This story is part of our end-of-year series This Year in Gear, rounding up the most notable releases of 2023. For more stories like this, click here.
Recovery is every bit as important as exercise — at least, if you want to do the latter right. Building strength and endurance requires pushing your body, but it also requires letting your body relax and rebuild afterwards. Too many of us forget that part, or at least let it languish in comparison.
After all, setting new PRs, hefting mighty weights and achieving great speeds brings feelings of glory; settling in for a massage afterwards feels indulgent, even weak. Perhaps that’s why so many recovery products seem angled to be aggressive: we don’t use massage devices; we use massage guns; we don’t take a cold bath; we do a cold plunge.
There’s no need to beat ourselves up about recovery, though. And with these fascinating, revolutionary or just plain cool products we came across this year, you’ll find recovery can be even more seamless and easy — no aggression required.
Therabody Theragun Pro Plus
TherabodyTheragun Pro Plus
With this latest generation of the Theragun Pro, Therabody appears to have made one massage gun with an arsenal’s worth of recovery. The all-new Pro Plus features percussive therapy, near infrared light therapy, vibration therapy, heat therapy and breathwork in one single device.
