Cupping is a therapy method in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), where cups are placed on the patient’s skin for a few minutes to create a suction. Cupping the back is one. When swimmer Michael Phelps stepped onto the pool deck at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the world noticed something odd: neat circles of deep purple blooming across his shoulders and back. Reporters scrambled. Was he hurt? Bruised? In fact, he was practicing something far older than the modern Games, a healing tradition stretching back nearly two thousand years.
Those circles were the mark of cupping therapy. And the fact that the back was covered in them was no accident. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the back is one of the most important maps of the entire body, crossed by channels that ancient physicians believed connected to every organ. That is why cupping the back has long been used to ease pain, loosen tension, and, as the old texts put it, help the body find its balance again.
In this article, we will look at where cupping comes from, why the back matters so much in TCM, what those famous marks actually mean, what modern research does and does not say, and how to explore this ancient practice safely.
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