Recovery should be a large part of any fitness training program and currently the market is being saturated with recovery tools, such as foam rollers, trigger point therapy balls and percussion guns.
All designed to give your muscles and connective tissue a little TLC with Myofascial release. A physical therapy technique that addresses sensitivity in the connective tissue called fascia that surrounds and supports every muscle in your body.
By addressing specific trigger points within the fascia where the pain originates, you can help reduce that pain and ease the amount of tension you feel.1
Over the next few weeks we are going to provide you with an insight into our favourite recovery tools and recovery techniques so you can get the most out of your training.
We are going to start the series with Percussion therapy. This has become really popular over the last year and has seen many partnerships with professional clubs and manufacturers of percussion tools.
So what is it?
Percussion therapy provides targeted pulses of pressure into the muscle tissue of the body, helping to relieve muscle pain, stiffness and soreness, and increasing range of motion.
Do Percussion Massagers Work?
In a word, yes. We have been using the hypervolt from hyperice as part of our own recovery program over the last month and we are blown away by it.
The Hyperice Hypervolt
The Hypervolt delivers a symphony of power, performance, and variability. Designed to accelerate warmup and recovery, it’s also fully connected for automated use with the Hyperice App. Which is a really great upgrade.
- Accelerates warmup and recovery
- Improves range of motion and flexibility
- Reduces muscle soreness and stiffness
- Enhances muscle performance
Speeds:
- Level one: About 2,000 percussions per minute. This lower setting is great for your upper extremities like your upper Traps.
- Level two: 2,600 percussions per minute. This setting is good for a slightly denser area, like your Hamstrings or calves.
- Level three: 3,200 percussions per minute. Great for denser areas like hips, quads, glutes, and your piriformis — areas where the tissue and muscles are denser and the higher amplitude of force helps loosen things up.
Attachments:
head attachments designed for specific treatments, including the Bullet, Fork, Round, Cushion, and Flat attachments.
- Round attachment: The softest head to help ease your body into the massage.
- Flat head: Good for denser parts of the body – quads, glutes, pecs – but can be used on almost any body part. The most versatile head that comes with the Hypervolt.
- The bullet head: Good for trigger-point targeting specific areas. This head works well on smaller areas like your feet.
- The fork head: The two prongs are great for the area around the Achilles tendon (never use it on the Achilles itself), your ankle, your traps, your foot, really anywhere that’s tight. Some like to use it on the larger muscles like calves and quads, too.
- Cushion head: In-between the round attachment and flat head, the cushion head has some squish to it so it eases into the muscles gently.
The Hypervolt range
There are three to choose from
HYPERVOLT PLUS
30% more powerful than the Hypervolt, the Hypervolt Plus is the strongest and most advanced percussion massage device in the world.
HYPERVOLT
The Hypervolt delivers a symphony of power, performance, and variability.
HYPERVOLT GO
With surprising power and whisper-quiet operation, the GO was designed with simplicity in mind.
If you would like to purchase any of the hypervolt range, please get in touch for details
Castro-Sánchez AM, Matarán-Peñarrocha GA, Granero-Molina J, et al. Benefits of massage-myofascial release therapy on pain, anxiety, quality of sleep, depression, and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2011;2011:1-9. doi:10.1155/2011/561753