The Tamesis
Consumers are also learning that the mechanisms of light therapy that aid muscle recovery can also promote cellular health and skin rejuvenation—searches for “red light therapy” surged 123% on TikTok in the four months to January, according to the platform. That’s spurred Therabody to expand into LED face masks and heat therapy wands for facial swelling in 2023 — adjacent categories that have also seen significant growth, Roberts said.
“What’s particularly interesting over the past 12 months is how quickly the category has moved from early adoption to more mainstream awareness, especially as it expands beyond performance into areas such as skin health and overall well-being,” Lucas Wasniewski, CEO of Swedish healing brand Flowlife, said of red light therapy. “Overall, what we’re seeing is a shift toward more comprehensive at-home rehabilitation tools, where people are establishing consistent daily habits rather than relying on one-off treatments.” Wasniewski said the rehabilitation field, which originally focused on sports injury prevention and athletic performance, is now at the intersection of “athletic performance, beauty and longevity.”
Hyperice is one of the largest companies in the industry, having built credibility through brand partnerships with Nike, strategic investments from the NBA, MLB and NFL, as well as high-profile athlete investors such as Naomi Osaka, Erling Haaland and Patrick Mahomes. The brand has expanded beyond massage guns into compression therapy and wearable heating devices, growing annual revenue from $350,000 in 2013 to more than $1 billion in cumulative revenue over the past six years, which CEO Jim Huether attributes to broader adoption beyond elite sports into fitness, hospitality and everyday consumer spaces. “It started out for recovery, then moved into human performance optimization, and now it’s expanded more into health and longevity,” Huyser said.
The next frontier: recovery apparel and footwear
Huyser said the company’s big growth opportunity now, through its recent partnership with Nike, is in technology-driven footwear. The two companies released their first collaborative product in May 2025, the Nike x Hyperice Hyperboot, a battery-powered $899 high-top shoe designed to accelerate warm-up and recovery through heat and dynamic air compression massage of the foot and ankle.
