Knee pain can be the worst pain of your life. When knee pain makes it difficult to simply stand or walk, the only thing you want is immediate relief. The problem is there aren’t many quick fixes available for knee pain.
If you have a massage gun for knee pain, you’re in luck. Applying a percussion massager for knee pain comes with many benefits including pain relief. Keep reading to learn some common causes of knee pain, how massage therapy for knee pain works, and the top 3 tips to get the most out of your massage gun.
Knee pain: a prevailing condition
Knee pain is incredibly common in today’s society. Although more common in athletes and the elderly, it can affect people of all ages with varying activity levels. The reason is it is often found in our daily activities. From walking to jumping and everything in between, we use our knees in almost every routine task.
Knee pain indicates that something might be irritating a structure in or around the knee joint.
Unfortunately, solving the knee pain mystery can be complicated. A lot of things can bring pain to knee joints. From a simple meniscus or ligament tear due to overuse to diseases such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, many conditions can cause pain in your knees. Sometimes, the cause of the pain may not lie in the knees at all. It could be an effect of injury to another body part.
Being overweight and obese can put extra strain on your knee joints. Similarly, high-impact activities such as running, jogging, basketball, football, and other similar sports put repetitive stress on the knees, which might cause knee pain.
Whatever the reason for knee irritation or pain, it restricts your mobility, impacting the overall quality of your life.
Knee pain treatment
Although many treatments for knee pain are available, only a few are effective. What matters the most is how quickly a remedy can provide pain relief. Targeting the muscles connected to the knee can be a good start for your knee pain treatment.
An overworked or strained muscle can significantly contribute to your knee pain. Hamstrings, quadriceps, adductors, and calf muscles connect to the knee joint and impact its mobility. Therefore, massaging these muscles can help your knee pain.
So just grab your massage gun and let it knock out your knee pain.
Using a massage gun for knee pain
A massage gun uses high-frequency percussion force to simulate deep tissue massage on your muscles. This therapy can bring a myriad of benefits to your muscles and joints.
Using a handheld massage gun on your knee muscles relieves stress, relaxes tight muscles, increases blood and lymphatic flow, and speeds up muscle recovery. Its deep massage therapy breaks up scar tissue, improving overall mobility and range of motion. All these benefits compound together and contribute to fast knee pain relief.
However, a percussion gun massager will neither act as a silver bullet for curing your arthritis or fixing a meniscal tear nor substitute a healthy lifestyle and regular exercise for your knee strength.
More often than not, knee pain is associated with strained muscles and poor posture. In such cases, massage guns are beneficial in relaxing tight and strained muscles. In other cases, it will act as icing on the cake, but you'll have to buy the cake - diagnose and treat the leading cause of your knee pain - first.
Target knee muscles, not knee joints
For fast pain relief, you don’t need to massage the knee itself. Many people misunderstand massage guns and think targeting their knees with them will relieve their pain. That’s not true.
A massage gun works best on muscles rather than joints, so you’ll get its benefits by applying it to muscles around the knee joint. Don’t just begin shooting your knee muscles with a deep tissue massage gun. There’s still more to know to achieve a safe and effective massage.
Where to Use Massage Gun
The following are the best places to apply a massage gun to help knee pain:
- Quadriceps: These long muscles in the front of your thigh help extend your knee.
- Hamstrings: Three bulky muscles on the back of your thigh help to flex your knee.
- Adductors: These muscles are in your inner thigh.
- Calf muscles: These are the two main muscles on the back of your leg.
To enjoy the best results of a massage gun for knee pain, you should apply it along the entire muscle, perpendicular to the muscle, and in a circular motion within a muscle group.
Apply massage oil when using a massage gun
If you aim to use a massage gun for knee pain, investing in a massage oil adds a lot to the benefits. The massage oil significantly reduces friction between your skin and the massager. It makes the massage gun's movement feel very relaxing and refreshing while also nourishing and moisturizing your skin.
Massage oils with ingredients that target pain and inflammation are the best options. You may choose lavender oil, lemon oil, almond oil, rosemary oil, or all of the above. Only buy massage oils that are non-sticky, non-greasy, and easy to apply,
Use an appropriate amount of massage oil for your muscle area, and massage it onto the skin. Focus on sore muscle areas, slowly use the massage gun with your desired settings, and wipe away any extra oil with a towel.
Use a massage gun before and after knee exercises
It is highly recommended to use a massage gun before and after knee exercises. Workouts such as squats, deadlifts, running, jogging, cycling, basketball, and football put stress on knee muscles and joints.
Warming up your knee muscles with a muscle massage gun before a workout increases blood flow to the muscles and prevents injury. It releases muscular strain, allowing you a fuller range of motion in your workouts.
Using a massage gun right after a workout helps speed up your muscle recovery from the tears that occur during a workout. Its deep percussive therapy relieves delayed onset muscle soreness and tightness, allowing more strength and gains for subsequent workouts.
Moreover, you can also use a massage gun routinely if you feel any pain in or around the knee during your daily chores. For example, if the back of your thigh shoots when you stand up or walk, that could mean your hamstrings are tight and need a handheld massage gun session.
Which massage gun attachments are best for knee pain
Our massage guns come with a variety of attachments that serve various purposes. The most suitable massage gun head for knee muscles is the round, ball-shaped attachment. It is used to massage large muscle groups such as quads, hamstrings, and glutes. It covers larger surfaces, enabling you to massage big muscles effectively.
The bottom line
Knee pain is quite common in athletes and other individuals who overuse their knee joints. More often than not, knee pain is due to strained muscles. Percussive massage therapy using massage guns on muscles around the knee joints is an amazing instant remedy. It releases tension and relaxes muscles, relieving your knee pain.
All Zarifa USA products are HSA and FSA-eligible. This means you can contribute your health savings funds towards the purchase of any of our products!
