How to use a massage gun for Achilles tendonitis
- Maryke Louw
- Apr 2
- 6 min read
Using a massage gun for Achilles tendonitis can be useful … but if you don’t do it right you could make your pain worse. Learn the dos and don’ts of relieving Achilles pain with a massage gun. Remember, if you need help with an Achilles injury, you're welcome to consult one of our team via video call.
The terms tendinitis, tendonitis, tendinosis, and tendinopathy mean the same thing for all practical purposes, and we use these interchangeably in most of our articles.
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Will a massage gun help my Achilles to heal?
Does using a massage gun actually help Achilles tendonitis heal more quickly or better? The answer is “yes and no”.
Using a massage gun is not going to cause your tendon’s structure to change or replace the injured fibres with healthy ones or make your tendon any stronger. The right balance between resting it and gradually strengthening it back up with exercises is what is needed.
What a massage gun can do for you – if used correctly – is provide temporary pain relief.
The pain-dulling effect of a massage (whether it’s with a massage gun or otherwise) is short-lived, but it is really useful, because the pain caused by Achilles tendonitis might interfere with your daily activities, can make your quite miserable if it carries on for a long time, and it might even stop you from doing those strengthening rehab exercises properly or at all.
💡 So, in cases where using a massage gun enables patients with Achilles pain to be more comfortable and get more things done, especially if it enables them to do their rehab exercises – yes, a massage gun does contribute to the healing process. But it’s not effective as a standalone treatment.
Also, don’t believe the nonsense that is floating about online that you can “break down scar tissue” in your tendon with a massage gun. There's no scar tissue when you have Achilles tendonitis or tendinopathy. Yes, you might have a lump in your tendon, but that’s not scar tissue. That lump is caused by fluid accumulating between the cells in the injured part of the tendon.
What areas to target
Don’t massage directly on the injured Achilles tendon
An injured and irritated tendon doesn’t like being massaged. It might feel good while you’re doing it, but chances are that your pain is going to become worse several hours later.
👉 It’s like constantly prodding a bruise – you’re not going to make the injury worse, but it might make it more painful.
This is especially the case when you have insertional Achilles tendonitis, where the injured tendon does not like being compressed against the heel bone, and even more so if your tendonitis is accompanied by heel bursitis.
But of course, everyone is different, and some people might find using a massage gun on their tendons very useful – especially in mild, ongoing cases. If you want to try it, test a very gentle session first and check how your tendon pain responds in the next 24 hours.
Target the calf muscles instead
The calf muscles are made up of your gastrocnemius muscle and your soleus muscle. And they usually get painful points (often called trigger points) in them and can become really tight and uncomfortable when you have an injury to your Achilles tendon.
💡 These trigger points often add "extra" pain to the system. Using a massage gun to release them can help calm the pain system down and reduce your general pain levels.
How to use a massage gun for Achilles tendonitis
Percussion frequency vs. duration
Researchers have figured out that there’s an interaction between the percussion frequency setting of the massage gun and how long you use it for that gets you the best muscle relaxation, flexibility, and pain dulling effect.
If you’re using a higher frequency – more than 2,400 percussions per minute – then you should not work a muscle for more than 2 minutes at a time. So, in the case of Achilles tendonitis, 2 minutes for the gastrocnemius (or upper calf) and 2 minutes for the soleus (lower calf).
At 2,400 or fewer percussions per minute, you massage for between 2 and 5 minutes.
But also use your common sense. If you have big calf muscles, you are more likely to benefit from a massage gun if you go with a somewhat higher frequency or longer duration.
Conversely, if your calf muscles aren’t well developed, start off with a lower frequency and short stints, see how they react, and then gradually increase it if necessary.
Which fitting?
The best fitting to use for muscle relaxation – according to the research – is the ball. So, the one that's about the size of a golf ball.
You don't want to use those thin, pointy ones, because they can cause too much discomfort and actually have the opposite effect on the muscles.
Here are some massage guns available on Amazon:
How hard to go
Not hard at all!
Many people have a natural tendency to want to really grind into it and make it hurt when they’re massaging an injury because it feels good in the moment. And that’s quite understandable. But going too hard can make your body’s alarm system kick off and create even more pain afterwards.
💡 You just want it to feel “comfortably uncomfortable” – on a pain scale of 1 to 10, not more than 6 out of 10 – to get the best pain dulling effect.
Another reason not to work your calf muscles too hard with the massage gun is that several arteries and veins as well as some nerves run down the middle of your calf, and you might irritate or damage those.
If you feel a tingling or other weird sensation while you’re using the massage gun, it means you’re irritating a nerve. Get off that area immediately – you don’t want to have nerve irritation on top of having Achilles tendonitis.
How to move the gun
Researchers haven’t identified a gold standard for this.
You can either move it around slowly and constantly or you can stay in one place for a bit (just not the full 2 minutes) before moving on. You can't go wrong as long as you keep within the recommended percussion and time limits and not push too hard.
How often?
Like with a manual massage, your body needs time between sessions to recover. So, leave at least 48 hours between sessions to get the maximum benefit from the massage gun.
Lastly, a general word of warning in case you would like to use your massage gun also on other areas of the body. There are certain areas that you should avoid (like your neck), and people with certain conditions should not use a massage gun at all. Here is an article from our website with general sports injury advice on mistakes to avoid when using a massage gun.
How we can help
Need help with your Achilles injury? You’re welcome to consult one of the team at TMA online via video call for an assessment of your injury and a tailored treatment plan.
We're all UK Chartered Physiotherapists with Master’s Degrees related to Sports & Exercise Medicine or at least 10 years' experience in the field. All of us have a wealth of experience working with athletes across a broad variety of sports and ranging from recreationally active people to professional athletes. You can meet the team here.
About the Author
Maryke Louw is a chartered physiotherapist with more than 20 years' experience and a Master’s Degree in Sports Injury Management. Follow her on LinkedIn and ResearchGate.