APEX™ Smart Cupper

I sit at a desk for 9 hours, then try to squeeze in a gym session three or four times a week. My traps have been basically rock solid for about two years. I'd use a massage gun on them, feel better for maybe 20 minutes, then wake up the next morning with the same knot sitting right between my shoulder blade and my spine like it never left. First session with this I turned it up to level 4 with the heat on and genuinely couldn't believe what I was feeling — it's pulling the muscle up, not just hammering the surface. Woke up the next day and the knot was noticeably looser. That hadn't happened in two years. Three weeks in and I use it every second night after dinner. My wife thinks I'm addicted. She's not wrong.

By 2pm every day I'd have this burning tightness through my upper back that made it hard to even focus on the screen. I'd been spending about $180 a month on massage appointments — good massages — but I'd feel great for two days and then we'd be back to square one. I started using the APEX Cupper on my lunch break. 10 minutes on my traps and shoulders, heat on medium, suction cranked up. It actually gives real relief I can feel for the rest of the afternoon. I've cut my appointments down to once a month now. That's money I'm keeping in my pocket and I'm honestly feeling better than I was going weekly.

I own a Theragun. Compression boots. A foam roller I trip over every morning. I am the guy who buys recovery gear and then quietly admits it doesn't really do much. I had a stubborn knot in my right lat that had been there since a heavy deadlift session six weeks earlier — nothing touched it. First session with this, suction on high, heat on, I could feel it getting into the muscle in a way none of my other gear ever has. Like deep tissue work without someone digging their elbow into me. After three sessions across a week the knot was gone. Actually gone. I took all my other gadgets and put them in a box.

I run four times a week and my calves have been chronically tight for years. I'd roll them out, use the gun, stretch until I was blue in the face. I even commented on a thread once saying cupping seemed like placebo. Then I tried this. The heat and suction combo on my calves is a completely different feeling to anything I'd used before — it's pulling the tension out, that's the only way I can describe it. After two weeks of using it consistently post-run I noticed an actual change in my dorsiflexion. I went back and deleted my sceptical comment.

I'd been seeing the same remedial massage therapist for three years. $120 a session, sometimes twice a week. I started doing the maths and realised a big chunk of that was funding a nice room with dim lighting and essential oils, not the actual relief. I've now had the APEX Cupper for six weeks. I use it every night on my lower back and upper traps and the relief is comparable to what I was paying $120 to achieve. I still see my therapist once a month instead of weekly. I've saved several hundred dollars already. The maths are pretty clear.

My problem with physio and massage isn't the cost — it's the scheduling. I travel constantly, my week changes, and booking a 60-minute appointment and actually making it there is a logistical exercise I can never seem to win. So the tightness in my neck and upper back just got worse. I use this in hotels, on the couch Sunday morning, for 15 minutes while I read briefs. The suction and heat on my neck after a long-haul flight is the best thing I've discovered this year. Treating myself when I actually need it instead of when a gap in someone's diary allows — that's the thing I didn't know I needed.

I sit at a desk for 9 hours, then try to squeeze in a gym session three or four times a week. My traps have been basically rock solid for about two years. I'd use a massage gun on them, feel better for maybe 20 minutes, then wake up the next morning with the same knot sitting right between my shoulder blade and my spine like it never left. First session with this I turned it up to level 4 with the heat on and genuinely couldn't believe what I was feeling — it's pulling the muscle up, not just hammering the surface. Woke up the next day and the knot was noticeably looser. That hadn't happened in two years. Three weeks in and I use it every second night after dinner. My wife thinks I'm addicted. She's not wrong.

By 2pm every day I'd have this burning tightness through my upper back that made it hard to even focus on the screen. I'd been spending about $180 a month on massage appointments — good massages — but I'd feel great for two days and then we'd be back to square one. I started using the APEX Cupper on my lunch break. 10 minutes on my traps and shoulders, heat on medium, suction cranked up. It actually gives real relief I can feel for the rest of the afternoon. I've cut my appointments down to once a month now. That's money I'm keeping in my pocket and I'm honestly feeling better than I was going weekly.

I own a Theragun. Compression boots. A foam roller I trip over every morning. I am the guy who buys recovery gear and then quietly admits it doesn't really do much. I had a stubborn knot in my right lat that had been there since a heavy deadlift session six weeks earlier — nothing touched it. First session with this, suction on high, heat on, I could feel it getting into the muscle in a way none of my other gear ever has. Like deep tissue work without someone digging their elbow into me. After three sessions across a week the knot was gone. Actually gone. I took all my other gadgets and put them in a box.

I run four times a week and my calves have been chronically tight for years. I'd roll them out, use the gun, stretch until I was blue in the face. I even commented on a thread once saying cupping seemed like placebo. Then I tried this. The heat and suction combo on my calves is a completely different feeling to anything I'd used before — it's pulling the tension out, that's the only way I can describe it. After two weeks of using it consistently post-run I noticed an actual change in my dorsiflexion. I went back and deleted my sceptical comment.

I'd been seeing the same remedial massage therapist for three years. $120 a session, sometimes twice a week. I started doing the maths and realised a big chunk of that was funding a nice room with dim lighting and essential oils, not the actual relief. I've now had the APEX Cupper for six weeks. I use it every night on my lower back and upper traps and the relief is comparable to what I was paying $120 to achieve. I still see my therapist once a month instead of weekly. I've saved several hundred dollars already. The maths are pretty clear.

My problem with physio and massage isn't the cost — it's the scheduling. I travel constantly, my week changes, and booking a 60-minute appointment and actually making it there is a logistical exercise I can never seem to win. So the tightness in my neck and upper back just got worse. I use this in hotels, on the couch Sunday morning, for 15 minutes while I read briefs. The suction and heat on my neck after a long-haul flight is the best thing I've discovered this year. Treating myself when I actually need it instead of when a gap in someone's diary allows — that's the thing I didn't know I needed.