Does cupping really work for sports injuries?

I think myself is not the only one who asks this question. When I search on Google, there are 731,000 results for this question.

Sports Injury

I am not a real fan of exercising, but I need to exercise every day to keep fit and be healthy. As most of us known that exercise is really a good habit, so do I. I know exercise is a good thing but it’s just hard for me to keep doing that.

After exercising for several months, there is one day, after running for an hour, I found my knees really hurt. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it at first, because it was occurred several times before. I thought it would recover by itself really quickly within one or two days. However, I was wrong this time. I got a lot more pains after the second day’s running hour.

I asked one of my friends who has a lot of experiences with exercising especially running. She told me it might because of my overuse of knees or overstretched tendons. She said that repeated bending or high stress exercises such as lunges and plyometrics can irritate the kneecap joint. Overstretched may also cause the pain of runner’s knee.

Then I asked what should I do with my pains? She said rest would be the best option.

“Are there any ways to help me recover quicker?” I asked

“Maybe you could go for an acupuncturist and have some cupping treatments.” She replied.

I know what is cupping because I am Chinese and I am familiar with Traditional Chinese Medicine. My parents believe in TCM a lot more than I do. I am kind of skeptical for it because it is not scientific proved.

http://acupuncture-clinic.ca/services/#ventouses

Plastic Cupping

But as far as I know, cupping usually will not cause serve problems. I decided to give it a try, because the worst situation would be no changes to my knee pain. And there is no much worse than my current situation.

I searched online and found an acupuncturist in my area. I scheduled an appointment with him.

It is the first time I scheduled an appointment. He asked me few questions about my past medical experiences and my knee situation. After discussion with him, he suggested me to do acupuncture. I refused because I am afraid of needles. He then suggested cupping treatments.