Olympic chances elude professionals

The other day several friends and I were chatting about cupping, a traditional Chinese therapy to relax leg, back and shoulder muscles, when one of them bent down and showed off red marks from the "fire cup" below the back of his neck.

Another friend pitched in, saying that he had also tried it, after the Rio Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps touted its benefits on social media. But he had opted for rubber cups with an air pump that would produce less efficacy than the "fire cup", but leave no trace.

When I was a child, I learned from my mother who was a specialist in traditional Chinese medicine about how cupping worked. The glass "fire cup" sucked the skin over the areas of discomfort after the heating created a vacuum. While such cupping might be the most effective with soreness or pain, it would create obvious large circles that were often associated with gangsters in the old days.