Active cupping - what is it and how can it help you?

As those funny dark circle hickies are showing up on famous athletes like Michael Phelps and actresses like Jennifer Aniston, more people are asking what it does and how it can help them. At Resolution, our clients have been singing the praises of what we call Active Cupping for more than a decade.

While the internet repeatedly discusses the Chinese medicine benefits of cupping, explaining cupping through a Western medicine understanding makes much more sense. The human body is made up of layers. From outside to inside, we have a skin layer (also called our dermo layer), then a layer of adipose or fatty tissue, then a layer of fascia, which holds the body together and is kind of like saran wrap. Deep to the fascial layer are our muscles. When we move, the fascia should be able to slide easily over our muscles, thus allowing freedom of motion.

With any prolonged inflammation or when we become inactive, the fascial layer will slowly become stuck to the muscles, and over time can significantly limit mobility. We call this myofascial adhesion and it is common with elite athletes, weekend warriors, or normal everyday Joes.

If you feel that you have become stiffer and attributeit as a normal pitfall of aging, think again, your fascia may simply be stuck to your muscles.

Cupping uses air suction to pull the skin, adipose, and fascial layer into the cups, while leaving the muscles layer free to move. Traditionally, the cups are left to sit or are moved around by a therapist to pull the fascia off of the muscles.

At Resolution, fast results are important to our Physiotherapists and clients and we have found it much more effective to get our clients moving when the cups are applied. The suction from the cups fixates the fascia, then our clients move actively into directions of limited motion, thus pulling the muscles away from the fascia. Within a few minutes our clients feel a significant improvement in motion and when the cups are removed they are shocked with how much looser they feel.

The great thing about Active Cuppine is that the results are long lasting. While it takes many years to create the adhesion between fascia and muscles, it takes much less time to release it.

Following a cupping session, every time you move you are maintaining the myofascial mobility and our clients usually see dramatic changes within a few sessions. Although the dark cupping circles are inevitable with this treatment, they go away quite quickly and our clients say they are totally worth it for how amazing they feel afterwards. I am sure Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow agree as they have been caught walking the red carpet sporting a few dark circles themselves.

If you wonder whether your fascia may be limiting your mobility, call us today and we will get you moving better!