With spring on the door step and Marathon season fast approaching I thought it was a good time to share some thoughts about my experience with Kinesiology tape. That’s the bright coloured tape you see runners and other athletes wearing. I’ve used it extensively with clients and on myself for many years now, often with great results. I’m currently using it to treat a knee issue I have when running. This stems from torn ankle ligaments which occured playing football over 30 years ago! Yes, really. The body adapts around our old injuries, but it catches up with you eventually if you do enough miles.
When we talk about sports taping what do we mean exactly? Well this blog will be focusing on taping specifically using Kinesiology tape. The kind made by recognisable brands such as RockTape and KTape.
This is a very different beast to what is most commonly referred to as sports or joint strapping. you would use strapping in a similar way to say, an ankle support after an injury where you want to limit the range of motion at a joint or offer some additional support to the ligaments or tendons of a recovering joint. Kinesiology tape on the other hand has the same stretch as your skin so it doesn’t offer any kind of physical or restrictive support whatsoever.
Does Kinesiology tape work? In a word, yes. But like most products today it pays to be a little skeptical about the marketing hype from the people selling the tape (and sometimes those doing the taping too!).
I did a RockTape Sports Taping course many years ago. It was before I was even qualified as a Sports Massage and Soft Tissue Therapist. I’ve been using different brands of Kinesiology tape ever since and It definitely has its place in the treatment room.
Is there a difference between the brands? Yes, for sure the quality varies. My basic assessment is that RockTape is a superior product in as much as they use a thicker weave of cotton so can last longer (and have much cooler designs), but you pay for this. Given that you might only have it on for an hour or two sometimes it seems unnecessary. These days I mostly use lesser known brands that are half the price but do the same job. The exception to this would be the wider 10cm tape that I use across the upper back to help with postural correction. The cheaper brands just don’t work for this application. This brings me on nicely to the next question.
What does it actually help with? Well, as I’ve mentioned, the tape itself has about the same elasticity as your skin, so its of no use as a support, or to limit the range of motion at a joint (that’s what strapping is for!) What we are really using it for is a neurological hack. We’re tapping into the nervous system to activate or calm a muscle to generate a desired outcome.
The three main reasons I would consider using Kinesiology tape are as follows:
Muscle activation – ever noticed how the most common colour of tape you see is either blue or pink/red. Well that’s because the original concept was that the pink/red tape would have a subconscious ‘firing’ or activating effect on the nervous system while the physical tape on the skin would also stimulate a reaction from the underlying muscle via the network of nerve endings that are stimulated by the tape being in contact with the skin and the tiny hairs on it.
Used in conjunction with some targeted exercises to work the newly activated muscle and you can really get things firing well again!
The blue tape can be used to calm overactive muscles and for pain relief as we will see.
Postural correction or joint alignment – this works in two ways. The first is as a physical reminder when you move into an undesired posture (rounded shoulders at your desk for example) the tape will tug at your skin and remind you that you’ve gone into the old posture. Secondly, by taping the muscles you want to fire up in order to maintain the correct posture or joint alignment you get the right muscles working again. Old habits die hard as they say and correcting posture or joint misalignment doesn’t happen overnight. However, by using tape you can really add an extra dimension to your efforts and the tape is a great reminder of what you are trying to achieve.
Pain relief – this is where the blue tape comes in. The mechanics of the application are the same. You place something on the skin and the tiny hairs that communicate with the deeper layers. This acts like a constant reminder to the nervous system that we want something to change in this area. Whether this is stimulating, as we’ve seen above, or calming as we’re talking about here, depends on the colour and our perception and understanding of what we want to happen. Taping alone to rid yourself of pain would have only limited efficacy but it can be a useful addition to the standard treatment protocols for things like tendonitis or a muscle strain.
It’s like mind over matter but with the tape being a constant reminder, both visually and physically due to the contact with the skin. Anyone that has used this kind of tape will attest to the fact that you just kind of always know it’s on you and doing something. Several of my clients have described it as being a comfort or like a hug in the area, which I think is a great way to think about it.
I hope you have found this very brief summary useful. If you have any questions I’d love to hear from you.
all the best
Lee
