Kaley Cuoco is an avid horsewoman, which is a high level of activity in and of itself. In addition, like many horsefolks and actors, Kaley maintains a workout schedule with a trainer. Whereas the intention is to keep Kaley in the best shape possible, sometimes it leaves her unable to move, so she seeks out relief. We’ve known for a couple of years that Kaley is among those who practices cupping, which uses suction cups placed strategically on the body to increase circulation. Kaley instagrammed the cupping and scraping therapy that she went to because she was so tight from working out. The scraping tool her therapist used was a jade gua sha on Kaley’s lower half to help her flexibility.
“My angel Flory literally scraping my legs and hips,” Cuoco captioned one video. “I’m so tight I can barely bend or turn. I haven’t been able to actually move in weeks.”
Cuoco, in discomfort, asked Flory, “What are you doing to me. Explain what horrific things you’re doing to me.”
“I’m doing gua sha,” Flory responded. “Your fascia is intense and tight, and I need to remove it … your nerves and your ligaments get better.”
As Flory puts (suction cups) on Cuoco’s legs, the actress said, in some pain, “I mean, that is just ridiculous. Oh my goodness gracious. Oh my gosh.”
After Cuoco left the therapy appointment, she said that she was “absolutely wrecked.”
“I don’t even know how to function right now,” she said, while sitting in her car. “First, I started with Ryan Sorensen at Proactive, at my gym. Which, shout out to Proactive Fitness, I am like, so obsessed with that gym. You just feel like a badass when you go in there. I love everyone there … I got my ass handed to me there, and then I came over and got a bunch of body work, which guys, I have got to do more of.”
Cuoco said that she needs to spend more time repairing her body.
“I go a few weeks and then I end up not being able to walk,” she said. “I think my body just starts to shut down from just complete overuse. If I don’t take care of it, I’m going to crumble. You’ve got to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of the things around you.”
I only know what I’ve looked up about either cupping or scraping. I adhere mostly to traditional medicine, but I am not averse to any alternative medical treatment. Methods that have survived thousands of years have stuck around for a reason. The particular kind of scraping Kaley’s therapist did has been used for a lot of surprising maladies, for instance, migraines. It’s not proven but I’m willing to let someone scrape my neck for two weeks if there is even the slightest chance it will lessen my next migraine. I believe cupping works, I really do. But it also freaks me out because it conjures up images of those glass domes medieval doctors used to enclose the leeches for bloodletting.
I like Kaley’s last line about taking care of yourself in order to take care of the things around you. That applies to many aspects of life, doesn’t it?
Photo credit: Instagram and WENN Photos
While I’m glad she gets relief from difficult workouts. Maybe we should not hold women up to standards requiring them to workout so hard they can’t move to book jobs?
^Absolutely with you on this
Unrelated, but what is going on with her eye makeup in that header photo? It looks like how I used to do my eyeliner in 2002-2003. In high school. When Avril Lavigne was a big thing. She’s such a cute lady, and it really ages her terribly.
If she is exercising so much she can’t move for weeks, she is most likely damaging her body and no amounts of cupping/scrapping is going to help.
It sounds like she has an exercise addiction…
Yes that sounds horrible and damaging. I hope she’s exaggerating, but if not she needs to rethink her workouts.
It sounds likes she needs to take another look at her workout routine and possibly ease up a bit or do more warming up/cooling down and stretching, including with foam rollers. I used to dismiss stretching until I started to experience pain while running and after working out. Stretching has pretty much solved every pain I’ve had and when I stretch less the pain starts to come back. It’s not a cure-all but it seems worth a shot before resorting to other, more expensive remedies.
There’s a balance with stretching. Too much stretching before a workout can cause more problems. I have a chronic pain condition, and stretching gives me quite a bit of relief just in general life.
But seriously – wtf is she doing that she’s in THAT much pain for THAT long. She’s either hitting the gym WAY too hard, or she’s doing her exercises incorrectly and injuring herself.
Her horse — beautiful!!
I get migraines also, Hecate. They are horrible. I would do anything to avoid one — scraping, cupping, have a head amputation, whatever it takes.
Cupping has definitely helped with the tension in my shoulders and upper back that lead to a migraine!
I used to get migraines all the time as well. Working out made it just worse for some reason. Then I found and old book in a yard sale, called Callanetics. It’s like Pilates mixed with Ballet. It works amazingly well. Not only do I look better in my 30s than in my 20s even, but the migraines are gone. I used to have one every week nearly, now I didn’t have one for 3 months ask far.
Just a word of warning: the videos are horrible, the original ones, but don’t let that put you off.
Hope it will help you too.
And the best thing is, you can do Callanetics at home and don’t really break a sweat either, which is great because dehydration iOS the worst for migraines
Mona – I love Callanetics!! I did it when those videos were new in the 80s which makes me feel old. You are the only person who has known about it beyond my mom (on VHS). I never noticed a connection to my migraines, but I wasn’t really looking for one. You are right, that is the best shape I have ever been in. The hip exercises – such small movements, such huge results. I think I have the DVD version somewhere around here…
I do have far fewer migraines than I had when I was younger. Diet change, hydration and oh, yeah…menopause…have all reduced them significantly. Now, the ones I have left are from barometric pressure changes. But they are WHOPPERS! (I think the solution for that is to move someplace barometrically stable)
Enn, thanks for that information. I had acupuncture for a migraine once and it worked for a while, but releasing the tension in your neck and back can only help, right?
That stupid inside the lid eyeliner doesn’t flatter her.
Cupping is a pulling therapy that loosens tight muscles via suction. You can increase blood flow, reduce inflammation, ameliorate pain, and more with cupping.
Gua sha is a pushing therapy that–depending on the instrument used–breaks adhesions and causes heat and congestion to rise to the surface and dissipate.
Both can be akin to deep tissue massage, at least to a certain extent.
Like many things, these therapies are denigrated until Western culture can appropriate them. Hence, for example, the so-called Grafton technique, which is essentially gua sha (but since it’s packaged by a Westerner and sold as real live scientifical medicine….).
If you love the foam roller, you probably would enjoy either or both of these therapies. The difference is that a foam roller doesn’t get into the details, whereas a correctly trained practitioner tailors the treatment to your actual adhesions and painful areas.
It’s always best to go to a real practitioner (aka a licensed acupuncturist). I’ve treated people who have gone to a massage therapist for cupping who have been injured. And performing gua sha takes a lot more skill than just being able to rake a tool over your body. It is real medicine and it does genuinely work, especially if you go to someone who has spent the four or so years in Chinese medicine school and who has done the thousand hours of supervised clinical internship, and who has successfully completed the grueling state board exams before undergoing the process of getting a medical license from the state where they practice. A weekend training by a massage therapist or chiropractor just isn’t as good, and you’re not going to get the depth of knowledge that makes it a genuine traditional Chinese medical treatment.
I haven’t seen her video but I only use jade gua sha for facial rejuvenation or in specific cases with very sensitive individuals. Maybe she was being overly dramatic about how much it hurt, but it may well have hurt less if the practitioner had used a metal instrument, which is what one commonly does with muscles. Again, I haven’t seen the clip so I don’t know, but that could be it. That, or she’s just being dramatic.
I am finally getting around to watching the Big Bang Theory while doing laundry. Casual racism, homophobia & body shaming (recurring themes on the show) aside, I can’t get past how Kaley as Penny is a less fashionable Rachel from friends. Anyone else thinks she based her character off the Rachel template?
Just wait until you get to the whole “hahaha, Penny’s probably an alcoholic” phase (if you haven’t already)
@Erinn, I have got to the part where she needs ‘magic potion’ to continue hanging out with the guys as they play board games and where Leonard casually mentions he wouldn’t want to take Penny on holiday to the place where wine originated. All of these punch lines timed to the laugh-track. Problematic AF. Why does she continue to hang out with these smug morons when her only purpose is to be fetishised as the beautiful dumb blonde foil to their ‘superior intellects’? I should stop watching before I work myself into a rage.
Yes! I’ve always thought she’s been doing Rachel hangs with nerds.
She even has some of Rachel’s moves and facial expressions. I’ve always said Big Bang is a remake of Friends, even down to the same story lines.
Rachel was hardly the first character of her kind. Several sitcoms have the pretty girl/fish out of water/spoiled/rich/etc. It’s fairly standard.
If i had the money a great masseuse every week would alleviate all my tightness and soreness from running! The scraping sounds a bit out there but again maybe more intensive massaging of the skin and cupping, though probably effective, seems like something celebrities do now because that’s what celebrities do!
I do both of these treatments regularly. Gua Sha can fighten people because of how bruised everything looks-it looks like you’ve been tortured while cupping is in neat little circles. But both work really well. Guasha is especailly effective for me to break up scar tissue in my back from scoliosis forcing me to have bad posture in certain places-my back just gets so messed up and guasha releases everything-it feels warm and loose afterwards. Cupping helps too, and my husband even does it for stress release and back pain. luckily we have a fantastic Chinatown in the city we live in where there are many practitioners and it’s not that expensive.
Remember when every celeb trying to stay thin did colonics? And they all talked about it on award show red carpets and stuff? That was disgusting (and fairly dangerous long-term.)
If rich TV stars want to talk about some eastern medicine procedures that may or may not actually work, it’s better than getting all their poop sucked out and everyone else doing it too.
Ok, and? So do hundreds of other people. Some roll out. Some stretch. Some go to ice therapy. Who cares?
We as women should care about the junk we are told when it comes to exercise and fitness. A lot of women falsely believe the harder you workout, you will get in shape or stay in shape. Even celebs with personal trainers are fed the lie and mislead about it. It is hogwash.
Seems like a lot of effort when you can just sit in a hot tub with a glass of wine.
That sounds good to me