Are you someone who wants to enjoy massage at the ease of your doorstep? Don’t even want to call a therapist every time you need to relax your muscles? Don’t like the idea of laying down for hours? If the answer yes to all these questions, then a massage chair could be the best possible option you can go for. Manufactured with the feature to convert into two or three postures, you will be able to adjust it in whatever way you want.
If you are thinking of purchasing a massage chair but don’t know how to choose one, then here are important details you should be looking at:
Section1: How do Massage Chairs Work?
Gone are the days when massage chairs work on a combination of rollers, vibrating mechanisms, motors and gears; today, the simplest version uses a number of vibrating surfaces for massage. There are small devices that create vibrations with the help of a weighted gear or wheel. The best part is that the wheel doesn’t has to bear the entire weight; the chair remains balanced even when the wheel rotates with electric motor to generate vibration. The best massage chair needs help from a couple of such devices so that they can create vibration across the surface to relax the muscles, without affecting its balance.
As part of their standard design, massage chairs usually have:
- Nodes and roller: These apparatuses are installed with the chair that work like a professional massager. Their sizes are different for every massager available in the market. Larger sizes are intended to provide general relaxation to the muscles while smaller nodes and rollers work in a specific way.
- Adjustability: Nowadays, new massage chair models are provided with adjustment features, based on the pressure exerted according to the height, width and weight. It is necessary for the chair to work with this feature as it will ensure reach of apparatuses to the anatomical parts of the back.
Section2: Types & Techniques of Massage Chairs
Based on the type of massage, this massager works on the following techniques:
- Swedish Massage: Referred to as the best type of massage, Swedish massage is ideal when your body has a medium pain threshold and doesn’t get massage enough. It uses longer massage strokes to warm the muscles so that they can break knots and release tension followed by improving blood circulation, joint comfort and pain relief.
- Deep Tissue Massage: It is a more refined version of Swedish massage that works on the inner layers of connective tissue and muscles. It used to target contracted or chronically tensed body parts, including sore shoulders, neck and lower back tightness. It enables the body to get rid of knots, muscle tension or chronic pain, thereby providing relaxation benefits.
- Reflexology: You will find many massage chairs with reflexology technique in the foot rest. It helps the muscles to relieve tense muscles. It encourages foot massage to promote overall well-being of correlating body areas. Reflexology releases endorphins that work as natural pain and stress relievers.
- Junetsu Massage: Junetsu is a Japanese word that means ‘ultra-fine kneading.’ It works in circular thumb motions under the supervision of professional massage therapists to loosen and relax muscles. Its spiral circular motion goes down all the way through connecting muscles to the bones so that they can get all benefits of the kneading massage.
- Shiatsu Massage: By using the technique of acupressure, Shiatsu massage focuses on finger pressure and follows rotation, pressure and stretching methods to provide whole body restoration.
- Tapping Massage: If you want to get rid of stiffness, break scar tissues and improve blood circulation, then tapping is what you should be going for. Also named as percussion massage, it stimulates connective tissues and muscles, particularly to aid in sport recovery.
- Kneading Massage: When it comes to relieving soreness and tension from the muscles, nothing works as incredibly as kneading massage. It stimulates lymph and blood circulation and send important nutrients and minerals to the spinal area, thereby reducing toxins from the nerve tissues and muscles.
- Vibration Massage: It is an old yet effective method to treat soreness and stimulate circulation. Massage chairs usually have vibration plates that transmit vibration in various intensities to soothe the body muscles.
- Squeeze or Air Compression Massage: Targeted for core and extremities, this type of massage uses the airbag system to relieve stiffness and tightness in the muscles followed by improving blood flow in the body. It also stimulates lymphatic system and aids in removing toxins, thereby making the organs healthy and lively.
Section3: Question to Consider When Buying Massage Chairs
Once you have decided to purchase a massage chair to get rid of the entire day’s stress, it’s time to ask a few questions before you make the final deal.
How much budget do I have?
It is important to think of the budget so that you can narrow down the options and make rest of the process easy. There are some suppliers who can provide installment facility to pay the massage chair cost in pieces.
How much space do I have?
Going for a deluxe massage chair requires a lot of consideration since they are bulky and big. They usually take twice as much size as an ordinary model takes. Although there are different sizes of chairs, your task is to identify maximum dimensions that you can choose for your chair with respect to the space available.
What features should be there?
A set-top massage cushion is good for simple vibration massage but, if you want a massage chair that targets your entire body, then these features should be there:
- Vibration and pressure massage
- Choreographed sequence squeezing
- Roles and squeeze to mimic reflexology
- Rhythmic inflation by inner airbags
What type of massage is good?
The type of massage from the chair depends upon what you need and how you want the results to be coming out. All you need to do is to consider the above mentioned massage types and choose one that will give results as per your body’s requirements.
For how long will the chair work?
While purchasing a massaging chair, you have to be ascertain about its reliability and durability. Although a discounted massage chair sounds interesting and beneficial, you cannot expect to receive the desired results. What if the chair needs fixing just within two months after purchase!
How to move it around?
Purchasing a massaging chair also requires you to consider its portability. Obviously, you might want to change its place or position in the future. So, it’s better to always go for a model that has recliners.
Section4: How much Massage Chair Cost?
The first and foremost step is to make sure that you get the best massage chair within your budget. There is no need to go fancy or spend a fortune on expensive chairs just to impress people. Your approach should be to make the most of the money you have spent. Don’t go for any discount chair offers because they are not going to pay you in any way.
Section5: How to Clean Your Massage Chair?
Fabric or leather upholstery should be carefully treated and cleaned so that it can last longer than expected. Though, you will find many massage chairs made with vinyl upholstery and synthetic leather that usually need special treatment to maintain their condition.
Since the massage chair has to relax the entire body and the skin is exposed to its surface, it is necessary that it remains clean all the time. All you need to do is to follow these steps and see how the massage chair cost remains in control for a long time period:
- Remove all cushions or upholstery so that your reach can be extended to more areas and it would be easy to clean crevices and corners of the chair as well.
- Clean all detachable or removable pieces separately and rest assured about not leaving anything dirty and unhealthy.
- Sweep out animal hair or dirt from the crannies and nooks.
- If you have a massage chair made with delicate or natural material, then use a mild soap to clean the surface. Avoid using acidic solutions or leave material submerged in water. Ideally, you should go for a spray bottle instead of soaking the fabric.
- Leave the fabric to dry before putting all pieces in place.
- Once all pieces are dried, you can even decide to replace all pieces and everything will be good to go.
In case of having the best massage chair that doesn’t need much cleaning, just take a damp cloth, clean everything and wait until dry.
Section6: Wrap Up
Having all details and answers to your requirements, you should be able to come up with the right option. Knowing the type of massage that your body needs, your decision making will become a lot easier that you would have thought. So, list down the choices and see how they work to relief pain, stress, anxiety and tightness from the muscles.