Naddour, the American artistic gymnast, said that he found cupping 'provides relief from the soreness and pounding that come from gymnastics.'
'It has saved me from a lot of pain.'
'That's been the secret that I have had through this year that keeps me healthy,' Naddour said. 'It's been better than any money I've spent on anything else.'
These compliments were all from those Olympics athletes, regarding the unique cupping treatment from Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture..
AT the mean time, former U.S. Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin has also shown off her own cupping bruises on her Instagram page.
Cupping is a Chinese practice of sucking the skin away from the underlying muscles for a short period of time in order to stimulate blood flow. For swimmers, you’d want to do that to promote faster recovery and to swish away the build up of any lactic acid in the muscles that can lead to soreness. It involves a therapist heating small glass cups, then placing them on the skin and pulling them from the body to loosen and relax the muscles.It leaves dark red welts on your skin, but U.S. swimmers say the temporary marks are worth it.
It has been thoroughly studied by some researchers: “A 2010 review of 550 clinical studies … concluded that the ‘majority of studies show potential benefit on pain conditions, herpes zoster and other diseases.’ None of the studies reported serious bad health outcomes from the practice.”
“We know some clinical studies say it does cause great change in cellular activity, and muscle activity, and facial activity, so we’ll apply it to athletes well in advance of even before they go to Olympic trials,” says Robinson. “[We wouldn’t] start trying it on them at the Olympics. We want them to get exposure and say, Well, you’re telling me this does this but I don’t feel it so let’s move on to the next modality. We’re trying to use whatever we can to help them really move better.”
For Phelps, that’s getting cupped around twice a week. Even if it does leave a mark.
(Some info is excerpted from the internet.)