Marc Pro Recovery Tool
Purchase from Retailer
Description
The Marc Pro is a surprisingly amazing tool we came across at the 2018 Crossfit Games. Honestly we never would have given it a second thought but after a few days of walking around and doing workouts our legs just hurt. It was that unpleasant “I’ve been standing all day, everything’s achy and stiff, blood’s not where it should be” feeling.
So we started looking for recovery booths and came across these guys. At first glance it looks like a TENS unit – a device for pain management. It is similar but this device provides a kind of ‘pumping’ action to the muscle that is supposed to speed recovery. Dubious, but with aching legs and time on our hands we gave it a try. Half an hour later (after a wonderful chat with the folks at the booth), we got up, promised to think about it, and walked away. I mean this was $600 bucks! Sure there was a trial period and a very generous refund policy, but that wasn’t enough to try the thing long term.
Twenty yards away from the booth we stopped and looked at each other. In unison we ducked around a corner. “Do your legs hurt?”
“No. Like, they feel great. Yours?”
“Not a bit! What in the world?”
We walked around more, the pain didn’t come back. We were sold on a trial.
We took it home and Matt started using it to get 10 days of straight workouts in at a time, at age 42. Go to work, come home, work out, get dinner ready, sit down and eat hooked up to the unit and work on the business. Jo uses it to recover between grueling Strongman training sessions, and Matt used it regularly to get back into lifting after he donated a kidney.
It has helped both of us reduce pain and recover better. It helps loosen tight muscles and even helps with the occasional neck pain from a poor night of sleep – half an hour with the machine and everything feels better.
Here’s the principle – where a TENS uses electrical stimulation to overload the nerves so they stop reporting pain, this uses electrical stimulation to gently ‘pump’ the muscle. This helps a tight muscle relax but more importantly it forces more blood flow through the area. Blood flow = healing and repair.
It may be that a skilled user can get a TENS device to replicate a similar effect; we’ve tried with our TENS and can’t get it to do the same thing the Marc Pro does for us with one twist of a knob.
It’s built like a brick, and while the manual and FAQs say the battery will last “at least 10 hours”, our has literally lasted weeks to months with us using it an hour or more most days of the week.
Check out the Marc Pro FAQ here.
This device is NOT for everyone, but if you have the money to spare and you really want a way to recover faster, we’ve been astounded at the difference it makes. You can buy the Marc Pro (the version we have) or the Marc Pro Plus (the bells and whistles version) from Amazon or Rogue.
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Matt
He has his black belt in Tae Kwan Do Chang Moo Kwan, has studied various other styles of martial arts, including ba gua chang, jiu-jitsu, and is actively studying Israel Combat System at Masada Tactical.
Matt strives to learn and grow in exercise and performance while fighting his constant desire for ice cream. He has also discovered the wonders and kool-aid of Crossfit - a style of workout that he has done for years but never realized someone had formalized already.
He is a certified USAW coach and consumes fitness and nutrition information regularly. He uses his analytic background and mindset to synthesize insights on life, health, and fitness.
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