting. 

Percussion massage therapy did reduce perceived muscle soreness after training, potentially making life a little easier for the everyday gym-goer dealing with DOMS.

Awesome. 

But, as we've talked about before, being sore or not sore doesn't say a lot. Soreness certainly does not follow the same timeline as muscle recovery. STRENGTH recovery is the factor. 

So, while subjects felt less sore, there was no significant improvement in performance after using the massage gun. That is, strength and power recovery were not accelerated with the love-gun. 

In other words, it didn’t help people recover after training, but it did make them feel better post-workout.

And that's cool, I guess. 

If you’re dealing with muscle soreness and want a faster bounce-back after intense training, massage guns might be a useful tool. But I wouldn't expect it to do anything meaningful or measurable for actually recovering after intense activity, to be at your best quicker. 

Unfortunately, it's another fan dangle tool that doesn't live up to the excitement. 

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Call me on 0411 139 061, or message me on Whatsapp here. 

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