S-track vs. SL-track vs. J-track vs. Split track
Dr. Alan Weidner [00:09]: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from Massage Chair Relief, and today we’re going to talk about the evolution of the Roller Tracks and Massage Chairs. And there have been a lot of developments in the Roller Tracks over the years. I’ve been in the business for 18 years and I’ve seen tremendous changes and I’m going to go over them so that you understand the differences because it’ll be confusing when you hear about them, and you don’t really know what they mean. What does an S track mean? An L track, et cetera, et cetera. So, I’m going to go over them with you right now.
[00:34]: Now when I started in the industry, we had an S Track, okay. I’m going to write this, but I don’t expect you to read that. You know what, I’m just going to put an S because my writing is horrible. So anyway, we got the S Track. The S Track goes from your neck, down to your mid back, down to your low back, and it ends in your low back. So it goes forward on the neck, back on the mid back and then forward again on the low back. So, you’ll see here, neck is there, low back is here, mid back goes this way. That’s an S Track, but it stops just above the seat. That’s an S track.
[01:13]: Now the original pioneer of massage chairs, a fellow in Japan in the 1950’s, I think it was 1959. He created the first massage chair, and it was a regular chair, kind of like a regular wooden chair, like one of these, but he put a little track in there and the rollers went in, and it was straight. Well, of course it didn’t take long for massage chair manufacturers to start creating these medical devices or these massage chairs and they had it follow the shape of the spine for better comfort for the customer.
[01:42]: Well then along came the L Track. L Track is the same thing forward on the neck, back on the mid back, forward on the back, and then underneath the seat. So now it’s an L with a little bit of an S in it. Now this Track is called SL. So, it’s SL or L that’s the same thing. I’ve already talked about this on my blog and on my videos. S/L so it has the S portion of the neck, mid back and low back but then it continues on under the seat for the L portion. And that gives you the glute muscles, the butt muscles and the advantage here is that you get a great stretch. That’s the pro. The con is no butt massage.
[02:35]: And I say butt because everybody knows what the butt is, if I use glutes or gluteal, some may not know what that is, but no butt muscles. Along comes the L track so the advantage of the L track is not a great stretch. You get a stretch, but it’s more just pulling on the hips. But you cannot get a full stretch when you’re in an L shape the whole time, but the good thing is that you get the butt massaged. That’s the advantage of the SL Track or the L Track.
[03:03]: Then because we couldn’t get a real good stretch, along came the J Track and the J Track goes down the back or down, the neck, the mid back, the butt again. But this time instead of going straight across at a 45-degree angle, sorry, a 90-degree angle. Now it goes at 90 plus 45, what’s that 135-degree angle. So now you’ve got more of two angles, this a little bit more of an acute angle. Now you’ve got this angle that allows the chair to flatten out a little bit more.
[03:41]: So what you get now is the butt massage because the person’s going to be sitting in here, but the rollers from the J track the butt portion, reach up to the rollers and massage the rollers. So, you get a butt massage but now it’s not so much a negative, you still get a stretch, but it’s kind of not bad. It’s a little bit better than this stretch. Not as good as that stretch, but a stretch, nonetheless.
[04:11]: Now they’ve come up with these things called “Split Track,” and these just came out recently. This is in chairs like the Daiwa Supreme Hybrid, the Infinity Circadian, the Infinity Luminary, the Luraco i9 Max. These chairs have the Split Track and how it’s evolved now is you’ve got the S Track coming down, and rather than it stopping here, or continuing on under the butt, what you have now is a second roller set that comes underneath the butt.
[04:49]: So now you’ve got the S track portion here, you’ve got the L track portion there, but they’re split, they’re two separate Roller Tracks. So now you’ve got two separate entities working together in concert to massage your back. And so, what will happen now is because it’s split, you can bring that chair all the way back in a full recline, and you don’t have to be in this stuck L position like these two chairs do, or L, or J position. Now you can go completely flat. So, you know what the advantage of that is. You get a butt massage, and you get a great stretch similar to the S Track Chair.
[05:28]: So that is what they’ve come up with some call it a Hinge Track or Dual Track but the Split Track is what we refer to it. But if you hear the terms Hinge Track, Hinge Track means there’s a hinge down here and the two components hinge together. The Dual Track means there’s two tracks, one or the other. But this SL track known as a “Split Track” gives the benefits of both S tracks and LJ tracks. Okay? Does that make sense to you? So, you got a fantastic stretch here, much like this one, but you got the butt massage with these ones. That’s the fantastic benefit of this chair, of that technology.
[06:09]: So I hope you found this helpful. That’s the evolution of the roller tracks over time, who knows what’s next. But that should hopefully explain things to you and remove any confusion you might have while you’re shopping for a chair. I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, please feel free to give a thumbs up, like us on our YouTube channel and of course, help us spread the word about massage chairs by sharing this or any of our videos with your friends and family through your social media platforms. I’m Dr. Weidner from Massage Chair Relief, and I will see you on the next video. Bye-Bye.