Sporting K-tape Like an Olympic Athlete

Over the course of the Olympics, you may have noticed some of the athletes were wearing tape.  You may have asked yourself, “What is that? What does it do?” It is called Kinesiology tape.  There are 3 main brands of Kinesiology tape: KT Tape, RockTape, and Spider Tech Tape. We use RockTape in our office because of its durability. It was originally designed for triathletes, and is waterproof. It can be worn up to 5 days at a time, and can be worn while swimming or in the shower.

Now how does it work? There are 2 main ways that RockTape can help.

• RockTape takes the edge off of the pain. How? It interferes with your brain’s ability to process pain. Have you ever hit your thumb, shook it, or sucked on it, and it felt better? RockTape, and all kinds of kinesiology tape, do that for you.
• RockTape also removes swelling and inflammation. Due to the stretchy nature of RockTape, it lifts the skins many layers on a microscopic level.  This increases lymph drainage and blood flow and allows for inflammation to be quickly removed.

In short taping will increases your healing, and decreases your pain.

Can I just buy some tape and stick it on? 

In theory yes, but you may damage tissue, irritate the skin, or it may not have any benefit at all. Best practice is to have a trained professional apply tape to the affected area. There’s an entire science to how and where the tape is applied. If you have any questions about how RockTape can help you, give us a call at 443-512-0025.