In terms of “New Year, New You,” 2026 has not been the best for me. Two days into the new year, fully equipped with a long list of fitness goals, I pinched a nerve in my lower back that had me horizontal for nearly a month. Though I am back on my feet, it has taken a lot of work, including daily physical therapy exercises, stretches, and even diet and hydration changes. In office, my PT regularly uses a massage gun to help loosen the muscles around my sore back and recommended I use one at home to help with recovery.
Though I have (and love!) the Theragun Mini Plus, which utilizes heat to help warm up muscle and fascia, I find it slightly hard to hold and difficult to use on myself (and impossible with a tweaked back). Curious, I decided to upgrade to the more intense Theragun Prime to see if it helped. After nearly two months of use, here are my thoughts.
TheraGun Prime Massage Gun
Specs
Similar to the Mini Plus, the Theragun Prime has a ton of well established massage gun benefits, including improved circulation, increased flexibility, recovery and soreness reduction, as well as pain relief. It has five speeds available as well as a new LED force gauge to show the amount of pressure being distributed. It also has an extended battery life of 120 minutes and a USB-C charger.
How I tested
As part of my lower back pain recovery, I went to a chiropractor twice a week for the first month, then segued into three times a week with a physical therapist. In those 20 to 30 minute sessions, we focus on low impact strength building and mild stretching. I tried the Theragun Prime just a few times in the first month, but now that I am regularly strength training, I follow up my “workout” with about a five minute massage gun session. Sometimes I used the guided workouts provided by the Theragun app but most often just used it on my recently worked muscles.
What I like
The thing that I could not get over with my beloved Theragun Mini Plus was that it had no handle. And as much as I loved its demure size and power-packed vibrations, I simply could not use it on my own back without pinching my already pinched nerve. The wide ergonomic handle on this model changed that entirely. Full disclosure: when I was starting to use it, I did have my spouse do that for me, as I was still a bit nervous to reach or twist behind my back and re-trigger my pain. But within a few sessions, I improved enough to use it myself—and it was a joy.
Its one button is so easy to use (just hold down to power on and then press again to increase through the speed levels), and I really enjoyed the new LED screen that gauged how much pressure you were putting on your muscles. My wife found it particularly helpful in the beginning, as she was trying to figure out where I was holding the most tension and where to avoid. As someone who loves a DIY home project, she joked that it felt like using her stud-funder, but for muscle knots. And honestly, that isn’t a bad way of using it. Theragun recommends not pressing directly on those tension spots but working your way up to them (to slowly loosen everything around it first), and especially when using it on someone else, it was a great way to gauge exactly where to go and where to work up to.
But most of all, I really love that it helps reduce my soreness and increase my flexibility. My physical therapist is really impressed with how much my mobility has increased since incorporating the Prime, and I look forward to powering through my workouts just so I can get to the massage at the end.
What I didn’t
The Prime is large and heavy (2 lbs!), but that’s because it is so strong. And while that all might be good for someone who is more of an intense athlete than me, I found it unnecessarily powerful. Of its five speeds, I simply cannot fathom why or how anyone could withstand anything above the third speed, unless they were an Olympic athlete who needed their muscles pounded into oblivion. I personally rarely went over the first speed, especially on days I was feeling particularly sore or tight.
I also really missed the heat function from my Mini Plus, but recently learned there is a Thergaun Prime Plus version, too, that also includes a heat and cooling function of its powerful percussive massaging.
Bottom line
We might be nearing month three of 2026, but I am finally feeling like a new me, and a not so little part of that is due to incorporating the Theragun Prime into my recovery. Yes, it is pricey, but it is much less than the twice weekly chiropractor adjustments I received through all of January and even less than a full-body massage at a wellness spa. Its powerful, efficient, and frankly one of the most useful pieces of health tech I own—I have been tracking my pain per session with my PT and cannot believe how much it has exponentially decreased since starting post-session massages and really believe in its promises of speeding up recovery time.
Plus, as I increase my strength building efforts, I know the Theragun will be working hard to keep my muscles warm, flexible, and as loose as possible, which my back thoroughly appreciates.
SHOP THERAGUN PRIME NOW
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