Role models
Orac found some choice photos of Phelps with the cupping in progress.
https://www.instagram.com/p/7djtuUyx7j/
And there’s Natalie Coughlin – saying it hurts a lot. Benign?
And here she is looking downright scalded:
Orac also shares a photo of cupping bruises turned necrotic.
At least using a pump will reduce the risk of burns. They used to generate the vacuum by holding the cup over a flame.
I wonder again idly why it is so many of these therapies do seem to involve pain.
Notion occurring to me is: athletes especially will get a lot of no pain no gain drummed into them over the years; odds are nothing much notable happens without sacrifice, nothing worth having comes without a fight, and so on. Maybe this kinda messaging makes us a bit more suckers for especially the nonsense that actually hurts, oddly enough? People get the notion, well, it hurts, so probably it’s doing good? Or maybe it’s also that once you’ve gone through all the pain of it, you need to tell yourself: it helped. Otherwise, yeah, I voluntarily went through that discomfort-through-actual-agony (and then paid for it) for nothing. Which will add up to testimonials, and thus, more spread for the particular pointless ‘therapy’… And see also how more than a few religions do require sacrifice, various forms of self-denial…
Fool’s errand, maybe, but maybe we might just need more regularly to point out: yeah, this is one of those things where it doesn’t reverse so well. As in: yes, it’s difficult to achieve much that’s notable without _some_ level of suffering… But just because you’re suffering doesn’t mean you’re actually achieving anything. Possibly, you’re just suffering. This, too, can happen.
Then I guess there’s also that pain may get endorphins moving. And those, apparently, can be pretty addictive…
Anyway, I figure this is probably why my chocolate ice cream-based cult never really took off.
There was an interview today on an NPR program, “The Takeaway”, with a sports doctor, who unequivocally stated that cupping is without medical merit, period. He then went on to do the “Buuuuuttttt…”, in which he stated that in ultra-athletic competitions like these, the placebo effect might just give someone like Phelps that 0.01 second advantage – “if he feels it’s working, maybe that makes all the difference”, something like that.
Andrew, make it a chocolate hazelnut gelato cult and I’ll join right up.