The R8 Plus: a Useful (and Quirky) Recovery Tool for Hike and Bike Road Trips

15.11.2024 - 09:37 / matadornetwork.com

As a mountain biker, hiker, and snowboarder, having sore, tight legs has become the norm for me. I spend about 15-20 minutes every day stretching, foam rolling, and doing whatever I can to make my legs feel anywhere close to normal, instead of being so tight that I’m limping during my first few steps off the couch.

Because I’m self employed and work remotely, I have the freedom to travel quite a bit to bike and hike. And I live in the Sierra Nevada at an elevation of about 6,000 feet, which means less oxygen gets to my muscles than I’d experience closer to sea level. So after tackling rocky trails, steep climbs, and technical descents, either on foot on on my bike, my quads, calves, and hamstrings often feel like they’ve been put through the wringer.

I’m no stranger to testing and trying various muscle recovery tools. Photo: Suzie Dundas

Because of this, I’ve collected quite a lot of various massage tools, from foam rollers to muscle recovery balls to resistance straps, lacrosse balls, massagers, and more. The space under my living room table looks like a physical therapist’s office. But I just added a new product to the lineup that makes my living room look a little more like a medieval dungeon than most people’s: it’s the R8 Plus Deep Tissue Massager from Roll Recovery, and with heavy metal bars and metallic springs, it looks more like a torture device than a massage tool. But once you learn how to use it, you’ll be saying less “eww” and more “ahhhh.”

Here’s my take on the R8 Plus as an athletic person who’s always off somewhere in the mountains — and advice on what kind of athlete will find the quirky recovery device worth the price.

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The R8 Plus, straight out of the box. Photo: Suzie Dundas

That’s the very first thing my husband said when I took the large, somewhat intense-looking device out of the high-end packaging. The Roll Recovery R8 Plus works by using spring-loaded arms to apply consistent, adjustable pressure to your muscles with two ribbed rollers, squeezing muscle groups like the thighs, calves, and hamstrings. It’s easy to clamp around around the muscle group you want to massage, and it automatically adjusts to your body’s shape, delivering deep pressure without the need to push or move your body. The rollers smoothy compress your muscles, and it’s easy to use while sitting, standing, or lying on the floor moaning about how your calves feel like they’re about to explode.

The R8 Plus also