What Is A Chirp Wheel?
A Chirp Wheel is a yoga wheel. What is a yoga wheel, you might ask? These tools are designed specifically to help relive tension in the back. However, not all yoga wheels are created equally and the Chirp Wheel+ (or Chirp Wheel – formerly the Plexus Wheel) is arguably the most popular having sold more than 500,000 units!
Originally the Plexus Wheel, the company changed names when they began to develop other products other than just the wheel. They have since re-branded their company to just Chirp and changed the name of their popular Plexus Wheel to the Chirp Wheel+.
How Does The Chirp Wheel Work?
The Chirp Wheel doesn’t come with any special features or attachments. The Wheel itself is all that is needed to use it. The Wheel works by targeting the muscles on either side of your spine to provide myofascial relief, crack the back and provide deep tissue massage. The tool works by fitting perfectly between the shoulder blades and allowing the weight of your body to provide direct pressure across it’s 6 inch width.
How Is The Chirp Wheel+ Different From Other Yoga Wheels?
What makes the Chirp Wheel different from other yoga wheels is the unique channel it has for your spine, which they call it’s Spinal Canal. Within the center of the Wheel is approximately a 1 inch wide channel designed for your spine to fit into as you roll along the length of your back.
What Are The Specifications Of The Chirp Wheel+?
The Chirp Wheel+ comes in three different sizes so the specifications will vary depending on which Wheel you are looking at. The device comes in 3 different sizes based on diameter – 6 inches, 10 inches and 12 inches. All 3 have a PVC center surrounded by a soft foam with channel. The varying sizes are designed to provide different levels of relief, which they’ve termed gentle, medium and deep tissue. The smallest Wheel is the most aggressive deep tissue tool and the largest wheel is the least aggressive and gentle tool. From the smallest Wheel up, the price increases $10 with each size increase.
Why Is The Chirp Wheel+ So Popular?
The first reason the Chirp Wheel is so popular is that they have a fantastic marketing team. It is likely that you may have first seen the device on Facebook or Instagram through some form of advertising. The second reason it is so popular is because it works and when something works, it can spread by word of mouth quickly.
After getting it’s start on Kickstarter, the Chirp Wheel had a lot of anticipation already when it hit the market, which also helped play into it’s overall popularity. Needless to say, any tool that sells over a half million individual units must be doing something right!
See our full video review below:
The Chirp Wheel is something that I came across on Instagram. It was intriguing to me at first, but I didn’t really understand it so I wanted to do a little bit more research. I went to their website, gochirp.com, and one of the first things I saw was that over 500,000 of these have been sold. So my immediate thought was, holy cow, that’s a lot. Anybody that’s selling 500,000 of anything must be doing something right. So I went ahead and purchased one. I have it here for you today. I’m going to take a look at it. I didn’t see a lot of reviews on this on YouTube yet, so hopefully this is useful to some people. One thing I did realize in watching some of Chirp’s videos is this device was previously called the Plexus Wheel or the Plexus Wheel Plus. I’ve also seen this called the Chirp Wheel or the Chirp Wheel Plus. The company that makes it is called Chirp. Currently it’s advertised as the Chirp Wheel Plus.
It is a what I’ve seen called a yoga wheel or kind of just a really big foam roller. To me in looking at it, it almost looks like a piece of PVC sewage pipe that was just sliced in half and then put some foam around it. I’ve seen foam rollers that are kind of hard plastic with some foam on them before but never have seen anything this big. So I have used this a few times, but I’ll talk through that once I do a demonstration of using it. But this is the 10 inch Chirp Wheel, so this is what they call the medium pressure wheel. They also have a 12 inch one, and when I’m saying the distance, it’s how big the diameter of the wheel is. So the 12 inch one is for their gentle pressure, 10 inches, medium pressure, and then the 6 inches, deep tissue. The price point on them, the 12 inch is $65. The 10 inch, I got this for $55. And then the deep tissue is $45. Right now all three of them are on sale as a package so you can get all three of them for $99. So really great deal if this is something you think might be worthwhile.
So what this tool is designed specifically for is to help relieve back pain and help stretch out your back. So I’m someone who almost daily tries to stretch my back on either a foam roller, or oftentimes I’ll just kind of reach over on the back of the chair and lean back and just crack my back and stretch and just really try to open everything up. And so something that I’ve come to realize is that specifically what this is designed for. They do have a nice little groove for your spine to go in here. It is only five inches wide. But what’s different specifically this, compared to a foam roller, is A, how big it is, but B, the groove with your spine is really key here. So if you take a look at a foam roller, it’s really flat, and when your back is laying on, all the pressure of your back is going along this narrow piece of foam roller that your pressure of your body’s going to rest on. But what’s happening is the distribution of weight is getting spread across this entire surface. Whereas if you’re putting your entire body weight on this, the distribution of your weight is really going down to kind of the one square on the top of the Chirp Wheel. So really it’s going to get a lot more pressure specifically on the spine.
The other thing that’s different is if you’re trying to get kind of the back between your shoulders, between your shoulder blades, you can’t really do that with a big wide foam roller. You can turn it sideways, but it’s going to put a lot of pressure on your spine. So the Chirp Wheel, what’s great about it is only being five inches wide, it’s going to fit right between your shoulder blades, right along your neck, right between the shoulder blades, so really can get that upper back tension relieved up in the thoracic spine. So that’s that.
The pressure on this, it’s a softer kind of rubbery foam material. I don’t have the gentle one or the deep tissue one, but everything I’ve seen it looks like it’s the same, the just differences in the radius of the size. So this is something, somebody that’s sitting in an office job for long periods of time, maybe you’re pregnant, and you’re carrying a lot of front weight that’s causing back pain, or you just you sleep funny, or you just have a job that causes a lot of back pain. It’s good habit to just get in and stretch out with this.
Out of the box, it does come with just a quick little card to teach you how to use it in a couple of different ways. So I’m going to start with this top line. It just says for first time use. I have used it a few times, but I want to make sure I’m showing everybody what it looks like when you first use it. But they recommend it for daily use for posture, upper back, lower back. You can also use it on your hips and legs to relieve some tension. So you can use it in some instances depending on what size you have a for some similar effects as a foam roller, but let’s take a look at it.
To start, it just suggest to sit on the ground and arch your back over it with the wheel on the ground and kind of get that groove lined up on your spine. And for a beginner, they encourage you to just sit like this for three to five minutes and just get comfortable. If you have a really tight back, you’ll probably start to feel it just in this position alone, but as you get more comfortable with it, then you can start rocking up, elevate your hips, and just kind of sit and roll slowly. You can keep your hands on the ground. And I can actually hear my back cracking a little bit here. Really open it up. Spread your arms out. Just go back and forth, up and down your spine. If you find a tight spot, you can just kind of sit and let the weight of your body rest on that spot for a couple seconds, couple minutes, but that’s fine. Really open up. Let your head go back.
Now, as I’m rolling on it, it does feel a little bit unstable like I could possibly fall over, so I’m actually going to keep my hands kind of on it here to help stabilize it. It seems to help a little bit. You can really get back up onto your head, tilt back. And again, the benefit to this over a foam roller is that it’s really putting all my weight on the little small surface area on the back of that wheel, the five inches wide by however much of my back is actually on the wheel. And for anybody that might be curious, this thing’s pretty sturdy. You’re not going to break it. You’re not going to crack it. It has been tested up to 500 pounds, so unless you’re more than 500 pounds, I don’t think you need to worry about anything with this. It’ll give, and it’ll flex a little bit, but it’ll move and work with the contours of your back.
So this is something I mentioned earlier. I have been using this already a couple of times. And it’s something I use real early in the morning just as I get out of bed. My back is always a little bit tight. It’s just a nice thing to take two, three minutes at the beginning of the day and just really stretch out and get the blood flowing in your back.
So that’s the Chirp Wheel. I would definitely recommend it to anybody that does have back pain and just looks to stretch their back on a daily basis. Again, if you’re someone that has an office job, sits a lot, if you’re pregnant, this could be a great tool for helping open up that back. Just a couple thoughts on it. I do wish that I got the smaller one as well. Just again, I’m someone that likes to get aggressive with my massage and get real deep tissue. And I feel like after using this a few times, I feel like I could get a little bit more off of the smaller ones. So I do wish I would have bought that.
The other thing is it is a little bit difficult to balance on. So as you saw in the video there, it helps if you can just kind of reach back and hold it stable because I did feel a few times like I was going to lose my balance, depending on if you get some real high points on your back with it, it can be a little bit more difficult to balance. So if balance and stability are a concern of yours, might be something to just keep in mind, if you could have someone help stabilize it for you, or if you’re able to reach back, that does help. But certainly would recommend it. There’s obviously a reason why there’s been over 500,000 of these sold. And I’m going to stop using the back of a chair and continue using my Chirp Wheel.
Best Massage Tech’s YouTube Channel