Your guide to vibration massage

Vibration massage has been used by professionals for decades, but more recently personal use machines have made this therapy available for home use. In this article we will discuss what vibration massage is and what it does, then give you practical advice on how to choose a suitable machine and use it properly.

CONTENTS

What is vibration massage
What does vibration massage do
How to choose a suitable machine
How to use a vibration massager properly
Some examples of uses and benefits
Answers to common questions
Professionals

What does vibration massage do

The vibrations from a vibration massager penetrate deeply into your muscles and have a host of proven beneficial effects as shown in this diagram. For detail please see our article The scientifically proven effects of vibration massage- with clinical applications . Because of this vibration massage has a host clinical and other uses such as those following. We discuss each further in our examples section.

• Trigger points and “muscle knots”
• Treating pain such as back, neck and shoulder
• Chronic pain syndromes such as fibromyalgia
• Rehabilitation and healing
• Sports and exercise: warmups, recovery, increasing performance
• cellulite massage
• Health and wellness

This picture shows a genuine vibration massager similar to those that have been used by professionals for decades. The key features are:

Vibration pad

You can see the vibration pad that is designed to sit on the surface and send in vibrations. To give effective vibration transfer these pads need to go up and down about 5mm, and have a strong motor and mechanism to drive them.

Vibration “speed”

As discussed in our article The scientifically proven effects of vibration massage- with clinical applications , the frequency where most therapeutic benefits occur is in the 40-50 hz (cycles per second) range. The massager needs to be able to run comfortably at this speed. If specifications are given in rpm this is 2400-3000 rpm.

“Consumer massagers”

A study conducted a few years ago found that manufacturers of massagers built for the public to use at home were concerned about how their machines looked on shop shelves rather than how they worked: resulting an machines that looked good but had little therapeutic benefit (1). As an example the factory that builds our massagers sent us the machine pictured. Like most of these types of machines it came with a host of cheap gimmick shaped plastic heads, so we glued on a decent one. When we tried it the head only went up and down 1-2mm rather than the 4-5mm needed for effective vibration transfer. Where a proper professional machine will send vibrations right through you this machine just “buzzed” the surface.

Massage guns deliver less vibrations

The easiest way to explain is to use this diagram.

• The machine on the left is a genuine vibration massager. You can see that it has the large pad to send copious amounts of therapeutic vibrations deep into your muscles.
• The tool on the right is a t-bar that massage therapists use to deliver deep (usually painful) pressure.
• The machine in the middle is a massage gun, or percussion massager. It’s head goes up and down a lot further and is designed to drive into your muscles. Bascially it is a t-bar with a jack-hammer mechanism.
• It is easy to see from this why massage guns deliver less vibrations and are more likely to hurt you.

The General Purpose Massager

We’ve had this machine for over a decade and it’s proved to be extremely effective, economical and reliable. The only shortfall is that you are limited to massaging the region under the single head. More information about the General Purpose Massager

The Ultimate Quad Head Massager

This machine has the same ergonomic shape and effectiveness as the General Purpose Massager, but has four heads so it can massage a much larger area. More information about the Ultimate Quad Head Massager

What not to do

The biggest mistake we see people make (including professionals) is to use the techniques they have been shown for conventional massage. These include pressing in and rubbing. As this pic shows this is a bit like using axe techniques with a chainsaw.