Therabody’s Tim Roberts Talks Using Technology To Make Living Better, Accessible Personal Health In Interview

“We recognize the growing emphasis on self-care and want to ensure accessibility.”

That’s what Therabody vice president of science and innovation, Tim Roberts, recently said to me about the company’s ethos in a recent interview. Therabody makes devices designed to aid people in wellness and other areas of personal health such as recovery and skincare. The products integrate with the company’s eponymous Therabody app, available on iOS and Android. Therabody’s flagship product is the Theragun, a percussive massage gun invented in 2008 by Dr. Jason Wersland. Roberts has been with Therabody since 2019, joining the team from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, where he worked with some of the world’s best athletes and conducted scientific research.

“At the core of Therabody’s mission is to help everybody who wants to live better, longer, healthier lives—whether that be athletes, fitness enthusiasts, parents, grandparents who want to play with their grandkids, frontline workers like nurses and delivery drivers who are constantly on their feet and people who work in front of a screen,” Roberts said of Therabody’s raison d’être in the industry. “All of these have unique needs, however, these can really be understood as overarching categories—treating pain and discomfort, relieving tension and increasing relaxation, reducing stress, optimizing performance and recovery, supporting sleep, and improving skin health.”

Roberts described Therabody as being a “pioneer” in wellness technology and noted the company is “acutely aware” of the trends and changes happening in the fitness and wellness industry. Last year, the company introduced three new Theragun devices, the Pro Plus, the Sense, and the Relief, alongside a corresponding marketing campaign called “For The Workout Called Life.” According to Roberts, the company’s technology plus the campaign’s focus on what he termed “everyday benefits to people’s physical and mental health.” He added one device helps a person with relaxation through breath work, while another provides one-touch percussive massage therapy. All told, the products “have helped anchor us in our goal to be more accessible.”

Technology, Roberts told me, plays “an increasingly important role” in delivering personal health and wellness. Everything from wearable devices to meditation apps and more is enabling greater access to what he characterized as “the ability to monitor, understand, and improve their physical and mental health.” Indeed, wearables like those from Therabody or even an Apple Watch have increasing popularity in large part because of the health-tracking functionality. This can be of immense benefit to those in the disability community. Many cope with chronic conditions such as diabetes or arthritis, for example, that takes a lot of mental energy to monitor on a daily basis in addition to the physical challenges they impose. It’s highly plausible that a massager or other device from, say, Therabody could very well soothe a person both ways: emotionally and physically. As I often say, accessibility and assistive technology is a dynamo and takes many different forms; what Roberts and Therabody does for people is yet another great example of it.

“Not only is the outcome of our product development, wellness technology, but technology plays a pivotal role in the development process itself,” Roberts said. “Our engineering and science teams have access to different technologies to prototype and validate within our lab—this rigorous validation can be of the product specifications and of the desired physiological and neuromuscular responses. Technology also plays a key role in our consumer research and understanding the needs and preferences of different key audiences.”

When asked about the reception towards Therabody’s work, Roberts said feedback has been “really great.” He said the support from both academic research and research partners “reeinforces that our approach to science supporting our claims, optimizing our products, and connecting with the consumer is doing well.” Roberts added Therabody feels privileged to work with some renowned experts, noting the use of the “correct strategic approach for science in the industry becomes increasingly important” will help distinguish companies from the competition in the health and wellness space. Therabody is one of them.

“Feedback of any kind serves as ‘data’ for us that we can use as part of our internal scientific methods,” Roberts said. “The feedback we get from the users of our products—whether this is the best athletes in the world, student-athletes, the parent or grandparent, or anyone—is hugely valuable and we continue to optimize how we take this information into our business and leverage it.”

Looking towards the future, Roberts said the evolution of science and technology over the past half-century has changed how people think about health and wellness. Roberts believes the future of medicine, particularly around musculoskeletal healthcare, will involve self-administered independent treatments. In addition, Roberts noted the groundwork laid by Therabody in terms of leveraging technology in optimizing performance and recovery has had a “forever changed” effect.

“We are moving into an era of science-led innovation where our organization will continue to lead the way in developing and promoting accessible wellness solutions for individuals amidst their busy lifestyles,” Roberts said of the outlook for Therabody. “Our commitment to science and new partnerships with like-minded individuals and organizations is just the beginning of our efforts to ensure we continue to use our innovation to change the industry for the better.”