Consumers have also learned that the same mechanisms of light therapy that aid muscle recovery also promote cellular health and skin rejuvenation — in the four months ended January, searches for “red light therapy” surged by 123% on TikTok, according to the platform. Roberts says this led Therabody to expand into LED facemasks and heat therapy wands for facial depuffing in 2023 — adjacent categories that are growing the business significantly, too.
“What’s been especially interesting over the past 12 months is how quickly the category has moved from early adoption into more mainstream awareness — particularly as it expands beyond performance into areas like skin health and overall wellbeing,” Lucas Wasniewski, CEO of Swedish recovery brand Flowlife, says about red light therapy. “Overall, what we’re seeing is a shift toward more holistic, at-home recovery tools, where people are building consistent routines rather than relying on one-off treatments.” Where the recovery sector was initially focused on sports injury prevention and performance, Wasniewski says it now sits at the intersection of “performance, beauty, and longevity”.
One of the biggest companies in the sector, Hyperice, has built credibility through brand collaborations with Nike, strategic investments from the NBA, the MLB and the NFL, and high-profile athlete investors like Naomi Osaka, Erling Haaland and Patrick Mahomes. The brand has expanded from massage guns to compression therapy and wearable heat devices, growing from $350,000 in annual revenue in 2013 to over $1 billion in cumulative revenue over the last six years, which CEO Jim Huether credits to broader adoption beyond elite sport into fitness, hospitality, and everyday consumers. “It started out as recovery, before moving into human performance optimization, and now it’s extending more into wellness and longevity,” says Huether.
The next frontier: Recovery apparel and footwear
Huether says that now, the big growth opportunity for the company is tech-enabled footwear, via its recent collaboration with Nike. The two companies released their first collaborative product, the Nike x Hyperice Hyperboot, in May 2025 — a battery-powered high-top shoe priced at $899, which is designed to accelerate warm up and recovery via heat and a dynamic air-compression massage for the feet and ankles.
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