Recently, I showed you some Shiatsu techniques to practice on your partner but you don’t always have a partner around or willingness to give you the massage you want when you want it.
I had been very curious about the Shiatsu Massager and I finally got it on Amazon so I’m going to review this. I got the one by Etekcity.
The package has a device, a cover, and two cables, one with AC adapter for the wall and the other with DC car adapter. They are about the same length at 72 inches or 6 feet. I’m going to turn this on without the cover so you can see it better.
The device has two sets of four nodes of different sizes. Press the power button and it starts rotating. You can manually change the direction by pressing the power button.
Press the button on the left which is a Speed/Heat and it changes the speed. This is faster and this is slower. When it’s red the nodes are heated. Press this button for 3 seconds and it turns on and off the heat. If you keep it on it will change the direction every 60 seconds. So let’s try this. You have no idea how excited I am.
I’m going to try it on my neck and shoulder and different spots on my back. As soon as I tried it, I fell in love with it. You can adjust the strength by leaning back more for a stronger knead. The side of my neck is tight and I was able to hit the exact spot by tilting my neck to the side. It feels like I’m being massaged with fists with different sized knuckles.
I tried the faster speed but I like the slower speed because slowing down makes it feel deeper and I love deeper pressure. On the neck it really feels like when I massage with two lacrosse balls myself but without the effort.
The heating function was too hot during the day but I’ve found it very nice at night.
You are not supposed to lie on this device. It’s designed to sit against it. They don’t recommend this more than 20 minutes at a time and the device automatically shuts off after 20 minutes. Then you have to wait for 30 minutes before you turn it on again maybe to avoid the overheating. So I kept grinding my trigger points against the nodes even after the device shut down. And it still felt good.
Let’s try it on different parts of the body. How about hamstrings. It feels great. It works. Calf – works too. Arm and forearm – not really in this setting. Maybe if your arm is big enough. My arm is too small for the gap between the two sets of nodes. How about on the floor. Hamstring works. Calf muscles – works too. If you have big calf muscles it may work better. But when I moved my calf to one of the nodes my calf felt being worked on much better.
Let’s try the forearm on one of the nodes. For this I held the device against my body and secured it by holding the hand with the other hand and it worked great.
I can also massage my tired hands. Let me flip this. I can massage the quads. Actually here I can move the device up and down and it feels good. Let’s try it on the IT band. It works and feels good. How about feet. Yeah it works. It feels good.
Since it has the car adapter, let’s take it to the car. The Velcro is big enough to wrap around the base of the headrest but not for the seat so I’m going to try it on my neck and shoulder. And it feels amazing! I think this is a must for a long distance drive. The only thing is since I only have one plug, I can’t charge my phone while I’m massaging unless I get a splitter.
By the way, Shiatsu literally means finger pressure in Japanese. And you usually apply a static pressure using fingertips and palms, not these kneading or rotating action. So in my professional opinion, this device doesn’t really give you the Shiatsu techniques but it does give you a deep good kneading and the relaxation that helps your body like you get from Shiatsu.
So overall, I would give this 5 stars and I feel like getting another unit just to keep in my car. I also wonder if I can take this on an airplane with the AC plug because I would love to use this on a long flight.
Massage Monday #398 – Etekcity Shiatsu Massager Review http://bit.ly/mm-398