Athletes Treating Athletes

As you may recall from our intro post on kinesiology taping, we’re going to focus on each muscle group/joint and show you how to use kinesiology tape in three distinct ways:

1. Immediately after injury  (for swelling and pain)
2. During the healing process (correction techniques to restore normal position and allow for healing)
3. Techniques to help improve strength + function

In this post, we’ re going to be talking about a taping application designed to decrease the amount of pull on the plantar fascia. This is perfect for recovering muscles and tendons where you want to provide support and allow for rest so that the injured muscle/tendon can heal.

Anatomy

The PF starts on the heel bone (calcaneous) and then moves up to the ball of the foot and toes (also known as the heads of the metatarsals, one for each toe). It is a thick connective tissue that supports the arch of the foot to provide support during weight bearing.

What you will need:

1) Roll of kinesiology tape

2) Sharpest scissors in the house.

Prep work:

1) Clean skin. This means no oils or lotions of any kind. You want your skin to be clean and more importantly dry. Moisture of any kind = tape will fall off or fail to stick altogether.

2) Hair care. Ideally, the less hair the better. Guys, this means that for best results you will need to trim any long leg hair or shave the calf area.

3) If clean, dry, and hairless skin still = no sticking of tape. Time to get some adhesive spray like Tuf Skin.

4) The tape should last 3-5 days. You can get it wet and shower with it on. Just towel dry it after. No hair dryer! The tape is heat activated.

Taping Techniques

1) Plantar fascia with correction strip

Key Points:

• Prep the skin first. For the foot, it is best to apply the tape following a shower with the foot dry and clean (this will help the tape adhesive and will prevent you from battling a sweaty foot). For this application you will want to put the foot and ankle on stretch. You can do this actively or if it is painful, you can use a strap or belt to pull the foot back.
• There will be two strips for this application. The first will be anchored at the heel and then laid down without stretch along the arch of the foot to the toes. This can be done with a single strip or with smaller strips to each toe. The second strip will be a correction strip. Start on the outside of the foot just and apply the anchor without stretch. From here, apply stretch to the tape and wrap it under the arch of the foot. Apply the other end down without stretch.
• See the video above for full details.
• For further instructions on how to incorporate kinesiology taping into your self treatment regimen click here.

References

1) Capobianco, Dr. Steven and van den Dries, Greg. (2009). Power Taping, 2nd Edition, Rock Tape Inc, Los Gatos, CA.

2) Hammer, Warren. (2007). Functional Soft-Tissue Examination and Treatment by Manual Methods, 3rd edition. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc, Sudbury, MA.

3) Kase, Kenzo, Wallis, Jim, and Kase, Tsuyoshi. (2003). Clinical Therapeutic Applications of the Kinesio Taping Method.

4) Muscolino, Joseph. (2009). The Muscle and Bone Palpation Manual. Mosby, Inc, St. Louis, MO.