{"id":2251,"date":"2022-08-03T23:11:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T23:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2022-08-03T23:11:24","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T23:11:24","slug":"what-is-cupping-the-alternative-medicine-popular-with-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/?p=2251","title":{"rendered":"What is cupping? The alternative medicine popular with athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Swimmers gliding through the water in the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham have been wowing spectators with their flawless movement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the more curious may also notice the bruise-like perfect circles dotting the backs and upper arms of several athletes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The marks are from an ancient healing practice, popular in the Middle East and Islamic world, known as cupping, or&nbsp;<em>hijama<\/em>&nbsp;in Arabic. The word comes from the Arabic root&nbsp;<em>hajm<\/em>, which means sucking and expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First popularised among global audiences by US Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps at Rio 2016, hijama involves the &#8220;sucking out&#8221; of blood, using suction cups attached to the body. Those who extol its benefits point to relief from nerve pain, migraines and back problems, among other upsides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/discover\/cupping-alternative-medicine-popular-athletes-what\">Middle East Eye<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Swimmers gliding through the water in the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham have been wowing spectators with their flawless movement.&nbsp;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alternative-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2253,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions\/2253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alternativemedicine.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}