Percussion massage tools are amazing for anyone who pushes their body in training, as they allow you to soothe sore muscles and hasten recovery all on your own. As great as they work, you still have to take time to actively run that percussion gun through specific body parts. The Therabody RecoveryAir Pro offers a more passive option to recover after a grueling training session.
A pair of sleeves designed to wear over your legs and feet, it uses pneumatic compression to help your lower extremities recover without any effort on your part. No wielding a percussion massager, no targeting muscles, and no guesswork whatsoever. Instead, you just sit there and let the sleeves go to work while you read a book, play on your phone, or watch the next episode on that series you’ve been trying to finish.
The Therabody RecoveryAir Pro consists of a pair of inflatable sleeves (one for each leg) and a small machine that controls the flow of air into each one. The sleeves are made up of four internal overlapping air chambers that, the outfit claims, provide a safer alternative to other designs, as it eliminates the sudden peaks and valleys of pressure that can be potentially harmful to your treatment. It also boasts three times faster ability to inflate and deflate than similar products, allowing you to go through your sessions at a much faster pace.
To use, simply connect the sleeves to the machine, then wrap each one around your legs and your feet. From there, you just switch on the machine and start the treatment, manually controlling the pressure (20 to 100 mmHg) and session length from the onboard LCD and capacitive controls. Want more granular control for the treatment you’re getting? While you can’t do that from the machine itself, it is available from the companion app, where you can run one of five guided treatment programs, each one tailored to a specific training activity. That way, you get the exact amount of therapy you require, whether you need a simple warm up, isolation treatments that zone in hard on particular muscles, and sophisticated interval treatments that stagger the work over time.
The Therabody RecoveryAir Pro app doesn’t just stop at offering multiple training modes, as you can also extensively customize each one. Want to adjust pressure levels to each individual chamber? You can do that. Want it to go harder on one leg than the other? Yes, that will work, too. Want to adjust cycle patterns for the treatment? Just change it to your preference and you’re good to go. The best part? You can do it anywhere, as the machine runs off an onboard battery, which stores a whopping six hours’ worth of battery life between charges.
Because it covers the entire legs and feet, you get full treatment to the muscles in your lower extremities, subjecting them to complete cycles of compression and release. According to the outfit, these cycles enable your body to flush out metabolic waste, while more quickly allowing fresh oxygenated blood to flow to the limbs, decreasing swellness, minimizing stiffness, and relieving muscle fatigue.
The Therabody RecoveryAir Pro is available now, priced at $1,299.