Guide · Percussion

Why no massage gun publishes its amplitude

Because neither Therabody nor Hyperice discloses it — on any model, at any price. Amplitude and stall force are the two numbers that determine how deep a percussion device actually works, and every figure you find quoted for them online is an estimate rather than a manufacturer specification.

Models checked

Publishing amplitude

Brands

Stall force

00 PUBLISHED

WHAT WE CHECKED

Every current percussion model from both brands, read off the manufacturer's own product page: Theragun PRO Plus, PRO, Prime Plus, Prime, Sense, Mini Plus, Mini and Relief; Hypervolt 3 Pro, Hypervolt 3 and Hypervolt Go 3. Eleven devices from $149 to $649.99.

Not one publishes amplitude. Not one publishes stall force. This is not a gap at the budget end that closes as you spend more — the $649.99 flagship discloses exactly as much as the $159.99 entry model.

WHAT THEY DO PUBLISH

Hyperice prints a percussion rate for all three Hypervolts: 1500 to 2500 RPM.
Therabody prints a speed count for most models, and fixed PPM figures for the Mini G3 only — 1750, 2100 and 2400.
Therabody publishes no speed count at all for the Theragun PRO, its $529.99 professional model.
Both publish weight, runtime, attachment count and price consistently.

WHY IT MATTERS FOR A BUYING DECISION

Amplitude is stroke length — how far the head travels on each pass. Stall force is how much pressure you can apply before the motor stops. Together they describe whether a device works the surface or the tissue underneath it. Speed alone does not: a fast, shallow stroke and a slow, deep one can share a percussions-per-minute figure and feel nothing alike.

So the practical consequence is that you cannot compare two massage guns on depth using published data. You can compare them on runtime, rate, weight, attachments and price. Anyone ranking them by amplitude is ranking them by estimate.

Worth knowing

We are not treating this as a scandal. It is a category norm, applied evenly by both manufacturers. But a buyer deserves to know that the specification deciding the thing they care about is the one specification nobody prints.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

Buy on the numbers that exist. Runtime and weight are published everywhere and they determine whether the device gets used. Attachment count determines what you can reach. Price is price. If depth is genuinely your criterion, the honest answer is that the published data cannot settle it for you.