Theragun Massage Gun Review

Witchcraft.

There’s no other word for it. I’ve been holding off writing this review as I’m very aware that the placebo effect or confirmation bias means we often see what we want to see. I’ve been blown away by the effectiveness of a massage gun and wanted to take some time to make sure it wasn’t all in my head.

After losing a week of precious training to a locked up neck that was only resolved by a session of tough physio I knew I couldn’t afford to have anything like this happen again. I believe we don’t 100% understand the science behind why massage and physio works, but there’s very little argument about the fact that it does.

Lou strongly recommended working the neck intensively with a tennis ball, which got me thinking.

It’s also worth noting I fiercely hate the satanic evil that is foam rolling. I bought a foam roller, experienced the agony once then hid it under the bed until I found someone I could give it away to.

I bit the bullet and ordered a Theragun G3 (I paid for this with my own money and have no connection to Theragun other than as a new customer). Some of my friends had already invested in a massage gun and sung its praises so I was slightly sceptical, but hopeful that it would help me recover from long tough swims.

Choosing a massage gun

I chose the G3 as it sits squarely in the middle of the range of probably the best known massage gun companies. I’d picked it over the entry level devices because it could apply 33% more force before stalling – I didn’t want to skimp and miss out as a result. It’s advertised as the quietist in the range as well, which added significantly to the appeal. It’s not cheap with a rrp of £375 (although right now discounted to £300), but you can buy well reviewed alternatives from the usual shopfronts for £40 and up. I did find some of the language in some of the reviews for alternative devices suspicious, so as always, buy with care.

The G3 comes in a smart box, and within is an equally smart carrying case that keeps all the accessories (4 different heads, basically) and the charger all in one place. This was actually quite valuable to me as I’m travelling all over the place and would have had to find something to protect the gun while mobile.

The device itself is sleek and futuristic and has a quality weight to it throughout without being too heavy to be fit for purpose.

Using the massage gun

My gun arrived almost entirely discharged – I tried it out and was concerned that it was stalling as soon as I applied pressure; but after popping it on charge for a couple of hours (I didn’t notice how long it took to fully charge) the stalling issue went away. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and the battery indicator still shows full charge.

One of the reasons why the Theragun range appealed was the triangular design which means you can hold it in three different positions and ‘self massage’ almost all of your body.

This is actually very intuitive and works very well without really needing to reference the companion app. When you initially fire up the gun, the noise does startle slightly. It’s not loud, but you would need to raise your voice if having a conversation. The best analogy I can think of is it’s about as noisy as a pair of mains hair clippers, which is quite impressive when you hold it to your body and see the muscles ripple in waves as the percussion arm hammers up and down.

Although you are being – quite literally – hammered, you are in control of the force being applied so it’s not painful. When you do find a niggle, and apply a little additional pressure you do feel discomfort for a few seconds but can immediately start to feel relief.

There are two speed settings – I’ve only used the fast speed as controlling the pressure seems to be the important bit.

So far, I’ve just used the dampener that the gun came fitted with but having inspected the other attachments I can again intuitively understand situations in which I might want to use ‘the thumb’ or ‘the cone’.

Results

This is where the witchcraft comes in. I’m swimming nearly nine kilometres up to five times a week at the moment. When I get out, my biceps, shoulders and pectorals are stiff, tired and a little sore. The first time I used the gun after a session, I gave it thirty seconds on each bit.

When I stopped the gun, my lower back hurt.

It wasn’t that my lower back had suddenly started hurting, but the discomfort from the treated parts of my body had gone, and I could now hear the complaints from elsewhere. I gave my lower back some treatment and after less than a couple of minutes I couldn’t feel that either.

I was blown away.

I’ve had the same results every time I get out of the pool. Just to test things, a couple of days ago I skipped the post swim therapy; the results were sore biceps, shoulders and pectorals until after lunch when I gave up and used the massage gun, to immediate results. It takes less than three minutes to treat every part of my body that’s complaining each day.

The sore elbow that I’ve been carefully managing since October is gone – you can carefully massage joints, easing sore tendons and ligaments.

Obviously, your mileage may vary but all I can say to you is that for me, it works, and it works spectacularly well and I’m not travelling without it.