Last night, during 19-time gold medalist Michael Phelps’ 2016 Olympic debut, he removed his jacket, revealing a series of purple circles all over his body.
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After helping the US win the 4×100-meter freestyle relay on Sunday night, Phelps returned to the athletes village and chowed down. It involves a therapist heating small glass cups, then placing them on the skin and pulling them from the body to loosen and relax the muscles.
Cape Town – Following Michael Phelps superb performance in the men’s 4x100m freestyle on Sunday, coach Bob Bowman was a happy man.
Cupping is a technique that aims to promote blood flow.
You can catch a glimpse of the cupping marks in the video below, after Phelps and the rest of the US 4×100 team captures the gold.
Swimming second in the relay, Phelps took over from Caeleb Dressel, just 0.02 seconds behind France and in a few powerful strokes the 31-year-old gave his team the lead. Olympic athletes are super into it. The drop in temperature is what creates the suction.
USA gymnast Alex Naddour and Belarusian swimmer Pavel Sankovich have both been spotted with the spots.
“I’ve done it before pretty much every meet I go to”. The pressure ruptures capillaries in the skin which causes bruising.
“Our family has had a lot of great joy and happiness in this sport, and we’re just going to rally around all the memories we’ve had in the past 16 years”, Debbie Phelps said. Most frequently used as a spa treatment to enhance massage and reduce cellulite, it also has healing properties.
Farrar says she expects more athletes to ask about the treatment after seeing the very visible signs of its aftermath on some of this year’s Olympians.
Hamilton said cupping is “no such thing”.
And this year, it’s all about cupping. It is hard to know whether a patient feels better after cupping because the treatment worked on a physical level or because the patient expected to feel better and so does – in other words, the placebo effect.
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In reality, the mysterious bruises are from “cupping therapy”. Just as Americans have come to expect gold from her son, they have come to expect fervor and passion from her perch in the stands.
