Vibrating massagers allow you to have regular quality massage therapy without the need for appointments and professional fees. However, from what we have seen most people do not get any where near the benefits they should. This is because they use techniques adapted from conventional massage rather than those appropriate for vibration.
In this article I will briefly go over the differences between vibration massage and conventional massage, then the proper way to use your massager.
Why vibrating massagers need different techniques
The key technique differences
Using your vibrating massager
Special advice for massage guns (percussion massagers)
The easiest way to explain why vibrating massagers need different techniques is to use the analogy of changing from using an axe to using a chainsaw. When chainsaws became available the axe techniques became redundant and new chainsaw techniques need to be used. Likewise, vibrating massagers work differently to conventional massage, so they also need appropriate new techniques. We will show you these.
A lot of professionals have huge experience and knowledge of conventional massage and believe this expertise transfers to using vibration massagers. It does not. Later in this article we have a video showing some of these “experts” demonstrating totally inappropriate techniques on YouTube.
The obvious difference between conventional massage and vibration is that conventional massage uses physical pressure to have it’s effect whereas vibration massage uses vibrations. Most people will be familiar with conventional massage but not therapeutic vibrations so we will do a short introduction to them. We will then show you the different usage techniques you will need.
Vibration massage involves placing a vibrating pad on the surface, allowing the vibration to penetrate. This is similar to the way ultrasound works, only the vibration frequencies are different. Vibrations in the therapeutic massage range have the effects shown in the pic.
Conventional massage relies on the skilful use of mechanical forces such as pressure, rubbing and squeezing. By comparison, for vibration massage you just need to sit the machine on the surface while the vibrations penetrate and have their therapeutic effects. The following is a summary of the main technique differences.
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Conventional massage therapists are used to pressing and moving. They often feel that they have to do something to help the massager, and it is very hard for for them to get out of the habit. However, it is the vibrations that have the therapeutic effect so you just need to sit the machine on where you want massaged and let the vibrations penetrate. Moving will actually be counterproductive as it will not let allow the vibrations to “soak in”.
We mentioned above that professionals often have expertise in conventional massage and believe that this expertise transfers to vibrating massagers. This compilation of “YouTube experts” shows them demonstrating techniques that would have practically no therapeutic value.
Conventional massage relies on physical penetration to effect tissues. This may require painful pressure. On the other hand strong therapeutic vibrations can easily penetrate very deeply without any need for the massager to press in.
Vibration massage works on a similar principle to ultrasound (vibrations at a different frequency). It is well understood that you do not need to push the head of an ultrasound in to help the ultrasound waves penetrate.
As we will discuss later percussion massagers (massage guns) are designed to drive their heads into your muscles. Marketers claim that this increases penetration, but as discussed in the ultrasound example this is not needed. It is actually a marketing gimmick that adds no benefits while increasing the risk of causing damage.
If you have had a deep tissue conventional massage no doubt you are aware of how painful they can be, and any time one uses such pressure there is always the risk that it causes damage or injury. On the other hand with vibration massage you just need to sit the vibration pad on the surface. There is no physical pressure or penetration so it is much safer.
The main thing to understand when using a vibrating massager is that it is the vibrations that have the therapeutic effects. This means you just sit the machine where you want massaged, let it do the work, then when it is finished move it on to the next part that needs massaging. You do not need to push in, rub, or move the machine around. If you can do this one simple thing you will get better results than most people, including professionals and those who demonstrate on YouTube.
There are a lot of things that will help you use your massager to get really good results. These are covered in detail in our Vibration massage usage guide . This includes:
Massage guns are a marketing gimmick that tries to combine vibration and conventional massage (see Massage guns explained ). The main problems with this are:
You are better off getting a proper genuine vibration massager instead. However, if you do have a massage gun you can modify it to give moderate results. We will show you how.
Trying to combine vibration massage with conventional massage works about as well as combining a chainsaw and an axe. In this section we will briefly show you marketers have done this, then an infographic showing the problems
The easiest way to understand how massage gun marketers have attempted to combine vibration and conventional massage is with this diagram.
From this basic information two things should be obvious.
The scientists given massage guns and asked to do clinical trials understand that massage guns are not very effective if used as intended. They understand that the therapeutic benefits come from the vibration, and driving the head in creates the risk of injury while adding little therapeutic benefit.
Because of this they:
As an example this picture is from a massage gun trial. The scientists chose to use head one, which as you can see is designed to give rather than push into the muscle. For more detail and examples please see our article Are massage guns scientifically proven .
The ideal amount a head should go up and down to give vibration transfer is about 5mm, but the heads of massage guns go up and down up to 16mm (way too much). The scientists managed to reduce this in two ways.
The other thing you need to do is throw in the bin any head that looks as though it would be home on a jackhammer. These are both in-effective and dangerous.
Use the vibration massage techniques above rather than conventional massage techniques
To get the best results you need a genuine vibration massager. Even if you use a massage gun as discussed above you will only get moderate results at best, and as discussed in our article Why most massagers are a waste of money , the market is flooded with massagers built by factories that have no desire to build serious therapeutic devices and just want to cash in.
That said, when we were looking for something or patients could use at home we found that most machines were those non-serious devices, and that the only decent genuine vibration massagers we could find were professional machines designed for colleagues to use on patients rather than for self use. Because of this we built our own.
DrGraeme massagers were originally built by Dr Graeme for use in his clinic, and to prescribe to his patients for additional self use at home. Now these are used by colleagues and other professionals for similar purposes. If you are a professional and wish to know more about this therapy, or possibly get a sample massager to trial please check out our practitioner page .
We are continually adding more information on research and uses. Subscribe below to have us email them to you "hot off the press".
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