Keirin racer Takumi Masugi on the recovery tool he says he can no longer do without: DENBA Health

Using DENBA Health

-- What made you start using DENBA Health?

I saw a senior rider using one and wanted to try it. You can't know anything about a thing until you've used it. So I was introduced to the company and rented one for a week. My thinking was that if it was really good, I'd buy it and keep going. I put it under the bed and used it after my usual training - and honestly, I couldn't tell it was doing anything.

-- So at first you couldn't really tell.

Masugi: That's right. But after the week was up I sent the rental back, and once I stopped using it my fatigue felt different. While I was using it I wasn't aware of anything; it was stopping that made me notice. I suppose it had been holding me in good condition the whole time. That's when I decided to keep going with it.

Keirin riders train on the days they are not racing too - long road miles, flat-out efforts on the track. The daily volume alone pushes them to their physical limit. Masugi used DENBA Health after sessions like that, and without noticing it at the time, he was recovering better than usual.

The fatigue had been clearing
- I only noticed once I stopped

-- When did you start using it?

Masugi: It was 2022. I won the first meeting after I started using it. Winning straight away like that made an impression on me. It's good for luck, too.

In March 2022 Masugi took his first GIII title at Nagoya Velodrome. He went on to win two GI titles, the All Star and the Keirin Festival. Behind the arrival of a new star were his training volume, his mental strength - and the recovery side, where DENBA Health played its part.

-- Keirin uses the whole body: the legs on the pedals, the arms, everything. Is there a particular area where you notice it?

Masugi: It isn't so much that it works on one area. This is a whole-body job, so what mattered was that the whole-body fatigue started clearing. Sleeping better feeds into recovery too.

Keirin is raced on a banked, bowl-shaped track. Riders hit 40-60 km/h, and the centrifugal forces are considerable. Getting to that speed depends on the all-out effort riders call mogaki. From the stands it looks like a question of leg power, but it is the whole body that does the work - which is why the quality of sleep needed to clear whole-body fatigue matters so much to recovery.

-- Since you started using it, has anything about your body felt different?

Masugi: It feels to me like injuries heal faster.
When I started, hardly anyone was using recovery equipment. Now people ask me what I'm using and I tell them. They're given a recovery time in months, and it feels like they come back sooner than that.

In January 2024 Masugi broke his collarbone and the little toe of his right foot in training - a two-month injury. It was his first fracture, and he says he was anxious about it. Alongside DENBA Health he tried everything he could, including regular treatment sessions, determined to come back quickly. Day by day his body felt lighter. He was back in training three weeks after the injury and racing again a month later.

-- When do you normally use it?

Masugi: Training and racing are both physical, but racing takes concentration, so you're mentally tired as well.
So for any race in Japan, DENBA Health comes with me.

-- Are there days now when you don't use it?

Masugi: I use it every day. There isn't a day I don't.

Having once gone without it and felt the difference in his recovery, DENBA Health has become a part of his routine he doesn't skip.

-- Your fellow riders clearly feel it. Who else would you recommend it to?

Masugi: I think anyone would feel it. My family used it and responded well too.

-- Finally, if you had to sum up DENBA Health in one line?

Masugi: Doing it and not doing it are completely different. It fills in the part I can't cover on my own, and that really helps.

Since 2023 Masugi has been ranked S-class SS, awarded only to riders recognised as the very best - just nine of them in the whole sport. In this interview he said, with a curious grin, that he wants to try anything that might be good for his body. For a rider whose body is his livelihood, thinking constantly about condition, about recovery, about healing from injury - and acting on it - is what produces results like his. DENBA Health is one of the things he chose to support that, and a professional athlete saying there isn't a day he goes without it is about as direct an endorsement as there is.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
We will be cheering him on.

Interviewer: Kazuya Nonaka, DENBA ambassador