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Archives for June 2012
Percussion Massage: We Compare The Thumper Sport Against the Homedics Compact
A discussion of percussion massage and two options for home use.
Overall, I was disappointed with the Homedics massages. I really wanted their massager to be successful through the evaluation, but I cannot recommend it based on build quality, ergonomics, and effectiveness.
The Thumper Sport performed much better through the evaluation, and I consider it a better value even though it is significantly more expensive than the Homedics.
We carry the entire line of Thumper Massagers on our BHI site. Click here to learn more about the Thumper Sport.
[VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
Speaker: Hi everybody, another BetterHealthInnovations.com video.
I want to talk to our folks today who may be suffering from back pain, from muscle pain. Our folks may want to improve their immune system. I wanted to talk to people who maybe suffering from carpal tunnel. I also wanted to talk to folks who may be looking to relieve stress and relieve anxiety in their lives.
All those symptoms that you may or may not be suffering from, all those symptoms have been proven according to the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Body Work, all those have been proved by this organization through research material, through research to be addressed through massage therapy. It is something that can be done either outside of the home or inside of the home. So along with massage therapy, I want to talk about our two widely available popular units for home use.
Massage therapy, keep in mind, it has the benefits that we talked about, when I talked about just a moment ago; it’s been used for thousands of years. It’s found on Egyptian drawings massage and body work. I bet you they wish that that they had the quality of this that we have today. It’s also found in a Chinese medical reference book from 2700 BC.
So massage is one of the oldest form of medical care available and it’s been proven to work over the years and it’s obviously still in use today. Around 40 million Americans get at least one professional massage a year. So again, listing off the various ailments that you might be suffering from, certainly the biggest ones that are addressed by massage therapy would be muscle pain, also stress anxiety, trying to release stress and anxiety in your life.
So without further ado [00:02:00], we’ll talk about these two units. Over here on my right I have the HoMedics Percussion Massager widely available online and also locally. It goes through $30, $40. Over here, I have the Thumper Sport massager. It is a great deal more expensive than the HoMedics version.
The Thumper Sport which is the bottom of the Thumper [phonetic] [00:02:23] Equine, above this will be the Mini Pro Massager which is intended for consumers and professionals. The Thumper Sport here is intended mostly for the consumer market. But anyways, the Thumper Sport goes for a $129. We sell it on BetterHealthInnovations.com and the $129 includes shipping within the United States.
And we debated, when we were putting this together, should we be comparing a $34-year product versus one that costs about four times as much and in the end obviously we said, “Yeah, let’s go ahead and do it,†because $129 would probably, you would spend that on just one professional massage. So we don’t think that’s really out of line to be talking about a unit to cost a $129 along with one that costs a great deal cheaper and in the HoMedics version here, I really, really wanted this to work, because I do want to present our customers, those who can’t go as a $129 unit, I want to present our customers with an option that will work for them at a lower cost.
So we’re going to jump into this now with our standard format of doing our product reviews. I’m going to talk about the problem and solution, intended use, ergonomics, build quality, support material, accessories and effectiveness. So we already talked a little bit about the problem and the solution. Both of these address that through percussion massage.
Percussion massage is a massage [00:04:00] that will get more deeply into the muscles as opposed to being more of a surface or light massage. Some of the muscle groups on the body for example are your thighs, have extremely large muscles. So the intention of both of these is to provide enough percussion to get in there and relax those muscles and the muscle tissue.
The intended use, as I stated before, both of these are intended for the consumer market. If you’re a professional watching this, you might find some value, but I’d really recommend stepping up to a Thumper Mini Pro 2. It’s rated for more hours of continuous use. It’s really more suitable for a professional environment over the Thumper Sports, certainly over the consumer-only HoMedics brand.
Moving on to ergonomics. Ergonomically both units are very similar. There is a fair amount of difference with the handle ones. It looks like, I would say, about four-inch difference. That can make a difference for self-massage. If you’re trying to reach a spot, in the middle of your back for example, having a longer handle on the Thumper, usage of the product and – this is important for professionals or those who plan to use these for extended uses, just how much feedback you get in the handle when you’re holding on to it.
We had passed these units around to various folks within our organization and of course I used them for about a week before doing this video and you do get a lot more feedback in the HoMedics version than you do in the Thumper version. That’s more like one of the big points the Thumper Massager is that there’s a lot of isolation between the massage head and the masseuse’s hand, because obviously if you’re doing this for a long, you’ll feel a lot of vibration, you know, it’s going [00:06:00] to cause numbing and tingling in the hand if you’re using this.
Also under ergonomics, I want to talk about weight and everybody likes light weight, but perhaps that’s not the best thing with professional massagers. You want to massager, when you put it onto a person, you want the weight of the head to feet to be applying pressure. You don’t want to be working the massager with one hand behind on top of the head, you know, forcing it down into the tissues.
For that purposes, from an ergonomic perspective, the Thumper Sport is a little bit heavier in the head in, has that longer handle which is, you know, works like a lever, so you’re getting a little bit more of the direct pressure down on to the muscle tissue over the HoMedics version.
Also on ergonomics, and here’s something you probably wouldn’t necessarily think of, and that’s how long these cords are. If we compare the two cords here, this is eloquently as possible on video but I’m going to just try to show you a comparison between the length of the cords. So here’s the end of the HoMedics. The HoMedics version is a great cord. It ended about here on the Thumper cord.
So Thumper cord goes on for seven more feet. This is obviously important both for self-massage and it’s important for, if you’re working on a patient, who’s laying on a table, you can obviously reach him a lot better with a longer cord. You don’t have to go hunting for an extension cord. If I were working on somebody with a HoMedics, I would have to find an extension cord. I just can’t imagine him walking around the table trying to do a massage with a cord that short.
For build quality and warranty, first up, both have a similar warranty. I [00:08:00] have never placed a claim with the use of both of them myself personally, but they both have a two-year warranty. I believe that they both require returns to honor that warranty.
For build quality and craftsmanship, the biggest thing I saw about the HoMedics version and right away is that it has a painted-on silver finish. So it’s an injection molded plastic housing with a painted-on silver finish and already right out of the box I see some of that finish flicking away. So I’d imagine that over the years and through use, especially around the handgrip area, you’re going to start to see some flaking, perhaps if it gets bumped, you’ll see some chipping of the silver finish.
From a – just looking at a quality perspective, the switches are very solid. The unit itself, there’s no shakes or rattles in it and that sort of thing, but I really don’t care for the finish on the HoMedics unit. The Thumper Massage had a build quality, and the Thumper is very well known for their build quality, the build quality we out rated has certainly been excellent, very, very solid, the unit feels solid in the hand. It’s a pleasure to work with any of the Thumper massages including the Thumper Sport.
Regarding the finish issue that I have with the HoMedics, the Thumper Massager has a grayish-bluish coloring to it, but that coloring is actually molded right into the plastic housing. So you’re not going to get, you know, chips or flaking away of the finish.
And I do want to mention here, the country of origin of these units, a lot of folks don’t know this, the Thumper massages are actually made up in Canada. They are made just outside of Toronto, Canada. The HoMedics version, they are an [00:10:00] import from, I believe, this one here was made in China, yes.
Okay, moving on to support material, the HoMedics support material, it comprises a small manual. There’s about four pages of useful information in here. It’s in a couple of different languages. So you get about half this manual a lot of fine print around the warranty, that sort of thing, but I’d say about four pages of useful material, you know, how to use the massager.
The Thumper Massager comes with a great deal more of support material. It does have some advertising literature that they throw in the box on their other products, so you can learn about those. The operator’s manual for the Thumper Massager, it covers a little more than HoMedics. In actuality though, the manual covers about the same number of pages as HoMedics. It’s done also in multiple languages. So you get like the four pages or so how to use the unit, important safety considerations that certainly you should read before going to use it.
But the one real differentiator is the Thumper Sport Massager comes with a DVD on how to use the unit which I think is important, so you can get the most out of it when you’re using it on yourself or somebody else. It also teaches you how to use it safely, which I think is especially important, especially if you’re using it on somebody else.
Moving on to accessories, the Thumper Massager really doesn’t come with any accessories. The HoMedics version does come with one accessory. If you screw off the massage tips and you can put in their place these red ones and there’s a separate button on here [00:12:00] where you can turn on the heat function. And like I said, we had had several people try this before doing the video, I tried it myself and what we found is that you really don’t keep the massager in one place long enough to really feel that heat. When you’re using a power massager such as these, you don’t want to keep it in one spot longer than 10 or 15 seconds. So you really feel much heat.
Now if these were say infrared, I think that that would be a different story than it would get in underneath, you know, underneath the skin layer into the muscles, but that’s not the case. But we’ll count these as being an accessory that comes with HoMedics that’s not available with the Thumper Massager.
And lastly and probably most importantly is effectiveness, how effective how are these two units. Like I said, I really wanted to like the HoMedics unit, but I found it to be relatively ineffective compared to the Thumper Massager.
The Thumper Massager with its larger massage nodes and also deeper pulses really does a better job in terms of deep tissue, goes directly straight down into the tissue and it’s especially important on those larger muscles that I talked about, for example on the thighs, but even your lower back muscles to really get in deeply into the muscles and get through the deep massage that both of these units promise.
I found that there was some penetration into the muscles with using the HoMedics, however, I did find it to be a little more vibratory, if that’s the word, vibratory than I would have liked, where it’s acting more on the top layer, where it’s acting on the skin, certainly not acting on the muscle tissues like I would have liked.
So I [00:14:00] think that just about wraps it up. I would highly recommend the Thumper Sport Massager. Again it’s a $129, but that’s probably less than you’ll pay for one professional massage. Unfortunately, I cannot go ahead and recommend the HoMedics brand.
If you have any questions whatsoever, you can certainly give us a call, shoot us an email. Visit us at BetterHealthInnovations.com to want to know little more about massage therapy and the options are available both for the professional and in the home.
So everybody, have a great day!
[End Video Transcript]
Benefits of A Spinning Classes
Spinning
In the past nine months two things have completely changed my fitness. My life changed when I increased my Kettlebell sessions to many times a week. It was only a matter of some weeks when I cut down a lot of fat from my body and also made some lean tissues over my shoulders and arms. This changed my physique and my posture improved a lot. According to me, in any type of training, regime Kettlebells are a must.
Despite of the Kettlebell training I was still unable to get rid of the fat on my waist. Due to my desk job this fat had gathered up there in a period of over five years. I did a regular shift of 13 hours and this affected my health.
After the first big change the second one was when I started instructing spinning at My Fitness Boutique in the West Hampstead. I started to do about three to four spinning sessions every week and in no time the fat around my waist was gone.
This made me think that why only spinning got rid of my abdominal fat even while I was taking many other trainings sessions. Kettlebell as I have mentioned before is very beneficial and should be a part of training exercises and sooner or later it would have given me the same results that spinning showed, the combined training sessions of spinning, Kettlebells and boxing made this change come a lot faster.
Background
This method is actually a studio cycling workout and in the list of intense interval sessions this method is 1 of the most intensive ones. The duration of these classes is about forty five minutes, a forty five minutes session is enough, but sessions of one hour are also available and people who are interested can contact me. These are advanced sessions and only people used to extreme exercises sessions should join them. Forty five minutes should pass real quick if you have a good instructor.
Working
When we take muscles to their extreme level, while exercising they break down and our body reacts to build them again, as a result we get bigger and stronger muscles than before. All of this is based on the principle of overload. When we take our body beyond its comfort level it starts to adapt according to the conditions and it becomes stronger and better.
This whole process of rebuilding the muscles requires lot of energy, and it helps you burn calories. This process can also be described as an increment in the metabolic rate. The reason why spinning requires more energy as compared to other exercises is that all of the muscles involved in the process are bigger than the ones involved in other exercises and hence they require more energy to break down and then rebuild. The bigger the muscles involved in the exercises, the more calories you will burn. Spinning causes a prolonged increase in the metabolic rate; the muscles involved in it are the glutes, calf complex and quads. All of these muscles are in the list of the largest and strongest muscles in the human body. These body parts get slim and get in shape after only a few weeks of spinning classes. If you are looking forward for a smarter body then spinning is the way to do it, believe me I know that spinning in one of the best methods to get in shape fast and easy. Look for a good reputed trainer who will make your spinning a lot easier and forty five minutes will pass in no time.
Benefits
There are countless benefits of spinning; basic purpose of spinning is not just to overload the muscles. The results of spinning are a lot better than you would be able to achieve on the road or in the gym. Two classes in a week will surely make you a lot fit than before; it can prove to be helpful in losing quick weight and will also increase the strength of your legs. Spinning can prove to be helpful for those people who are planning to take part in a long or short marathon, spinning will makes legs stronger and you will not tire with ease. People who are looking to lose weight and get rid of the extra weight that they gained during a vacation or during normal routine should give spinning a try. I tried spinning by myself and shared my experience with you, and it will definitely help. Spinning will make you a lot fitter than before, I would recommend you that you visit a spinning class at your local gym.
Article written by Andrew Ellis From www.steamshowersupply.co.uk/blog online fitnnes supersite
Why Does Working Out Have to Be Such a Grind?
Exercise has kind of a bad rap. Everyone knows it’s healthy; everyone knows they should be doing it. But only a handful of people seem to think it’s fun. If you’re one of those people – fit, toned, muscular, or on your way – more power to you. For everyone else who thinks that working out is one of the last things they want to do, you’re far from alone in your sentiments. If exercise wasn’t thought of as so bad, we probably wouldn’t be a nation with such a high rate of obesity. So what’s the problem? Why does working out have to be such a grind? If we can answer that question, perhaps we can finally solve the problem and get in shape.
The Pursuit of Perfection
People who are overweight or don’t have their ideal body know that working out is the best way to change and feel better about themselves. But they still can’t do it, and when they try they can’t stick with it. For them, working out means a manifestation of their body issues. They don’t like the way they look, so they work out. But when they work out, they’re reminded of how much they don’t like the way they look. This alone can make them quit. And when they have an unrealistic idea of perfection – reinforced by pop culture, celebrities, and models – they get easily discouraged. Working out is such a grind because for them it means the pursuit of the unattainable looks they don’t have.
Working Out is Too Much Work
When we were little, we would run around outside playing tag and hide and seek. We would play sports with our friends and for the school teams. We had fun doing it all. We were exercising, but it didn’t feel that way because we were enjoying it. When we become adults, why does that change? Suddenly working out isn’t a fun game but a long, tedious, boring session on the treadmill. No wonder working out is such a grind – it’s too much work. If we don’t want working out to be so bad, we need to make it fun again. Of course people are going to quit something they can’t stand. If they try something different, like playing a sport or doing a fun activity, perhaps working out wouldn’t be so bad, and they might even forget they’re doing it.
A Question of Priority
On the other hand, another way to consider the attraction or repulsion to exercise might be to examine where working out falls on a person’s list of priorities. If you are more concerned about reading, watching your favorite TV show, or going to the movies with your friends, then of course working out will be a grind – there are a ton of other things you’d rather be doing. But if you can make an effort to view working out as a top priority – because it will make you feel and look better – it might not be such a grind anymore, and instead you’ll look forward to it. Imagine that.
Adrenaline junkie Minnie Brown finds that extreme sports such as military parachuting allow her to stay in shape while still having fun.
Photo Credit: Method Fitness
How Does The Teeter Hang Ups EP-560 Inversion Table Stack Up Against the EP-550?
It seems like we’ve been putting out a lot of Teeter Hang Ups videos and blog posts lately. In this video, I review the features of the new Teeter EP-560 inversion table and also walk through the differences between it and the Teeter EP-550. As of this post, both models are available, and I hope that this helps you decide which is right for you.
Click Here for more information on the entire line of Teeter Hang Ups inversion tables. Let us know if you have any questions by contacting us or by leaving a comment below. Thanks!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1 (STEVE): Back pain. If you’re watching this video then you’re probably suffering from back pain. You may have looked at all the different options that you have to address that pain. You may have looked at or even tried injections in your back; pain injections in your back, going to a pain clinic once a week, or once every other week, to get pain injections.
You may have looked at surgical solutions. You might have already had a surgical solution. Really, you just want that back pain to go away. You just want to get your life back.
If you’re watching this video then you’re probably pretty far down the road of looking at an inversion table. When you look at inversion tables around the market it’s pretty simple, or pretty easy, to come to the conclusion that you want a Teeter Hang Ups Inversion Table. Before I get into talking about the two that are right here, a quick little bit about Teeter.
Teeter is the only company that’s been making inversion tables continuously for 30 years. They’re the only company that offers a five year warranty. They are the only company that puts their inversion tables through a 30,000 cycle test to achieve UL, or underwriter laboratory certification. You know, I wouldn’t plug in a toaster in my home that didn’t have the UL mark on it. Lord knows, I wouldn’t hang from my feet from something that didn’t have a UL mark on it. It was tested to extremely high quality levels.
When you go shopping for an inversion solution there are a lot of options out there. There is, of course, the cheaper import brands, and let’s just dismiss those for now anyway, because we are looking at Teeter. We’ve made the decision that Teeter is the preferred solution.
Teeter offers a number of different inversion table models. They’ve been improving them over the last 30 years, and continually introducing new models. Back in 2008 they came out with this table, the EP550; the EP series. A wonderful table; really, really took off. They did quite well with this table.
Earlier this year or actually just about a month ago or so, they came out with the EP560 series. It’s offered as a 560. It’s also offered as a 560 sport. What might be making your decision of how to go a little bit confusing, and we talk to a lot of folks on the phone, that this is exactly the cases, “Hey, what should I buy?†You’ve got the EP550 for $299. You have the EP560 for $299. That’s what it costs at BetterHealthInnovations.com today.
I’m going to do a quick run through of the features on the new table; how that’s changed from the old table. I’m going to call it like I see it. There’s a lot of things that I really like about the EP560. If I were to put one in my home it would be a split decision though, because there are a lot of things that I also like about the EP550. Both currently are being offered for sale. I assume that Teeter is going to phase out the EP550 at some point but right now, the date I’m uploading this video, you have a choice. It’s a choice that fortunately, it will be difficult to make a bad one … a bad decision on this. Both are great tables. Both will give you years and years of service. I have an older Teeter in my home that I’ve used for probably about 10 years. This particular table right here, we’ve had this here in our offices since 2008 and we’ve got people hanging on it all the time; people of different heights, different weights, and different body build. It’s performed very well. Obviously, similar construction with the new EP560 series. This is going to provide years of good service as well.
Let’s quickly hit the new features on this table, on the EP560. A lot of things remain the same. It still has a very smooth rotation. It still has the same tether strap in the back to set your angle of inversion, which I really like. I think that the biggest thing on this table that they’ve changed and they introduce this as formerly available on the EP950 only, is they put in this ergo-embrace system for your feet. This ergo-embrace system is much more like wearing gravity boots in your invert. It’s not quite … and I would say that if you’re going to be doing exercises and that sort of thing on the table, moving around a lot, take a look at gravity boots. Conversion kit. It goes for about $100 if you want to convert the table over, or you could just go with the EP560 sport. These ergo-embrace tables, they will grab your feet from the front, in from the back, as opposed to the EP550, and we’ll turn and take a look at that now. As opposed to the EP550 series, which is going to grab your ankles from the back and grab the top of your foot. You do feel secure in either table. I would say that I, personally, I feel a little bit more secure in the EP560 but it’s certainly like I’m not going feel like I’m going to fall out of it, in the EP550.
Another change to the table. The back has been redesigned to accommodate accessories on the EP560. There are two accessories currently available. They have acupressure nodes, which you can place in the back. We’ll be doing a video on these accessories at some point, or you can just go to BetterHealthInnovations.com and learn all about them.
There’s also a lumbar bridge which puts a nice pressure right in the small of your back, right in the lumbar region. If you’re inverting at 60 degrees it really, really feels nice. It’s a very popular accessory, even though we’ve only had this table out for about a month. They also have some hand holds now that they built in. The hand holds, I guess, they’re good if you want a full on inversion or even partial inversion. You can reach over, grab one, do a little bit of manual stretching, manual twisting of the back.
If you’re looking at the two tables it might just come down to ascetics. The EP560 is in a silver/grey finish, a powder-coat finish. The EP550, they had the frame in a powder-coat black. It really might depend on just what your preference is. We offer a lot of gym equipment in different colors. I think that silver is probably the most popular.
One thing that you’ll notice when you’re looking at the two tables side by side is, for years Teeter had talked about the triple chrome-plated main shaft. The reason it is chrome plated is that chrome is an extremely hard plating and it’s not going to wear out. You’re not going to wind up with any kind of scratches from moving in and out of the back. That’s really only an issue if you have multiple users in the home, where you’re going to be adjusting that frequently. That’s when you have multiple users at different heights. If you’re going to be using that main shaft, or rather adjusting the main shaft on a frequent basis you might want to steer towards the EP550 with the hard chrome triple plated main shaft. They went to a powder-coat in the EP560 series. There is a case to be made that … that might actually look a little bit more pleasing if you have it set up in your living room, for example. You don’t have a big shiny piece of chrome. I think the chrome does go nice with the black frame with the EP550 though.
Other parts, just to know what we’re talking about, our plating and finishing. They did stay on parts that are moving for everybody. They did stay with a hard chrome finish.
There’s a couple of smaller enhancements on this table as well. For example, the back which is a little bit tough to see in the video. The back of the A-frame, you can reach down, there’s a hand-hold there that you can grab if you’re going to the full inversion. Prior to that, you would reach to the sides of the … with the EP550 you would reach to the sides of the table, grab the A-frame to stretch or to come back into a full position.
Again, that was an extremely quick run-down of the EP560 and the EP550. Like I said when we started out, you’re not going to go wrong with either table. If you purchase it through Better Health Innovations, go ahead and use the thing for 90 days, and if you don’t like it, give us a call. You can send it back and get a full refund. There’s no restocking fee within 90 days.
Of course, we mention this in every video. We help you along the way. We have a coaching program; an individual one-on-one coaching program with a member of our staff. I’m a coach for several people, for example. Where you get somebody’s phone number or you get somebody’s email address. We also email out some helpful inversion tips on how to use your inversion table.
If you have any questions about the tables certainly give us a call. Visit our website. We have a lot more information at BetterHealthInnovations.com/Teeter. A lot more information on the site that we could fit into a relatively short video. I wouldn’t really elect the decision between the EP550 or the EP560 slowing down at all. Either way, again, you’re going to be making an excellent choice. Again, it’s really risk free when you’re purchasing from BetterHealthInnovations.com
Again, I encourage you to contact us with any questions you might have.
Everybody, have a great day!