Review of Infinity Presidential Massage Chair

June 12, 2018
 By Dr. Alan Weidner
June 12, 2018
 By Dr. Alan Weidner

Review of Infinity Presidential Massage Chair

The Infinity Presidential massage chair is one of Infinity’s offerings into the high end 3D L-track massage chair market. I have written a blog post in the past about the differences between it, the Genesis, and the Imperial, but this article will be dedicated solely to  a review about just the Infinity Presidential.

The Presidential is a good sized chair, slightly wider and taller than the Human Touch Novo XT, but it a space saver, so you don’t have to worry too much about space between the wall and the back of the chair. It is a comfortable when you sit in it, unless you’ve got size 13 feet. The chair is designed to handle taller, bigger bodies, but we have found that the partially-encased foot massager can make the fit a bit uncomfortable for the feet of someone with size 13 or larger. The only other possible obstacle to fitting a taller body into the chair is the dome at the top of the chair that is part of the chair’s frame. We had a fellow who was 6’8″ tall who fit just fine in the chair, and received a good neck massage, but the top of his head hit the dome at the top of the chair. But, shorter than that, this chair will fit a bigger body quite well.

Foot & Calf massager

Foot & Calf massager

One additional comment about the foot massager: make sure that you put your toes underneath the toe airbags. If you are not conscious of where you are putting your feet when you sit in the chair, you may put your toes on top of the toe airbags, which will make the foot massager seem extremely limited in size. The reason I know this is because when we first got the chair in our showroom, customers were complaining about how little room they had for their feet. I just thought the chair had a design and engineering flaw since the chair is built for a bigger body, but small feet couldn’t fit in comfortably. Then, one day when I went to sit in it to experience the chair, my feet went right on top of the toe airbags which had been compressed down to the bottom of the foot massager. I got out of the chair to see what was going on and sure enough the toe airbags had been stepped on repeatedly and pushed down to the floor of the foot massager. It is rather unnoticeable if you aren’t paying attention.

J-Track vs. L-Track

The Infinity Presidential massage chair is considered an L-track chair, but it would be truer to say that it has a J-track. The folks at Infinity describe it this way: the traditional L-track chair, like all L-track models, has an S-track portion of the roller system that moves down the spine following the S-shape of the spine, with the rollers then changing direction to run directly under the seat and buttocks muscles. That is why it is called an L-track. Well, the Presidential has rollers that move down at about a 45 degree angle under the seat.

The significance of that is this allows the chair to recline further into a more horizontal position. What is intriguing about that design is the more horizontal the chair can be positioned, the greater the capacity for the chair to stretch the spine and body of the user.  The knock against L-track chairs is the weakness of the stretch program, when compared to regular S-track chairs like the Infinity IT-8500×3, the Luraco iRobotics 7, and the Inada DreamWave. The more horizontal the chair can be reclined, the greater the stretch. The Infinity Presidential offers the best of both worlds…buttock and hamstring roller massage with a recline that approaches a more horizontal chair position. You can read more about the differences here in this article…

https://www.massage-chair-relief.com/blog/stretch-program-s-track-vs-l-track/

Speaking of the stretch program, the Infinity Presidential, like most Infinity chairs, provides strong foot and ankle airbag support when the ottoman drops down. This enhances the overall pull on the spine, especially when coupled with the shoulders being pinned down by the shoulder airbags. Also, during the stretch program, the rollers of the Presidential are very active up and down the whole spine which, I feel, really contributes to the overall stretch experience.

Those same shoulder airbags are deployed in other programs in this chair and, when coupled with the rollers working over the mid back (thoracic spine), help improve the posture of the user. When you get out of this chair, you will feel like your shoulders are back further and you are standing taller. Good stuff!

Ottoman/Foot Rest

I’d just like to mention a few more words about the foot rest/ottoman. It is an electronic extension ottoman, which means that the chair will self adjust and, if you need to change the length of the legs, you can do so with the remote control. It’s a little odd to do it with this chair, but here is what you do if you want to change the length for your legs:

  1. Press “Manual” on the remote control
  2. Select “Foot Rest”
  3. Use the up and down arrows to move the legs out or back, respectively.

The foot rollers on this chair are quite comfortable. You can adjust the speed of the foot rollers to simulate greater or lesser intensity (“Quick” and “Soft” options).

This chair does not have calf rollers, but it does use airbags behind the calves to push hard rubber nobules into the calf muscles to simulate a compression massage.  Most chairs massage the calves this way.

Roller System

Now let’s talk a bit about the rollers. The roller balls feel a bit smaller than many other chairs. Because they are smaller, they have a tendency to dig into the muscles a bit deeper. I found this to be especially beneficial in the neck and suboccipital regions (under the base of the skull). This chair is one of the best at massaging those regions for an L-track chair, in my opinion.

I also find that the rollers are “busier” in this chair than many other models. There is a lot of tapping and knocking by the rollers in conjunction with the kneading and rolling. This lends to a feeling that the chair is really working you over.

One thing I like about this chair is how it deploys the 3D function in the rollers. As you may or may not know, 3D refers to the ability of the chair user to move the rollers further into your back for a deeper, more intense massage, or retract them for a lighter massage. That capacity for deeper forward movement is really utilized well during the auto massage programs. Many times during my massage session on this chair I felt the rollers stop and then move forward into my spinal muscles. This feels like a very effective shiatsu or trigger point therapy. This is part of the “busier” roller feeling. I found this feature to be especially beneficial in the neck and lower back regions, areas that are notoriously under-served by many, many other models.

Like in pretty much every other massage chair, the speed of the rollers can be adjusted to enhance a more intense massage experience. For marketing purposes, other chair companies boast of having 4D rollers. As I’ve written before, I think that’s just marketing mumbo jumbo, especially since our world really deals on a day to day basis in only 3 dimensions. Their 4th Dimension (4D) is really just speed. All 3D chairs have speed adjustment capabilities, so really all 3D chairs have 4D. Oh well.

In the manual settings, you have a roller mode option called “Back Rubbing”. This is different from kneading, which is side to side movement combined with up and down movement – aka kneading. In the “Back Rubbing” mode, the rollers move strictly from side to side without the up and down  circular movement of kneading. This feels a lot like what we used to call “Transfriction Massage” when I was a chiropractor. A very nice mode to use when breaking down trigger points or scar tissue.

Airbags

Left arm airbags & cover

This chair has plenty of airbags, like most do nowadays. The number of airbags, in my opinion, is not nearly as important as how those airbags are being used. The Presidential has all the airbags in all the right places. I’ve already spoken about the foot and ankle airbags, as well as the shoulder airbags, which are all deployed wonderfully. Another area where I think they’ve excelled in this chair is the sequential arm airbags. The arm airbags are covered by a cloth material that, in turn, is covered with small rubber nobules. These nobules allow for the arm to be tractioned in the arm rest when the airbags compress so that the arms don’t get squeezed out. The arm airbags alternately inflate on the hand and wrist area and then the forearm. The left arm and then the right arm. In the manual settings you can deploy the airbags regionally, i.e. upper body, full body, waist & seat, or legs & feet. The intensity of the compression can also be adjusted, like pretty much every massage chair.

Heat

If you are looking for a massage chair with a good heat feature, you won’t find a better one than the Infinity Presidential. Not only does this chair come with heating pads in the back, waist, and seat, but you also can use the “Hot Rocks” program which will heat up the rollers themselves for up to 30′! The only other chairs I’ve known to have heated rollers are the Panasonic MA70 & MA73. But those models didn’t have the heating pads too. The “Hot Rocks” program is activated with a simple button the remote control. Each press of the button will heat up the rollers in 5′ increments.

When I was sitting on the Presidential writing up my findings for this article, I couldn’t believe how hot the pads in my back felt. It was fabulous. Of course, you can adjust the heat levels on the pads using the remote control settings, but if you want warm, man, this chair will give it to you! By the way, you can turn on and off each of the 3 heated areas independent of each other. When I was sitting on it, I turned off the low back and left the seat and waist on. It was too warm for me.

Menu vs. Quick Keys

Quick Keys

Quick Keys

The Infinity Presidential massage chairs have a full menu to scroll through on the remote control with all the regular options, including 12 auto programs. What makes the Presidential really convenient are what I like to call Quick Keys at the bottom of the remote control interface. Rather than having to go into the Menu and scroll through all the options to make an adjustment or program change, which can be slow and a bit cumbersome, you can use the Quick Keys to get it done in seconds. Here are the Quick Keys and what they operate:

  1. 3D+ – Move the rollers forward through 6 depth settings to dig deeper into the user’s back muscles.
  2. 3D-  – Retract the rollers back through 6 depth settings to lessen the depth of the massage.
  3. Auto – Each push of this button will allow the user to go through the main 7 auto programs. There are 5 additional “sub programs” that you can only access through the main menu.
  4. Manual – This allows you to select which mode you want the rollers to provide, i.e. kneading, tapping, knocking, back rubbing, etc.
  5. Air Intensity – 5 different compression settings to increase or decrease the intensity of the airbag compression.
  6. Air Massage – Move through the 4 different airbag regions (as described in the “Airbag” section of this article).
  7. ZeroG – 2-stage Zero Gravity positioning.
  8. Rollers – You can move the rollers up and down the spine once you’ve selected the mode you want the rollers to function in manually with the push of this button.
  9. Hot Rocks – This turns on the heated rollers in 5′ increments with each push of the button.

This & That

Here are a few other things this chair provides:

Speakers

Speakers

a. BlueTooth – You can pair your device to the chair and then play your music or whatnot from your phone through the speakers that are built into the chair.

b. Timer – You can increase your massage session in 5 minute increments up to a whopping 45 minutes! Very few chairs give you that much time in a single session.

LED Lights

LED Lights

c. LED Lights – Some lights on the side of the chair can be turned on to illuminate a dark room with a bit of ambience.

d. Multiple Language Displays – You can adjust the language on the remote screen display to English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese.

e. Remote control pouch sites on the outside of the arm rest.

Well, that’s about it. I hope you found this review helpful. I really like this chair for three main reasons: the strength of the rollers on the neck and suboccipital regions, the Quick Keys for easy operation, and the J-track with it’s associated stretch improvements over the other, traditional L-track models. Feel free to give me a call or leave a comment below with any questions about what I’ve written here or anything I haven’t covered. I am always at your disposal.

Dr. Alan Weidner

P.S. Give us a “Like”, “Share”, or “+1” and leave me a comment or question below to share what you learned or ask any questions, so other folks can benefit from this material.

 

 

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