By You’ve perhaps already heard of cupping, but you may not know how traditional forms of cupping and myofascial cupping are different. Since it’s the top treatment option today for people experiencing deep muscle tension, or in need of fast healing, this blog post shares a little more about this amazing therapy.
The Fundamentals of Myofascial Cupping
Fascia & Your Body
Before going into the details of myofascial cupping therapy, it’s important to fathom what fascia is in the body. And how healthy fascia is important to your overall well-being. In brief, fascia is composed of many bands of smooth and wavy connective tissues. These bands connect muscles, organs, and skeletal system of your body and enable you to move freely. Your fascia acts as a flexible, moveable armor between your insides and your skin.
A healthy fascia is supple and smooth, where the various bands move over and under one another easily. However, when it is damaged, it tends to get tense and sticky. This can be a result of an injury, surgery, stress, tension, or inflammation.
One of the vital things to note about fascia is that the bands as a whole are interconnected and work in tandem like one big sheet. Hence, when the fascia is damaged in one place, the adjacent fascia and muscles can be affected as well.
Myofascial Cupping for Soft Tissues
Myofascial cupping is designed to alleviate deep muscle tension in your soft tissues. Although myofascial cupping works just like traditional cupping techniques like fire cupping, it involves movement of the cups across the skin. This facilitates the therapist to work into a larger range of muscles and tissues, and to gently but firmly disconnect tissues that are sticking together and causing discomfort.
Myofascial cupping makes use of silicone cups in place of traditional glass cups. The cups are compressed & suctioned to the skin, building up negative pressure that stimulates more blood flow and fluids to the region. It furthermore softens tissues and make them more flexible and supple.
Important Things To Know Before Treatment
There are certain things to know before starting treatment.
- First, cupping on some occasions can cause marks that look like bruises on the skin (most likely on the upper body). They are rarely very painful and tend go away within a few days.
- Second, myofascial cupping therapy is not an instantaneous solution. It can potentially worsen conditions or symptoms for a few days before the healing sets in.
- Third, your massage therapist may opt to use myofascial cupping in tandem with other treatment methods (for instance therapeutic massage, deep tissue massage, or other massage treatments). This methodology can give you better results.
The Bottom Line
People go for myofascial cupping for a variety of reasons. Or, in a few cases, a therapist will recommend the treatment after observing painful trigger points or areas of tension. Some common reasons you might want to try myofascial cupping therapy can be muscle tension or spasms, chronic pain, restless leg syndrome, hip or back pain, etc.
