Cupping is a form of stretching using suction. Cupping lifts layers of soft tissue, helping them separate so that skin, muscles and connective tissue can move more freely. Cupping draws fluid into cells flushing acid and toxins out, which are drawn to the surface so that the body’s immune system can identify and remove them.
Traditional Chinese Cupping
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) uses glass cups that are heated and then fastened to the skin. The suction is a by-product of the heated air cooling inside the cup.
TCM Cupping practice leaves the cups on the client’s skin for 5-20 minutes, with the expectation that the tissue in the cup will bruise and darken. The bruising, like the TCM scraping technique Gua Sha, breaks blood vessels in the skin in order to bring toxins to the surface.
How is Myofascial Cupping different?
Cups are applied for between 30 seconds and 3 minutes with an average of 90 seconds. The degree of colouration is determined by the health of the tissue. Dysfunctional tissue around trigger points will discolour within seconds but most areas will not discolour at all.
- Parked cups stay in one spot, typically for no longer than 90 seconds.
- Moving a joint through it’s range of motion with a parked cup over a trigger point can be very effective at breaking up adhesions and resolving the trigger point.
- Moving cups lift and separate the skin and connective tissue along pathways called ‘anatomy trains’. This technique can feel very uncomfortable so good communication between therapist and client is needed to stay within a comfortable range of sensation.
What do we mean by adhesions?
Dysfunctional tissue like stuck hamstrings are the result of repetitive compression, such as from sitting all the time at a computer or while driving. This compression inhibits healthy circulation of the chemicals and nutrients needed for metabolic processes within muscle cells as well as inhibiting the removal of the by-products of the metabolic process (carbon dioxide and lactic acid).
What do we mean by soft tissue toxicity?
Instead adhesions and trigger points stop circulation, enabling the build up of chemical byproducts. The acid causes feelings of nausea while ‘P-substance’, a chemical that builds up in dysfunctional tissue inhibits the body’s ability to respond to pain with endorphins.
How does Cupping help release toxicity
Cupping creates a negative pressure that forces interstitial fluid (fluid between cells) into the cells, flushing out the acid and P-substance that is trapped in the cell by the stresses the cell and tissue are under. Suction draws these toxins to the surface where they are visible as bruising. The body’s immune system registers the concentration of toxicity in the bruise and sends macrophages to eat up the ‘invaders’, releasing the toxicity from your body.