Jan Yih-Kuen, Hou Xiao, He Xiangfeng, Guo Chunming, Jain Sanjiv, Bleakney Adam
From the Rehabilitation Engineering Lab, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois (Y-KJ, X. Hou, X. He, CG); Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, Illinois (SJ); and Disability Resources and Educational Services, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois (AB).
Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2021 Jul 1;100(7):694-699. doi: 10.1097/PHM.0000000000001625.
Cupping therapy may reduce muscle stiffness for managing fatigue. However, there is no scientific evidence showing changes of muscle stiffness after cupping therapy. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the cup size of cupping therapy affects the change of muscle stiffness. The objective of this study was to compare the effect of cup size of cupping therapy on muscle stiffness.
A repeated measures design with a counterbalanced design was used to test three cup sizes (45, 40, and 35 mm in inner diameter) in 12 healthy participants. Strain elastography was used to measure stiffness of the triceps before and after cupping therapy at 300 mm Hg for 5 mins. Strain elastogram was converted to the grayscale for the quantification of stiffness.
The overall stiffness of triceps significantly reduced after cupping therapy with the 45-mm (106.2 ± 7.7, P < 0.05) and 40-mm (109.6 ± 7.1, P < 0.05) cups, but not the 35-mm cup (115.5 ± 10.3, nonsignificant) compared with before cupping (115.8 ± 13.5). The stiffness of superficial layer did not show significantly difference in all three sizes of cup. The stiffness of deep layer significantly reduced after the cupping therapy with the 45- and 40-mm cups.
This is the first study demonstrating that cupping therapy significantly reduced muscle stiffness, especially at the deep layer.
拔罐疗法可能会减轻肌肉僵硬以缓解疲劳。然而，尚无科学证据表明拔罐疗法后肌肉僵硬会发生变化。此外，拔罐疗法的火罐尺寸是否会影响肌肉僵硬程度的变化尚不清楚。本研究的目的是比较拔罐疗法中不同火罐尺寸对肌肉僵硬程度的影响。
采用重复测量设计和平衡设计，对12名健康参与者测试三种火罐尺寸（内径分别为45、40和35毫米）。在300毫米汞柱压力下进行5分钟拔罐治疗前后，使用应变弹性成像技术测量肱三头肌的僵硬程度。将应变弹性图转换为灰度图以量化僵硬程度。
与拔罐前（115.8±13.5）相比，使用45毫米（106.2±7.7，P<0.05）和40毫米（109.6±7.1，P<0.05）火罐进行拔罐治疗后，肱三头肌的整体僵硬程度显著降低，但使用35毫米火罐（115.5±10.3，无显著差异）时未降低。在所有三种火罐尺寸下，表层的僵硬程度均未显示出显著差异。使用45毫米和40毫米火罐进行拔罐治疗后，深层的僵硬程度显著降低。
这是第一项表明拔罐疗法能显著降低肌肉僵硬程度，尤其是深层肌肉僵硬程度的研究。
