Sliced Bread

Massage Guns

Can massage guns from the likes of Theragun, Pulse Roll and others brands, help you warm up before exercise and recover more quickly after it?Massage guns are one of the biggest-selling fitness devices of the past few years. They have a vibrating silicone head that delivers percussive pressure onto the muscle. Manufacturers claim ‘vibration’ therapy increases bloodflow and helps the user warm up before exercise, perform better during it AND ease soreness afterwards. But does it?Listener Clare got in touch after she bought one following a tip-off from a friend that they could help relieve aches and pains after a run (including a bad back) as well as her husband’s sore shoulder.Greg Foot finds out if those claims are true by speaking to manufacturers, leading physiotherapists and scientists involved in the latest research.This series, we’re testing your suggested wonder-products. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad and wonder if there's any evidence to back up a claim drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our new WhatsApp number: 07543 306807PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up… Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers. In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist Sean Farrington examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt? The new series of Toast starts on Thursday 4 April, 2024 by looking at the roadside restaurant chain Little Chef.Some of the world’s most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world’s most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand’s fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions. From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations on Thursday 9 May, 2024. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.