The battery is also slightly larger – 2600mAh compared to 2500mAh. Heated percussion therapy is effective in relieving pain and aids healing during rehabilitation. But we did notice sharper image massage chair it gets louder after a few dozen sessions. We observed rattles, vibrations, and some creaking noise. This often means that the device might have reliability issues in the future.
They’re the standard variety that are sold with most other massage guns and while they’re basic, they work just fine. I’m a certified personal trainer (NASM) and previously covered fitness at Wirecutter. I’ve used foam rollers regularly for years and tested many for our guide to foam rollers. As an avid runner, I recently treated hamstring tendonitis and a particularly gnarly knot on my left upper trapezius.
We know such (cheap) devices tend to get louder a few weeks into using them. It’s a characteristic we’ve noted with many budget massage guns. Diving straight into our Sharper Image massage gun review, we’ve tested the Power Percussion model rigorously, matching its real-world performance against its promised features. The Renpho R4 Pro Massage Gun gives you the perks of all the heavy-duty massage guns, but at a cheaper price.
This state-of-the-art massage gun uses percussion to target sore muscles and tight knots, helping you unwind after a long workout. In fact, it’s probably the only under $100 percussion massager we have seen with a confirmed 12mm amplitude. We prefer this setup to Sharper Image’s – the same maximum percussions per minute but a higher amplitude. Massage guns work by sending fast and powerful pulsating strokes that penetrate deep into muscle tissues. They increase muscle stimulation, reduce soft tissue pain and improve blood circulation, speed up recovery and improve your physical performance.
These features describe not only the depth of the massage, but the force behind the percussion, too. For comparison’s sake, the Theragun Pro has a stall force of 60 pounds and an amplitude of 16mm — virtually double that of the Sharper Image, although at nearly six times the price. The Renpho Massage Gun was one of the cheapest models sharper image massage chair we tried, and it felt that way. A couple of times, its large foam ball attachment began to pop out at the machine’s highest speed. What we do know is that a massage gun cannot flush lactic acid from your muscles (that’s not how muscle soreness works). It can increase circulation—but so can taking a walk (as Aschwanden pointed out).
The Theragun Elite is a souped-up, more expensive version of the Theragun Prime (one of our picks). Compared with the Prime, it has five attachments instead of four, a higher stall force (40 pounds versus 30 pounds), and an OLED display (instead of LED lights). Those upgrades might be valuable to some people, but we found the overall experience of the Elite and the Prime to be similar, and we concluded that most people would be satisfied with the Prime.