09/23/2025
3D Movement and Rehab often uses cupping therapy as part of our holistic approach to helping our clients improve pain and mobility.
Cupping therapy involves a placing suction cups on the skin to create a negative pressure that lifts and separates the tissue layers: skin, fat, fascia, and muscle. This enhances blood flow, promotes lymphatic mobility and facilitates a reduction of fascial densification. Fascial densification is a key benefit of cupping therapy by increasing space between tissue layers. It enhances fascial glide and remodels scar tissue which is essential for normal muscle function and flexibility.
By reducing friction between the fascial layers, cupping allows for smoother movement of muscles, particularly in areas where fascial restrictions are common such as the shoulders, back, knees and hips.
Modern cupping, known as myofascial decompression, combines movement and negative pressure to maximize therapeutic benefits; this approach involves exercising while the cups are applied. The combination of negative pressure and movement enhances the mechanical and neurophysiological effects of cupping promoting greater tissue elasticity and facilitating the release of fascial adhesions. This technique is particularly effective in addressing chronic movement restrictions and mobility issues resulting from long-term standing fascial restrictions.
Another potentially powerful benefit of cupping that is being researched is how it can improve flexibility similar or greater than that of massage and static stretching without a subsequent decrease in power/strength that these other modalities often result in (Murray and Clarkson, 2019).
