Unfortunately, even when it exists (as in the current example which has not been substantiated), it tends to not be lasting, sending people in search of new (or old) placebos.
Phelps’ belief that cupping somehow improves his athletic performance is similar to Wade Boggs’ conviction that he did better if he only ate chicken before baseball games.
Yes it’s an ancient Chinese practice , I had it done a few times and was told it was in ancient time. It take time for the red marks to ago .
One could theorize that cupping allows one to apply inverse pressure to the muscles, as opposed to something like massaging or other pressure treatments. So maybe in terms of loosening up muscles, being able to both push + pull is better than just push.
But, I’d vote that the fact that Phelps had long arms is the main thing that helped him win. It’s unlikely that the cups are able to do anything to anything below the epidermis.
I don’t know if it’s ancient, but I doubt it’s a recent western import. It’s as common as taking an aspirin, even in the most remote villages. I’m not sure that a recent western practice could achieve that level of penetration.
It appears like 100% woo.
Some claim it increases blood flow, but if you’re to the point of bursting capillaries and creating hickeys, aren’t you inhibiting blood flow?
I don’t think it’s a recent import, but I do suspect it originated in Egypt, found its way to Europe, and from there made its way to China, possibly along the Silk Road.
Of course, cupping evolved into the torture involving a rat, an iron bowl, and some fire.
(Trap rat in iron bowl on victim’s stomach. Build fire on bowl. Crazed rat tunnels his way out…)
Many woo-prone Westerners assume that cupping and other “traditional Chinese medicine” practices are wildly popular in China.
The reality is that in recent years both practitioners and consumers have been moving towards use of that evil ol’ Western Evidence-Based Medicine.
There’s a patronizing and even racist element to alt med beliefs about what “primitive” cultures hold important as regards health care.
Chinese? What Chinese?
Ask any Jews of a certain age about what their parents recommended n the Old Country.
And then you were eaten by a Gru.
…well that sucks…
IIRC, it was also used as a form of bloodletting. (It’s thought that that was what killed Queen Victoria’s father, his doctors used cupping to treat pneumonia)
But it doesn’t pull the muscle; it only pulls the skin and subcutaneous fat.
There are several of us here that have lived in China and can attest to how wildly popular TCM is in China.
Yes, that’s true. The same pressures have largely aligned the modern practices of M.D.'s and D.O.'s in the USA. On the other hand, there are people who still seek out homeopaths in modern countries!
I’m not sure I’m seeing that in this thread.
Not every criticism about a different culture has a racist element to it.
Bullshit is Bullshit regardless of the skin colour of the perpetrator.
Homeopathy is the highest grade hogwash known to man and yet is was “invented” (i.e. made up from absolutely fuck-all evidence) right here in the heart of the enlightened west.
Strapping an injury helps, there is no doubt about that. The question is whether this particular (expensive) tape and technique can bring about the benefit it claims over and above other non-proprietary methods.
The world of elite sports is full of bullshit and/or practices that are not necessarily and universally as beneficial as everyone considers them to be.
ice-baths anyone?
The whiff of placebo is strong with many such practices.
Elite sports? You can’t walk through your local 24-Hour Fatness without seeing magnetic bracelets, copper-lined socks, herbal rubs, and nineteen other kinds of long-disproven woo. They often sell it at the main counter.
very true, very true. You’d just think that, at the highest level, you’d want your support people to be using something that actually works.
Of course when you do get to elite level much of the difference to be made is mental so perhaps a placebo is just what the (quack) doctor ordered.
And I’m curious. It may be a play on words that loses something in the trip across the Atlantic but what is a “24-HR Fatness”?
It’s a sneering reference to 24 Hour Fitness, a gym chain. Attempt at fat-shaming, basically.
Hey, just found out it’s the source of one of my favorite and often-applicable sayings!–
“As useful as a Band-Aid on a corpse,”
Zolst helfen vi a toyten bankes “It helps as [well as] cupping a dead man.”
Cite, giant page of Yiddish sayings.
I am unaware of references for Yiddish etymology, although I’m sure they’re out there. It’s probably interesting re “bankes.”
ETA: Just remembered I first heard it, in English, from my Old-Country-born father as a kid. Probably in one of his typically encouraging discourses on one project or another of mine…
Cupping is extremely common in China and within the Chinese diaspora. It’s about has hard to find a cupper as to find a chiropractor. And both may fall into the same “not medically quantifiable range.”