Cupping for the Neck Pain and Shoulder Tension

Movement or passive stretching with 'parked' cups (Also known as static cupping) along a muscle such as the trapezius, spine and surrounding tissue is very beneficial for chronic neck pain.

In today’s video blog episode, we are back with Bull City SOLES  , where Julie discusses cupping therapy for neck and shoulder pain and the cups she likes to use.

What is the difference between using massage balls and cupping therapy to care for neck and shoulder pain?

Julie recommends using both. Where massage balls press on or compress the tissue, cupping creates a negative pressure also known as decompression, lifting and separating the tissue to help boost blood flow.

Here Julie uses a combination of ionic ENERGY and CHAKRA silicone cupping cups and shows a technique called ‘blanket cupping’ where she covers the entire treatment area in cups and continues to perform ‘active movement or passive stretching’ while cups are suction on for 1-5 minutes.

While cups are suctioned on, Julie proceeds to tuck chin back and then roll her head slowly down, as if bending one vertebra at a time. Drop your chin down to your chest, as far as you can reach; bring it back up and proceed to perform neck and chin rotations bringing the chin to the shoulder slowly, continuing this on both sides. You can also drop ear to shoulder or turn and drop ear to chest. And that is it, as simple as that!

Doing this cupping workout with active movement stretches should help release muscle tension and increase range on motion.

About the Cupping Sets in this video:

Both ENERGY and CHAKRA cups are easy to self-apply. Each style differs in the following ways:

1. The ionic ENERGY cups come in a set of 10 and are smaller measuring 2” in diameter. Each cup is embedded with tourmaline (negatively charged ions). Strength of the vacuum suction is light to medium, and these little guys are easy to self-apply to trigger points, neck, shoulders, joints and feet.
2. The CHAKRA cups come in a set of 8 with 4 varying sizes. These cups produce medium to strong suction  and work great for muscles, joints and feet.

We hope that you give this cupping ritual a try and let us know if you find it helpful.