Suman Chakravorty, Kolkata: It might seem an impossible thought, but this is what Indian football has started to witness. Legendary American swimmer Michael Phelps got a revolutionary therapy treatment in the RIO Olympics in 2014 and it helped him to get amazing success later on. Mohun Bagan becomes the first club in the history of Indian sports to introduce that famous “Cupping Theory” for their footballers. The club physiotherapist Abhinandan Chatterjee has been a revelation in the last few seasons and always loves to innovate new things in the training sessions. Earlier he introduced a special “mask training” in the Mohun Bagan training to enhance the endurance level of the players. But the Cupping Therapy, which he introduced yesterday, has indeed been a special one.
Viewers were taken aback by the perfectly circular marks that were revealed as Phelps shed his clothes to compete in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay on Sunday, going on to win his 19th Olympic gold.
While the guesses as to their origin offered on social media ranged from crop circles to tattoos to a symptom of the Zika virus, the real answer is they are the result of cupping therapy – a suction-based massage popular in the US Olympic team.
Abhinandan was telling www.xtratime.in , “Cupping therapy , the basic idea comes from the ancient Chinese treatment ‘fire cupping’. In modern day sports, this has become more advanced and modified and its growing its popularity in the world of sports. The athletes are getting benefits of this treatment and its getting popular globally.It helps to recover soft tissue injuries a lot. it also helps to get the relief from muscle spasm, pain, tightness etc.”
The Bagan physio added, “At Rio 2016 this therapy had become very famous as those deep purple patches were seen on the bodies of many famous athletes. I love to experiment new things and I’m glad that the club is giving me the freedom to work.”