Jointcracking common health practice in china


  • Community Lead

    I found a site with a number of joint cracker testimonials.

    The following quote from Matt Furey is very interesting and needs to be followed up:

    When I'm in China and go for my daily massage, the lady always cracks the knuckles on my hands and feet. In fact, she snaps them and pops them in a way that would make ole Sister Synesia (and yes, that was her name) cringe.

    And do you know - in China - cracking of the joints is NOT considered bad manners or form. It is a health practice.

    Cracking your knuckles opens up the meridians of the body so the chi can flow the way it is supposed to.

    So I recommend you do it daily.



  • Cool research 🙂


  • Community Lead

    Thanks! 🙂 Just looked up more on this.

    According to an overview on Chinise Medicine the correct term seems to be "Tuina Anmo - Chinese massage".

    A Brief History of Chinese Therapeutic Massage details this further:

    Anmo therapy also includes joint manipulations, such as traction, circumduction, stretching, and "mobilization with impulse" (a.k.a. "cracking" or, in Chinese, "ban fa") "Ban" literally means a trigger, wrench or lever. It refers to sudden mobilization ("wrenching") of the vertebrae or other joints following relaxation of the surrounding soft tissue with gliding, kneading, etc. It is traditionally performed with the patient in a side-lying position, seated position or even borne on the back of the practitioner (back-to-back, with elbows interlocked). When done with the hands, the practitioner often uses palpation skills to direct the impulse to a specific vertebra.

    In recent years, anmo has seen a renaissance in China. The range of conditions treated by anmo has once again expanded to include most branches of medicine (internal medicine, gynecology, pediatrics, traumatology and otorhinolaryngology). Experimentation has also been done in the field of anmo anesthesia. In 1979, the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine established an "acupuncture/tuina" major. In 1982, Beijing and many of the other colleges of TCM across China followed suit. Most of the Chinese-language journals of traditional Chinese medicine regularly feature articles and research on anmo, and at least one national journal (Anmo Yu Daoyin) is devoted exclusively to news and research in the field of anmo. A good deal of research has been done in China on the biomechanical and physiological principles of anmo treatment, and numerous trial studies have been done on its clinical applications. Unfortunately, very little of this modern Chinese research on anmo has been translated into English (the same is true of Chinese acupuncture research). As more of this material is translated, it will probably prove to be of great benefit to the development and understanding of similar manual therapies in the West.

    To bad only very little of the recent Ammo research have been translated to an internationally understood language. No wonder the research on this is so hard.

    Anyone from China here, who can browse the Chines websites and texts to help us out?

    The article suggests great knowledge regarding joint cracking is hidden here…



  • @JointCracker:

    I found a site with a number of joint cracker testimonials.

    The following quote from Matt Furey is very interesting and needs to be followed up:

    When I'm in China and go for my daily massage, the lady always cracks the knuckles on my hands and feet. In fact, she snaps them and pops them in a way that would make ole Sister Synesia (and yes, that was her name) cringe.

    And do you know - in China - cracking of the joints is NOT considered bad manners or form. It is a health practice.

    Cracking your knuckles opens up the meridians of the body so the chi can flow the way it is supposed to.

    So I recommend you do it daily.

    A teacher at my old high school was a licensed chiropractor and he always told us that cracking your knuckles wouldn't cause arthritis, no matter how much you cracked them. So the Chinese are right once again.



  • But chiropractors profession is based on nothing and can cause serious damage to many people who use them.

    Also, in china, they might have a different bone structure or something different to western societies as i think you can cause damage.

    However this is all based on individual case studies so we don't know at the moment.



  • oh blaze. your so pessimistic.

    Shiatsu is eastern mode of massage based on TCM theories.
    it uses joint mobiliztaion and cracks joints along the way.
    I've given and received this beautiful massage .
    some people crack, some don't.
    so many factors.
    Anyway I highly recommend trying 1hour of Shiatsu.
    You don't have to go to China either.



  • I am not so pessimistic.

    Chiropractors and joint-cracking only.



  • got it.



  • Interesting research JC… it's made me view jointcracking slightly differently



  • @JointCracker:

    I found a site with a number of joint cracker testimonials.

    The following quote from Matt Furey is very interesting and needs to be followed up:

    When I'm in China and go for my daily massage, the lady always cracks the knuckles on my hands and feet. In fact, she snaps them and pops them in a way that would make ole Sister Synesia (and yes, that was her name) cringe.

    And do you know - in China - cracking of the joints is NOT considered bad manners or form. It is a health practice.

    Cracking your knuckles opens up the meridians of the body so the chi can flow the way it is supposed to.

    So I recommend you do it daily.

    Very interesting - where was this from - also…. who was sister synesia


Log in to reply