What is Sports Taping?
Sports taping, also known as sports strapping, is the practice of applying a special adhesive tape to the skin to enhance performance, manage pain or prevent injury during physical activity.
Dynamic sports tape is a “stretchy tape” engineered to mimic the elasticity of human skin. It’s also known as kinesio tape (K-tape), or by the popular brand name, Rocktape.
Dynamic sports taping provides external support, stimulation, and resiliency necessary for injury prevention, postural support and performance enhancement. It can be also used to stabilise muscles and joints that have been sprained or strained, supporting pain reduction and faster recovery.
How Does Dynamic Taping Work?
Dynamic tape is made with a special weave that allows it to stretch in only one direction. When applied to skin, it stretches and forms convolutions (small ripples or waves) in the tape. This creates a biomechanical lifting effect, which simply means that the tape lifts the skin away from the soft tissue underneath.
It’s this lifting effect that promotes blood flow, enhances lymphatic drainage, and decompresses the soft tissue, thereby accelerating recovery from injuries. It may also help with some aspects of physical performance by delivering greater feedback to the nervous system, which can enhance coordination, balance and response time.
Today, research is being carried out to test three hypotheses on the acute effects this lifting mechanism has on the tissues of the body.
Fluid effect: By causing decompression at the site of application, the tape promotes a more normal fluid dynamic. This enhances blood flow to the injured area while assisting the flow of inflammatory toxins out of it.
Mechanical effect: When the pressure from the surface of the skin to the bone is reduced, the layers of tissue in between (muscle, fascia, tendons, etc) will slide and glide better. This results in increased range of motion. You can observe the immediate effect this can have with a forward bend test. After taping the posterior muscle chain, a person might change their forward bend range of motion from only reaching as far as their knees, to touching their toes.
Neurological effect: Applying the tape to the skin acts as a stimulus to the mechanoreceptors (nerves) embedded within the skin. The reduced pressure on these nerve endings enhances proprioception (movement awareness). The taping essentially strengthens (or makes more aware) the neural connection between the brain and the injured site so that it may function more efficiently.
How Should Kinesio Tape Be Applied?
Many athletes use kinesio taping for preventing or treating sports injuries – you may have seen sports players on TV wearing this brightly-coloured tape arranged in different patterns and configurations. Dedicated sports therapists help these professional players to apply K-tape in the way that best supports their individual muscle function, injury management and pain relief needs.
While you don’t need to be a pro athlete to benefit from dynamic taping – sports tape is available at many outlets, including here at The Physicaltherapy Centre – it’s still recommended having a certified therapist run through with you the basic rules for applying sports tape correctly.
One reason is it can be more tricky than you first think, especially because multiple taping techniques can be used and some are better for certain body parts and injuries than others. Another is that your therapist will most likely have a better understanding of anatomy, and will be helpful in showing you how to get the best use out of your roll of tape.
Once you understand the principles behind effective taping, you can continue using it without assistance from a therapist.
Why We Recommend Rocktape
In our experience at The Physicaltherapy Centre in North Sydney, Rocktape is superior to other types of sports tape as it can stretch up to 190% of its original length and has amazing “snap-back” or recovery.
Unlike braces and sleeves that constrain and reduce blood flow, Rocktape can provide support and stability while increasing blood flow. Thus, the dynamic tape’s capabilities make it well suited to the repair of localised muscle groups. This is what gives Rocktape its performance advantage over other sports tapes.
Tom’s Thoughts on Rocktape
Traditional athletic tape is rigid and doesn’t stretch. If you had just sprained your ankle, I’d be more inclined to use a rigid tape. This would stabilise the joint, giving it the needed rest whilst in its acute stage. Once you were more confident to bear weight through your ankle, I’d Rocktape it. The tape would still offer a degree of support but more importantly, stimulate the muscles and nerves around the ankle to work more responsively. Furthermore, it would facilitate a reduction in inflammation.
Tom Cartwright, senior chiropractor at The Physicaltherapy Centre
Is Kinesiology Tape Right for Me?
Using kinesiology tape is most effective when preceded by other treatment modalities. It’s most commonly used for treating sports injuries of the upper and lower limbs. Some people also report positive results when using it for postural conditions of the neck and spine.
With respect to musculoskeletal injuries, the application of dynamic tape alone will unlikely be sufficient to achieve full recovery. Most injuries will require some form of treatment in conjunction with kinesiology tape. Kinesio tape is a great adjunct to chiropractic, soft tissue, dry needling and other various forms of treatment.
Common issues you might use kinesio tape or Rocktape to assist with include:
- Back injuries
- Ankle sprains
- Chronic ankle instability
- Shin splints (lower leg pain)
- Runners knee
- Shoulder injuries
- Tennis elbow
- Injured joints
As well as many other common injuries and musculoskeletal disorders. You can pretty much use Rocktape for any musculoskeletal complaint, but the effectiveness of its use depends a great deal on when you use it as opposed to what for.
For example, an acute ankle sprain would require immediate immobilisation of the ankle. This is achieved firstly by resting the ankle – staying off it and ceasing activity. Secondly, assuming the sprain was quite significant (too sore to walk on), the use of rigid or non-stretchy tape would prevent excessive movement within the joint while it’s in the early stages of repair.
If the sprain was only mild, or you had already progressed with rehabilitation of a more severe sprain, a stretchy kinesiology tape like Rocktape would be more appropriate. In this scenario, dynamic tape would allow a favourable combination of joint range of motion and support, provide stimulation of the relevant muscles and ligaments, and promote blood flow within the area.
Start Your Journey With Us Today
Contact us today and experience why we stand out from the rest. At The Physicaltherapy Centre, we provide not just a sports taping service, but an all-inclusive, transformative journey. Are you ready to take your performance to the next level? We’re just a call or easy online booking away.
