Have you seen those circular bruises some athletes have on their body? That’s cupping and it’s not just for show! Cupping is great to increase blood flow and decrease pain.
What is Cupping?
- Cupping is a type of therapy treatment that uses suction cups that are pumped on the skin. The air inside the cup allows the skin to lift inside the cup, which will allow the fascia layer to be separated.
What are the benefits of cupping?
- Relieve pain
- Improve muscle tension and tightness
- Release trigger points
- Improve mobility
- Improve muscle cramps
- Relaxes your muscles
- Increase blood flow
There are two ways that cupping can be done: Static and Dynamic.
STATIC: static cupping involves leaving the cups in one spot for typically 3-5 minutes. This is the type of cupping that causes those bruises. This is used to target deeper and localized muscles. Static cupping can also be beneficial to target trigger points to allow fluid to be drawn to that area. This will improve blood flow and healing to decrease pain. With static cupping, some bruising is expected since the cups are left on the skin for several minutes. Typically the bruises will last anywhere from a few days or up to a week/week and a half.
Benefits:
Effective for targeting specific and local muscle pain or trigger points.
DYNAMIC: dynamic cupping is when you glide the cups over the skin to target a bigger area of muscle tightness to relieve muscle pain. Dynamic cupping allows you to reach a larger area of the skin and target more muscles. The skin will typically turn red after dynamic cupping is performed. Don’t worry it will go away much faster than the bruises from Static Cupping. When an area of the skin turns a darker or brighter red, that just means that specific area or muscle was the tightest and most restricted.
Benefits: able to target a larger area of muscles and relieve muscle pain and stress while gliding over the tight areas.
