Zip-on full-leg air boots with a 20-minute timer – the sit-still half of the evening.
Compression boots are the recovery-room device that has moved into living rooms: a pair of zip-on sleeves with air chambers that inflate one after another from the foot toward the thigh, then let go. The QUINEAR set has four chambers per leg, eight pressure levels that the maker gives as 50 to 120 mmHg, three programs and a timer of 20, 25 or 30 minutes, after which it switches itself off. A pressure sensor, per the maker, adjusts to the size of the leg. It comes with a digital controller, zips closed over each leg and packs into its own bag at 5.5 lb (2.5 kg).
It is a corded, sit-still device, which is both the point and the limitation: the chair needs an outlet, and the 20 minutes are not going anywhere. The listing comes in three sizes but never states boot length or gives a size chart in its text, and there is no heat.
Tip: Start on the lowest level and the 20-minute timer; the right setting feels like a slow, firm hug, not a squeeze, and it is easier to turn up next week than to sit through too much tonight.
Rester's Choice
cold on the quads or hamstrings after leg day, warm on the low back later, a freezer shelf kept for recovery
Amazon Basics
a recovery kit that lives by the door, the garage or the end of a hallway, rolling the whole kit to wherever you stretch, small apartments
Amazon Basics
lying lengthwise to open a rounded upper back, slow rolling of the mid-back and thighs, a corner with 3 ft of clear floor