Olympians Receive Acupuncture

 It has been shown that acupuncture can help the body in many ways. From repairing the digestive system to boosting Qi, enhancing athletic performance to mending strains and sprains, acupuncture has many uses, and most of these uses are beneficial for professional athletes.

As the Olympics in Rio gets closer and closer with each passing day athletes are beginning to fine-tune their bodies for the upcoming events. Every athlete wants to be at their top performance level as they put everything on their country's line. Acupuncture is one key some Olympians use to achieve that extra competitive edge and get their physical and mental aspects ready for the games. Some of the biggest names on the Olympic stage are making acupuncture part of their health regimen.

In 2012, during the London Olympics, acupuncture was widely acknowledged in the Olympic community as an extremely beneficial solution to guaranteeing a higher level of athletic performance. Since London, more and more Olympic athletes have been turning to the needle to receive excellent results.

Wang Qun, an Olympic swimmer for the Chinese team, has been known to perform in events with cupping marks still present on her skin. Cupping is a form of traditional Chinese medicine, which involves applying heated glass cups to the skin to encourage smooth energy flow; it stimulates your Qi as the cups are placed along the meridian lines of your body. In addition to Qun, other Chinese Olympic Team members use acupuncture, most notably being windsurfer Yin Jian, a gold medalist in the 2008 Olympics. Jian attributed nightly acupuncture to help her achieve success and curing the muscle strains she experienced daily.

The Chinese Olympic Team doesn’t solely practice acupuncture. This form of traditional Chinese medicine has made its way to Olympians from the U.S. and Australia. Bronze medalist and track-athlete Dee Dee Trotter used daily visits from her local acupuncturist to help her unlock the potential needed to win third place in the 400-meter run at the London Olympic Games.

A Canadian snowboarder, Mark McMorris, upped his game with acupuncture before his bronze-medal finish at the Sochi Olympics. After injuring his body during the X games weeks before the Olympics, McMorris began to attend acupuncture sessions to re-calibrate his body. By the results shown, we know it worked. McMorris performed outstandingly in the Slopestyle event and brought back the bronze medal for the Canadian Olympic Team.

See, acupuncture is beneficial in many ways. Although you may be hesitant to stray away from the trusted and commonplace forms of Western medicine, you should really consider giving acupuncture a try. If it wasn’t enough that one in every 10 U.S. adults have tried acupuncture, consider the facts, even the pros are doing it to recover, enhance and overall better their body.