The quick reply is: When you’ve got a younger athlete centered on harm prevention, rehabilitation after an harm, or ache administration, kinesio tape could possibly assist. Nevertheless it’s not a treatment all – it must be used alongside different therapies.
To grasp how kinesio tape can assist athletes, let’s dive into the fundamentals: what it’s, the way it works, advantages and disadvantages:
What’s Kinesio Tape?
Kinesio tape, additionally referred to as KT tape and kinesiology tape, is a stretchy, therapeutic health tape. It has been round because the Nineteen Seventies and might stretch between 100-180% its size.
How does it work?
Totally different from athletic tape, kinesio tape is versatile and light-weight, transferring with the physique fairly than limiting it. Designed to raise the pores and skin, KT tape might enhance blood circulate and scale back muscle soreness and ache. On the identical time, it helps muscular tissues, tendons and ligaments when positioned correctly.
For this reason it’s necessary to work with a doctor, athletic coach, or bodily therapist. They’ll know learn how to use various ranges of stress and stretch alongside the tendons and joints to achieve the specified outcomes.
How can KT tape assist my athlete?
There are 4 major methods we’d use KT tape to assist teenagers:
1. Assist for weakened muscular tissues and tendons
Kinesio tape might present further help for weakened muscular tissues and tendons. As an illustration, many soccer gamers have a muscular imbalance of their legs, as a result of pressure of operating and kicking. Their posterior chain, together with hamstrings, are sometimes weaker than the remainder of their legs. Putting KT tape on their hamstrings may enhance proprioception (unconscious consciousness of 1’s physique place) and optimize muscle recruitment for higher management throughout motion.
2. Rehabilitation after an harm
Swelling and bruising are frequent unintended effects after an harm. KT tape could also be positioned strategically to scale back swelling by lifting the pores and skin, draining lymphatic fluid and bettering blood circulate.
3. Ache administration
The raise and help of KT tape might present some non permanent ache aid for sore joints.
4. Bracing
KT tape could be helpful for athletes who take part in sports activities the place the setting or gear limits them from carrying a brace. This might embrace sports activities like swimming, diving, gymnastics, martial arts, subject hockey, and many others.
What are the potential unintended effects of utilizing KT tape?
Whereas KT tape is usually thought of a secure remedy, it will probably doubtlessly trigger the next unintended effects:
- Redness, swelling, irritation, and alter of pores and skin colour the place it’s utilized.
- Stress and tightness of the pores and skin.
- Problem eradicating from the pores and skin.
- Injury or an infection to pores and skin if utilized over a wound.
Are there any downsides to utilizing KT tape?
A lot of the advantages now we have seen in sufferers have been anecdotal. There haven’t been scientific research on the long-term effectiveness of kinesio tape. Additional, now we have not seen important enhancements in athletic efficiency, nor has it considerably sped up restoration time. It will also be costly.
The Backside Line:
Kinesio tape has a spot within the athlete’s toolbox, but it surely shouldn’t be the one device, particularly when confronted with an acute harm or continual ache. A medical skilled ought to information using KT tape, together with a complete remedy or restoration plan.
Able to schedule an appointment?
The Sport Drugs Division at Cincinnati Kids’s focuses on the foundation reason for acute accidents and continual joint pains, and prescribes multifaceted ache administration plans, rehabilitative measures, harm prevention instruments, and return to sport plans.