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Cupping Has an Olympic Moment

What Are the Purple Dots on Michael Phelps? Cupping Has an Olympic Moment

Doug Mills / The New York Times

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS and KAREN CROUSE

August 8, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO — Olympics trivia: What has 19 gold medals and a bunch of purple circles?

If you watched a certain swimmer’s Rio Games debut on Sunday night, when he propelled the United States 4×100-meter relay team to a gold medal, you know the answer: Michael Phelps.

While it may look like Phelps and several other Olympians with those skin marks have been in a bar fight, the telltale dots actually are signs of “cupping,” an ancient Chinese healing practice that is experiencing an Olympic moment.

“Because this particular recovery modality shows blemishes on his skin, he walks around and looks like a Dalmatian or a really bad tattoo sleeve,” said Keenan Robinson, Phelps’s personal trainer. “It’s just another recovery modality. There’s nothing really particularly special about it.”

Practitioners of the healing technique — or sometimes the athletes themselves — place specialized cups on the skin. Then they use either heat or an air pump to create suction between the cup and the skin, pulling the skin slightly up and away from the underlying muscles.

The suction typically lasts for only a few minutes, but it’s enough time to cause the capillaries just beneath the surface to rupture, creating the circular, eye-catching bruises that have been so visible on Phelps as well as members of the United States men’s gymnastics team. If the bruising effect looks oddly familiar, it’s because it’s the same thing that happens when someone sucks on your neck and leaves a hickey.

“I’ve done it before meets, pretty much every meet I go to,” Phelps said on Monday. “So I asked for a little cupping yesterday because I was sore and the trainer hit me pretty hard and left a couple of bruises.”

Physiologically, cupping is thought to draw blood to the affected area, reducing soreness and speeding healing of overworked muscles. Athletes who use it swear by it, saying it keeps them injury free and speeds recovery. Phelps, whose shoulders were dotted with the purple marks as he powered the relay team, featured a cupping treatment in a recent video for a sponsor. He also posted an Instagram photo showing himself stretched on a table as his Olympic swimming teammate Allison Schmitt placed several pressurized cups along the back of his thighs. “Thanks for my cupping today!” he wrote.

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Why is cupping so popular?

Why is it so popular?

Liz Szabo, USA TODAY 11:33 a.m. EDT August 9, 2016

Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps practices cupping, an ancient Chinese therapy that uses suction to help circulate blood and relieve muscle tension. KPNX

Don't be surprised if your friends and neighbors are soon covered in purple spots.

"Cupping" is poised to become the latest fad.

Swimming champion Michael Phelps' use of cupping, a type of alternative medicine intended to ease muscle pain, has attracted nearly as much attention as his latest gold medal.

Cupping, which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, involves using cups to create suction on the skin. Fans claim that pulling the skin away from the body improves their blood flow. What's not in dispute: The procedure leaves people covered in dark purple marks.

Phelps, who won his 19th Olympic medal Sunday, said he relies on cupping to heal sore muscles. And he's not the only one. Track and field competitors in Rio are using it. So are male gymnasts at the Olympics. Celebrities Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston are big fans of the big dots.

But does it actually work?

Argentina setter Yael Castiglione (18) and wing spiker Josefina Fernandez (14) celebrate a point during a volleyball match.  Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports

There's little to no medical evidence that cupping has any benefit, said Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and a former sideline physician for the New York Jets.

“There are studies on this, but they aren’t well done,” Glatter said.

In 2012, a review of 135 studies on cupping found it had some benefit for shingles, facial paralysis, acne and age-related wear and tear of the spinal disks of the neck. But authors of the review noted that the studies weren’t carefully done, so their results weren’t very valuable.

The review found cupping had no benefit for sore muscles.

That doesn't mean cupping is useless, Glatter said.

Cupping could work as a placebo, giving elite athletes a psychological boost, Glatter said. In other words, cupping works because people think it works. “When people feel better, they may perform better,” Glatter said. “But in terms of performance and power, (Phelps) already got that in the bag.”

While using a suction cup on sore muscles seems harmless, Glatter notes that people who heat the cups could potentially burn themselves. People could also develop infections.

“You’re causing tissue injury, and there could be bacteria on the skin,” Glatter said.