With a small button and a roll of kinesiotape, two physiotherapists and an industrial designer want to help as many people as possible to get a painful everyday problem under control. Tense and hardened muscles can best be loosened and made supple with a massage. But there is often not enough time for that. Massage tools such as foam rollers or balls are a good alternative for at home. But it also takes discipline and will, because the massage ball won’t roll over the aching calf by itself. Jan Winter and Bastian Hehner are professionals and know that these hurdles are too high for many people. So they worked on a trigger tool for everyday use and developed Triggid, the trigger button. (Note: The product was renamed “TRIGGin” after the Vox show “Die Höhle der Löwen” on October 10, 2022). The small button weighs only a few grams and is intended to work on painful trigger points for up to 24 hours – when shopping, in the office or during sports. Combined with classic kinesiotape, even laypeople should be able to use Triggid without any problems. Sounds a little too good to be true? We thought so too. And have subjected Triggid to a practical test.
Triggid comes in a small folding box. Even laypeople can see at first glance that this is a medical product “Made in Germany”. Because that’s exactly what it says prominently on the top of the packaging. On the back you can find out briefly and concisely how Triggid works and what you can expect from the small button. Inside we find a roll of kinesiotape (in our set of 2 in blue and pink), ten-page instructions in a practical DIN A6 format and the heart: the trigger button. It has two parts and is about the diameter of a 1 euro coin. The lower orange part is made of flexible plastic (ABS and TPE) and looks a bit like a mini spinning top. It tapers to a point in the middle like a cone. A small pin protrudes from the white counterpart made of hard plastic, so that the two parts can be easily connected to each other like a push button.
The experienced physiotherapist and endurance athlete Kristina Jago took a close look at Triggid and meticulously glued it on. She also found the instructions to be commendable. Apart from one point, even a layman in this area is guided through the correct application. The tape can easily be cut to the appropriate length. In order to integrate the trigger button into the kinesiotape, it should be folded in the middle and slightly cut at the fold. The trigger button will later be inserted into this hole. This also worked as described in our test. Unsurprisingly, our expert had no problems locating the ominous trigger points. The button-tape combination was professionally placed on the cervical spine as well as on the elbow, shoulder and shin and was worn for a long time.
We found that apart from the shin, you need help on all other parts of the body if Triggid is to be attached correctly. This is also the only weakness of the manual. Because it doesn’t tell you that the tape has to be applied under full tension in order to achieve the desired effect. Unfortunately, this important information can only be found on the triggerdinger.de website. And even with the help of a partner, Triggid is not a sure-fire success. Because especially in men, the body hair on the legs and neck prevents the kinesiotape from holding permanently and tightly. At this point, only one thing helps: shaving. We found Trigid really convincing on the shin and elbow. Here, the button can be placed close to the bone, which our expert found important in order to exert permanent stimuli on the trigger points in everyday life. Here she even briefly forgot that Triggid was glued to her shin and pressed the tip of the button into her bone as she sat down. The result: a small bruise. In this context, we asked ourselves why the trigger button wasn’t designed a little flatter. Other tools that treat trigger points get by with less sharp pressure points.
In the neck, Triggid failed in our test, regardless of hair and tension on the tape. Too small, too pointed and not long enough, says the physiotherapist. From her point of view, the popular fascia ball is better suited at this point to work on the tension.
“The idea is a good one,” says physiotherapist Jago, who looks at the Triggid trigger button through professional glasses, but has also put herself in the role of a layman. And here Triggid scored above all with its simple and easy-to-understand instructions. If you need more information, the website is even better. A good complement to kinesiotape is the mini tool for trigger points from our point of view on the shins and elbows. Here the button actually increases the effect of kinesiotape. In many other places, however, the button-tape combination does not hold as it should. You have to shave here. It is not clear to us why the button on the orange underside is so pointed that it can painfully pierce the skin with certain movements. In practice, it also turned out that Triggid can only be placed and glued to the shin itself. For all other pain points, help is mandatory when sticking and fixing.
Two further points should not go unmentioned at this point. Triggid is reusable. That’s true so far. Unfortunately, the adhesive on the tape is quite stubborn and can only be removed from the trigger button with a little fiddling and patience. What should also be considered in this context: Depending on how often Triggid is used, the tape will be used up sooner or later and will have to be bought later.
In order to make it big with their little button, the three entrepreneurs from Hanau need a sporting capital of 120,000 euros. In return, Jan Winter, Bastian Hehner and Lars Meyer offer the five investors a manageable ten percent of their start-up in the current episode of “Die Höhle der Löwen”. Whether they hit the nerve of the lions with their mini tool against tense muscles or with Williams, Dümmel
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