We’ve all experienced muscle knots and soreness at some point. Whether it was after a hard workout, a long day at work or just the accumulation of life’s stresses building up on your body. 

This can affect your performance, decrease motivation, and make it difficult to do the things you love. But now, there’s a completely natural solution to help you feel better quickly, recover faster, and reclaim your day. 

How to get rid of muscle knots

Knots can be painful, distracting, and when left untreated, downright debilitating. From crippling cramps to muscle spasms, these hard bumps can lead to increased stress and even difficulty sleeping.

Fortunately, there’s a quick remedy within reach; Theragun. This deep-muscle massage gun uses quick, permeating Percussive Therapy to target your trigger points, increase blood flow, and alleviate those agonizing knots. 

What are muscle knots? 

Also known as trigger points, knots are hard, sensitive areas of muscles that are tight and contracted — even when you’re resting. Caused by a variety of things, they most commonly are from exercising a specific muscle group too much, sitting around doing too little, or from having bad posture in general.

To get rid of these uncomfortable knots, you’ll need to break up the knotted tissue and increase blood flow to that area. To do this, grab your Theragun, find a place to relax and get started with this quick guide: 

Quick 4-step guide to treating knots with Theragun:

1. Choose what attachment you’d like to treat the muscle with. This will depend on how sensitive the area is to your touch. We recommend starting with Standard Ball. For a more targeted treatment, use the Cone attachment. (This was specifically designed for pinpoint muscle treatment, trigger points, and small muscle areas like the hands and feet.) For sensitive areas, use the Dampener attachment. 
2. Start your Theragun and set it to a low speed. The slower frequency helps the muscles relax.
3. Gently sweep the Theragun along your muscle for 1 minute. When you feel the knot, spend a little extra time on that area, but don’t press too hard. This is important! Just allow your Theragun, and its powerful deep-reaching massage, to do the work. For a guided experience on treating knots, download the Therabody app.
4. After you’ve treated the area, spend some time taking deep breaths and focus on relaxing. We also recommend stretching that muscle to help relieve tension. 

How to treat sore muscles 

Muscle soreness after a workout is a good sign! It means you’ve done the hard part, and now your body is repairing from the damage caused by exercise. Getting fit and becoming stronger is a cycle of creating stress on your body, allowing time for those muscle groups to repair and ultimately, rebuild even stronger.  

What causes muscle soreness?

Muscle soreness, also known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), originates from small microtears in your muscles caused by exercise. 

Typically, you start to feel the onset of muscle soreness as soon as 8 hours after your workout, but it peaks around 24 hours and can last up to 72 hours. This is usually felt in your muscles as a dull, aching pain, combined with tenderness and stiffness. Often, this soreness can make it difficult to work out again the following day — even lowering your motivation to get out and exercise. 

That’s all changed now. Theragun helps bring circulation to those areas and helps you get back out faster. Here’s what you do:

Quick 4-step guide to treating sore muscles with Theragun:

1. Choose what attachment you’d like to treat the muscle with. Like treating knots, this will depend on how sensitive the area is. We recommend starting with the Dampener. If you find the muscle is too sensitive, try our newest addition: the Supersoft attachment. Fitted with ultra-soft material, it moderates the power of your Theragun, while allowing the device’s amplitude and frequency to increase blood flow and oxygen to the muscle.  
2. Start your Theragun and set it to a low speed. We recommend a low speed for recovery, and a higher speed for warm-ups and activation. 
3. Gently sweep the Theragun slowly along your muscles for up to 2 minutes. The key here is to use a lower speed, and make slow passes along your muscles. 
4. After you’ve treated the area, spend some time taking deep, intentional breaths. We also recommend stretching to aid in recovery.   

The benefits of Percussive Therapy: words from Theragun founder Dr. Jason Wersland

Theragun Percussive Therapy has a variety of benefits — from aiding in preventing body aches and pains, reducing muscle tension in seconds, increasing mobility and range of motion, increasing blood flow to the area to reduce soreness, tightness and pain, and can assist with accelerating the repair and growth of tissues. Through research, we’ve identified how to combine amplitude, frequency and torque to effectively stimulate blood flow, which will ultimately help you feel better. 

The Therabody app is the perfect guide on how to best use your Theragun and optimize the benefits with the correct speed, grip, attachment, and time on different areas. We have an incredible sleep protocol on the app, and we actually just released a study proving its effectiveness in promoting a better night’s sleep. The results were amazing.