Therabody Launches AI-Powered Recovery Coach App, Integrating with Fitness Trackers

Theraguns can now sync with your Garmin and Strava accounts to offer personalized recovery plans based on your workouts

Announced at CES 2025, the Coach by Therabody tool is an AI tool available to Beta testers right now. Using fitness data from the services above and based on input from you regarding to your wellness goals, the coaching algorithm can automatically generate plans to theoretically improve your recovery, providing you have a compatible massage gun: either the Theragun Pro Plus or Theragun Prime Plus. The video below shows a few brief examples, including a rock climber getting recommended to use a Theragun on her forearms for one minute. Presumably, this pulls through in the app automatically, based on your daily recorded activities. While the feature is compatible with multiple services, its connection with Garmin runs deeper than the others. In a blog post, Therabody announced a 'strategic partnership' with Garmin, writing that the best Garmin watches "can provide insights into stress levels, Body Battery energy levels and overall cardiovascular performance. "Therabody scientists will leverage this data to measure the impact of recovery on athletic performance, including how Therabody products and routines affect positive outcomes, changing the face of performance for athletes at all levels." It seems as though, in addition to the guided coaching tool, Therabody will be able to improve its AI algorithm in future by feeding it data collected from Garmin smartwatches. On the surface, it seems like this isn't necessarily a useful tool: if you've already bought a Theragun for this purpose, it shouldn't take too much prompting to use it on your sore quads after a heavy squat session. However, Therabody's top brass seem keen to emphasize its usefulness. In the same blog post, Therabody CMO, John Solomon says: "It's important to note that Therabody is not doing AI for AI's sake." "As with all our products, we looked at how AI could solve a problem for our consumers. And over time, feeding it with the rich data from Garmin will allow us to really understand how recovery impacts performance at a scale that's not been achievable until now." There's also the underlying issue of recovery and percussive massage. While there is evidence that percussive massage can improve range of motion and reduce perceived muscle soreness, there's still not a lot of hard evidence that massage guns improve or speed up muscular recovery.

Therabody launches Coach, an AI-powered digital recovery app | TechCrunch

Therabody, the maker of popular massage guns and other wellness devices, announced at CES 2025 that it's launching an AI-powered digital recovery app called Coach by Therabody. While Therabody's flagship app is designed to give you easy-to-follow proprietary routines, Coach takes recovery and wellness a step further by using data to understand users' current needs. With this new app, Therabody is delving further into the wellness apps market. Developed in partnership with Garmin, the app combines user data with generative AI to provide personalized recovery plans that adjust in real-time based on users' goals, activity levels, and health metrics. The app works by collecting data from Garmin smartwatches, along with Apple Health, Google Fit, Strava, and more. The app analyzes user data, integrates user feedback, and connects with Therabody products to provide personalized reminders and recommendations that support athletic performance and overall well-being. For instance, if the app sees that you completed a 5K run, it will suggest that you start your leg recovery to reduce soreness. "It's important to note that Therabody is not doing AI for AI's sake," said Therabody CMO, John Solomon, in a press release. "As with all our products, we looked at how AI could solve a problem for our consumers. And over time, feeding it with the rich data from Garmin will allow us to really understand how recovery impacts performance at a scale that's not been achievable until now." To start, Coach will connect with Therabody's Theragun. The company plans to add support for more of its products in the future. The app is available to download on iOS and Android.

Theragun maker offers AI-powered recovery coaching

Why it matters: While AI presents fresh opportunity for hardware makers to add smarts to their gadgets, it's forcing them to place bets on what efforts will add the most value and help stave off rivals. Driving the news: Coach by Therabody is a free app for both iOS and Android. For now, it works with certain models of the company's Theragun massager, with plans to expand further. What they're saying: "We've seen a lot of companies do AI for AI's sake," said Caitlin Borzok, Theragun's senior VP of digital. Our thought bubble: While new AI gadgets such as Humane's AI Pin have gotten a tremendous amount of coverage, some of the most meaningful advances in the near term could come from makers of existing hardware who figure out clever ways to layer in AI smarts. What's next: Theragun is looking to further tailor its routines, expand to work with other products in the company's portfolio and also incorporate real-time feedback to understand where someone might be sore and adjust treatments accordingly.