What is fascia?
Lets understand the word "myofascial" first. The word 'my' means 'muscle'. The word 'fascia' means the 'band' or 'connective soft tissue' that supports your entire body. If you could see connective tissue beneath your skin you would observe that it is fibrous, densely woven, continuously connects and surrounds our internal organs, permeates the entire body from head to toe, and has characteristics that provide cushioning and support to our complete body.
Time, injury, wear and tear, poor posture, stress and other factors can cause this connective tissue to manifest tension, restrictions and imbalance within our bodies. Myofascial Release is a very effective hands-on technique that works to 'release' and rebalance our muscle and connective soft tissue system.
What conditions might warrant Myofascial Cupping?
General discomfort, chronic pain, sporting injuries, headache, back pain, whiplash injury, general injury, muscle spasms, restriction of motion, poor posture and specific ailments related to everyday living such as carpal tunnel and neurological dysfunction. Myofascial restrictions can be manipulated to restore range of motion and alleviate pain.
Treatment
A Myofascial Cupping treatment uses a combination of massage strokes and negative pressure to lift, separate, and stretch underlying soft tissues. Cupping is typically applied on the neck, shoulders, back, sacrum, hip, abdomen, thigh, calves, and upper arms.
Areas of musculoskeletal tension or congestion are located using massage techniques, and cups may be applied on an affected area and moved over the surface in a gliding motion, or possibly put on a fascial adhesion or trigger point for a short time to reduce or eliminate it.
Myofascial Cupping uses cups made of glass or plastic; some have soft squeezable bulbs at one end and some can be attached to a machine or manual pump that creates the suction.
These methods avoid the danger of using heat and fire to depressurize the cups. Cupping procedures may leave light to dark red marks on the skin that disappear in 5 to 10 days.
