Game theory | A load of hot air?

Olympians have discovered new fads and superstitions

Even if practices such as cupping provide no physiological boost, they can help psychologically

By C.S-W.

ATHLETES are an odd bunch, driven by the desire for a gold medal to train on early mornings and late nights and to follow obsessive diet regimens. But those lining up at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio de Janeiro this week look odder than most. Strewn across their backs are painful-looking circular burn marks. The sores are not the result of some unfortunate illness: they are the effects of “cupping”, an ancient form of acupuncture that has come into vogue at the highest level of sports. Alex Naddour, an American gymnast competing at the Rio games, told one newspaper that cupping was an alternative to a traditional massage, allaying the physical pain and loosening tight muscles after hours of practice on the gym floor.

The treatment, a form of Chinese medicine, involves applying hot suction cups filled with flaming liquid or paper to the skin, sometimes accompanied by bloodletting. As the air inside the cup cools, it creates a vacuum, puckering up the skin, and supposedly reducing inflammation in the body. Proponents of cupping claim myriad health benefits, though these have not been proven definitively in reputable scientific literature. Rather, most people’s knowledge of cupping before this year’s Olympics came from a handful of proponents in Hollywood, such as the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who has dabbled with it for more than a decade. So why do athletes and specialised sports scientists buy into these pseudoscientific fads? In short, because the potential psychological benefits of believing in the practice can translate into a real performance boost, regardless of whether the treatment itself produces physiological changes.

The gaps in performance between elite athletes have become so small that even minor interventions can mean the difference between a place on the podium and being forgotten to history. No wonder that so many have turned to steroids—or, in the case of Russia, that sports federations have allegedly colluded with anti-doping agencies to juice up an entire nation of athletes. But competitors who are cupping may be profiting instead from the placebo effect: nothing is happening to their muscular capacity, but their enhanced confidence allows them to train and perform more effectively, while also de-motivating their opponents. A back mottled with red puckers can spook competitors, reckons Chris Beedie, a sports scientist at Canterbury Christ Church University. The message? “I’m getting this extra help, and you’re not.”

Phil Hurst, a PhD student in sports science at the same university, has found that the placebo effect on an athlete’s performance is measurable: it can yield improvements of 1%-3%. In 2014 Mr Hurst carried out a study in which endurance runners were given a placebo sports drink, thinking it contained caffeine. Though their changes in performance varied, their times improved by an average of 1.7%.

Cupping is not the only curious treatment athletes are using at this year’s games. American sprinters are using sets of “Halo” headphones, which purportedly enhance the brain using electrical impulses shot through the ear canal. The technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is meant to improve the speed of connections that neurons make with muscles. For sprinters, who are required to react within a split second of hearing the starting gun, this could (theoretically) make a big difference. The scientific evidence for the benefits of tCDS is mixed: a paper published last year found that the treatment had enhanced the memory and learning capacity of mice, while clinical trials have disagreed over the impact on human motor skills. Halo’s website lists case studies that have shown immediate benefits for strength and technique. Elite athletes have been persuaded: the Golden State Warriors basketball team used the headsets throughout the most recent season, while potential draft picks in America’s National Football League are hoping they will get them noticed at the upcoming combine.

These odd-looking attempts to gain the slightest benefit are not new. The ancient Greeks, who invented the games two millennia ago, smothered themselves in olive oil to reduce grip during wrestling bouts (which probably helped) and gain the power of the goddess Athena (which probably didn’t). Such convictions were no less spurious than the beliefs of modern athletes who have strapped their limbs with “kinesio tape”, a specialist elastic material developed by a Japanese chiropractor in the 1970s. Whether it actually improves an athlete’s performance—or simply gives them the perception of support, allowing them to push their bodies further—is disputed. A 2014 survey of studies into the practice of kinesio taping found negligible improvement over those who were not taped at all.

Even if athletes with a clutch of medals, such as the swimmer Michael Phelps, are dedicated practitioners of cupping, lighting flammable liquid in glass cups on your skin won’t get you any closer to becoming Michael Phelps. Worryingly, athletes from the American Olympic team have told inquisitive journalists quizzing them about their strangely-marked backs that they are beginning to perform the technique on each other in the absence of a trained professional. Perhaps they should give up on the puckering, and wear a pair of lucky underpants. With enough conviction, a favourite jockstrap might be as effective—and significantly less painful, too.

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