Here's the part where we really start to work on the injury. As I said before, the initial assessment involves neurological muscle testing to find the dysfunction.
A dysfunction is an adaptation to a compensation. If a large muscle group such as the quads get over loaded with a certain stimulus (too many squats, running down hill, etc.), once that happens the nervous system tightens the connective tissue around that muscle group in order to protect that muscle from injury.The second that happens the body automatically adapts to that situation by compensating. The compensations are generally in the form of smaller muscles doing the work of the bigger ones. If that compensation continues for an extended period of time, it becomes a dysfunction which usually manifests as pain.
How does cupping therapy work? Let's start by explaining what a trigger point is. A trigger point is the result of the phenomena that I explained above. Generally, those smaller muscles are the site of pain because they have become hypertonic. This leads to paripheral nerves feeling trapped and unable to glide freely through the tissues like they normally do. They then start sending danger signals to the brain, which the brain perceives as pain. So if you imagine yourself as peripheral nervous tissue, and you are lying on the floor in straight jacket, cupping begins to pull on the straps and give you room to move freely rather then stepping on you and applying pressure which will ultimately make the situation worse.
Once we have everything all figured out, I use RockTape to make the changes more neurologically permanent. The sensation of the RockTape on your skin provides the brain with constant feedback of the corrected motor pattern which then provides longer lasting results.The RockTape also helps with fluid exchange. This is important because the cupping therapy not only gave those nerves freedom to move through tissues again, they also freed a bunch of toxins that were also trapped in the connective tissue, which is why we tend to see some bruising.