Kinesiology Taping for Crossfit Athletes

If you do crossfit, you'll know what all of this means.

If you don't then this conversation will seem a little strange and you might want to read the primer at "What the Heck are Those Crazy People Doing?" or you can check out my personal experience.

There are 2 broad sections that we will cover on this page:

1. Kinesiology Taping for Protection
2. Kinesiology Taping for Performance

For the entire PowerTaping for Crossfit Manual and Rock Tape's Power Tape for Crossfit Poster hit the links.

kinesiology taping for protection

Knurled olympic bars, kipping pull-ups while hanging onto a rod of iron, carrying stones between your forearms and ropes between your legs. This is crossfit and it ravages the palms of hands as well as the tender flesh on the insides of forearms and shins.

Here are several really useful, really effective kinesiology taping techniques to minimize skin damage.

Hands

Hand callusing is the norm amongst crossfit athletes but to purposely allow ripping of calluses seems to be some strange right of passage.

I, for one, do not think it’s cool to have shards of thick skin dangling from my palm (patients already think I’m strange enough) and keeping the skin supple just requires regular attention from a pumice stone and a good

quality moisturizer ie. Bag Balm, Udder Cream.

If you do rip a piece of callus and it’s a bleeder, just put some anti-bacterial ointment on and leave it. No trimming, no ripping it off, no bandage. Just keep a light film of ointment on it and let the air dry it. If it gets dirty, clean it well, put the ointment back on and stay out of the dirt!

Also chill on the pull-ups and any high friction activities for the week. If you really have a problem beyond a week, then use a good set of gloves until it has healed.  

To protect and prevent problematic callusing try this kinesiology taping technique.

Shins and Forearms

Scrambling up and braking down a 15' natural fibre (very bristly) rope is brutal on the shins because most of the work is done by the legs.

Because there are different techniques for climbing, each person may develop rope burn along different areas of the shin, calf and/or thigh.

So go up and down the rope a few times. You'll know where to place the kinesiology tape.

Then try again...voila...no burn!

The Atlas stone carry is classic strongman and may not be part of the average crossfit routine. Nonetheless, it does present an example where taping can make the task more comfortable through protection and the friction of the tape makes the stone easier to grip.

kinesiology taping for performance

Box Jumps

If your knees are already a little mangled from squats or there's a knee cap tracking issue, kinesiology taping the knees can make box jumping feel more stable.

1. Place knee in 90° angle. Anchor stabilization tape at top of knee.

2. Create basket by wrapping tape around each side of knee. Use a gentle curve to the tape. Apply little to no stretch to tape.

3. Apply piece across and below knee cap. Stretch tape 50% in middle, no stretch in ends.

4. Jump like a lemur!

Push Ups

This is described here but the same kinesiology taping technique works for most exercises where there is high shoulder demand.

Place hand in back pocket. (1) Anchor front tape from top of shoulder to lower arm with no stretch.

Place hand in lap. (2) Anchor tape from top back of shoulder to lower arm with no stretch.

3. Apply tape over top of shoulder. Stretch tape 50% in middle, with no stretch in ends.

Pressing - Strict and Push Press

This technique will give you a little boast. Apply the tape in fully stretched position and it will provide great positional enhancement.

1. Cut 2 strips of tape that will reach from the traps to the wrist. Anchor on top of trap and apply half way along the arm. At elbow, bring hand toward chest and apply remainder along forearm. No stretch.

2. Repeat application on opposite shoulder and arm.

3 & 4. Correctly applied application shown. Additional support can be gained with posterior chain (back) application to stabilize, ensure proper form and enable explosive power when lifting.

Visit www.RockTapeCanada.com for more information about kinesiology taping in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.

Other articles you will find interesting:

• How Did Kinesiology Taping Evolve?
• Why is Rocktape Different Than All of the Other Brands on the Market?

Ontario, Canada | Golden Rules for Applying Rocktape - How to Tape Like a Pro!

Everything You Need to Know About Kinesiology Tape and Taping

Kinesiology tape, elastic therapeutic tape, sports tape … different names for the same brightly colored tape that athletes in every sports seem to be donning like a piece equipment these days.

Kinesiology tape seemed to make its debut during the 2008 Olympics but in reality, it had been in use long before then … 35 years to be more precise, when Dr. Keno Kaze designed the original version for use with his own patients.

Almost everyone is familiar with the standard white athletic tape that trainers use to bind a sprained ankle or immobilize a broken toe. Its purpose is clear as the tight cotton bandage all but casts that ankle into a particular posture.

But what about this crazy coloured and/or patterned tape cradling knees and shoulders? It doesn’t seem to immobilize anything because the tennis star can still fire a 100km/hr serve at her opponent and the pro cyclist can still bound up a steep incline – blue argyle tape moving like a piston on his knee.

Like many people I thought it was a fad… perhaps even a bit of a fashion statement to catch the media’s attention. It wasn’t until the urging of a colleague that I did some research and then began using it on my own patients.

Visit www.RockTapeCanada.com for more information about kinesiology taping in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.

Other articles you will find interesting:

• How Did Kinesiology Taping Evolve?
• Why is Rocktape Different Than All of the Other Brands on the Market?

Course Review: Rocktape's Fascial Movement Taping 1 and 2 | RockTape Canada

I had the opportunity to attend Rocktape's Fascial Movement Taping 1 and 2 over the weekend at the Inaugural launch of Rocktape Canada. It was only a short drive to the Hamilton area from Buffalo. With a tagline of taping movement, not muscles, I cautiously hoped for somewhat updated theory and mechanisms.

My one sentence review: Even if you left the course with no intention of ever using any form of kinesiotaping, these courses are worth it because they are current with modern mechanisms of manual therapy and rehab.

Here are some of my take home points

• we make changes in the brain through taping
• neuroscience is always changing
• it's just "tape on skin"
  • which leads to sensory-motor stimulation on skin
• the different receptors of superficial tissues
  • Merkel discs
  • Meisner and Pacinian corpuscles
  • root hair plexus - don't fully shave
  • Rufini endings
• skin drag effects the nervous system
• reviewed the tensegrity concept and mechanotransduction
• tape is not a compressive force, it creates a lifting effect
  • diagnostic US was shown in quadriceps during knee flexion/extension with an without tape
  • the taped region had increased space between the superficial layers of fascia during the sliding motion
• over time, the tape creates "ripples" under the skin, useful for sending more information to the brain
• he then referenced Moseley!
  • the tape may send information to the brain to decrease the perceived threat
  • education + movement = increased physical capacity
• there is a reflexive activation
  • if we can position the body appropriately, the CNS will make adjustments
• one of my favorite concepts
  • taping is simple, direction does not matter!
• taping also acts like preload (eccentric phase prior to movement) - pretension
• studies have been showing little to no effects of KTape
  • they changed the parameters
  • for postural sway, they fatigued the particpants first
  • the taping group had significantly improved postural sway than the non taped group
  • fatigue was the key for the tape to make the neurophysiologic changes
• Kinesthetic guidance can be 30 times faster for pattern retraining
• Key to neuroplasticity is low threshold repeated stimulus
  • tape can provide this with the correct movement/education to the patient to keep the transient effects of our treatments between visits
• “The skin is the skin of  the superficial fascia”
• An example for patients using a submarine
  • The helmsman in our brain example
  • tape can be like sonar to figure out where sub/the body is in space
  • the brain needs input to help movement
• FMT is not protocol based
• You can tape along

taped along the median line, HOLY CRAP it's painful to take off the tape after having it on for hours along the pec, thankfully, Steve's italian mother had the solution in olive oil, I practically bathed in it

• anatomical based lines/patterns
• neural lines (sciatic, femoral, radial, median - my second favorite)
• smaller patches of 1-3" tape "tweak taping" does this just as well or better than taping along long patterns or lines - my favorite

                 ---think of it as Mulligan taping with small manual corrections with a test-retest then a small patch of tape to continue feeding that info to the brain

All in all, I cannot recommend both FMT 1 and 2 highly enough! I went in thinking that the line of taping movement not muscles was merely a slogan to differentiate themselves from other taping methods. I love to be proven incorrect! You learn everything from the neurophysiologic effects of taping (which they also apply to all manual therapy), pain science, test-retest models, as well as different movement screens; Dr. Steven Capobianco put it best when he said the course was "open source." There were several other experts from different fields in the course and we learned some postural screening from Brad Norris of powertekfitness.com, a little DNS from Kate Hood, some different taping applications from Darryl Yardley and Connor Collins, and a little IASTM and modern STM theory from yours truly!

Steven Capobianco is an all around dynamic speaker, well read and researched and very open to many different forms of assessment and treatment. We've only been speaking via facebook and email for a few short weeks, but we could tell early on that our approach was extremely similar. I can't say enough good things about Steve.. my only mild disappointment was that I thought I'd have another American in the class, but it turns out he was excited to launch Rocktape Canada because he is originally Canadian! And here I thought I would be able to introduce him to Tim Hortons! He only lives/practices in California, but it's been long enough that he called hockey, "ice hockey." You've been away too long buddy!

I will definitely be integrating Rocktape into many of my treatments and you'll be updated on future Cases of the Week and with vids on omptchannel.com on my tweak taping experiments! If FMT 1/2 is in your area and you've been curious about kinesiotaping as an adjunct, I can't recommend it enough. It really has been one of the best courses I've taken in years!

Here are some pics

Here I am with Dr. Ranil Sonnadara, PhD from McMaster University. I saw him taping a fencer, and I said, my wife used to fence. He said, "I'm a fencing coach." I said she fenced for Mac, and it turns out he was her former coach! She told me as a student prior to being a physio, she didn't listen to him, didn't cross train and ended up with a right quad that was so hypertrophied, it no longer fit in her pants.

A couple of blog readers, Connor and Tom, great to meet you guys!

My chiro brother from another mother, Dr. Steve Capobianco

Visit www.RockTapeCanada.com for more information about kinesiology taping in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.

Other articles you will find interesting:

• How Did Kinesiology Taping Evolve?
• Why is Rocktape Different Than All of the Other Brands on the Market?

Kinesiology Taping for Shin Splints

I wish kinesiology taping had been around when I was playing soccer in my teens. The pain was very debilitating at times and the coaching lore of the day was to use heat, do shin strengthening exercises and keep on running – completely the opposite of today’s medical best practises!

Shin Splints (bad, but common term) or what many prefer to call Tibial Stress Syndrome (TSS), is a common condition in people who play weight bearing sports or those who walk a lot at their job.

The muscles that attach to the shin bone (tibia) have long shallow attachment. Under excessive or prolonged stress the shin muscles develop little tears where they attach to the bone. In severe cases, inflammation collects between the muscle and the bone covering, leaving a visible line (that shouldn’t be there!) on x-rays. That’s why TSS pain seems so broad rather than specific like many other injuries.

This condition is not limited to mild discomfort. TSS can very quickly morph into tibial stress fractures and stress fractures mean no walking for many weeks – something that almost nobody would find agreeable to their lifestyle.

Seek medical advice if the pain is persistent or severe. Excruciating pain in the area of the shin can be a more serious issue such as a compartment syndrome. Don’t mess around with pain that feels beyond a strain and/or doesn’t go away with rest.

Causes

1. Placing too much demand on the shin muscles from unfamiliar volume or type of activity, most often a running sport.

2. Poor foot biomechanics causing the shin muscles to become overworked.

Treatment

1. Start with a proper gait and foot assessment to determine if there’s a biomechanical problem of your feet. No amount of rest or exercising or kinesiology taping will be able to overcome a significant biomechanical problem of the feet.

Very often people who suffer from TSS have pes planus (literally “foot flat” in latin) when they stand and walk. For all of the details on foot biomechanics check out Biomechanical Control of the Flat Foot.

2. Stretch the calf muscles! The calf muscles are tight on most people so a good stretching programme is almost always part of the solution.

3. Cut back on any activities where there is a lot of uphill or downhill running. It places excessive demand on the “braking” role of the shin muscles.

4. Cut back on any sports that are on hard surfaces and run on trails instead of asphalt/concrete for a while.

I see an inordinate number of soccer players in my clinic towards the end of the soccer season and one of the factors is that the fields become drier and harder as the summer progresses -from yielding grass in May to pitted concrete by August.

5. Ice after activity. 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off, then 10 more on.

6. Kinesiology taping in the early and/or preventive stages…which leads us to…

If you haven’t already, please refer to the Kinesiology Taping Basics section for proper application techniques.

Kinesiology Taping for the Tibialis Posterior Muscle (pain on the outside of the shin)

1. Begin by preloading the tissue by pointing the toe and turning your foot towards the other foot. Apply a strip from just above the outside ankle bone to the outside of your knee with little to no stretch.
2. Apply a decompression strip with stretch over area of pain or ʻhot spotʼ. Stretch tape 50-75% in middle, with no stretch at ends.
3. While maintaining stretched position, apply decompression strip right across the area of pain.

Kinesiology Taping for the Tibialis Anterior Muscle (pain on the inside of the shin)

1. Point the toes up. Anchor stabilization tape below ankle on inside. Run tape up along shin crossing over area of pain. Apply no stretch.
2. Apply a decompression strip with stretch over area of pain or ʻhot spotʼ. Stretch tape 50-75% in middle, with no stretch at ends.

Visit www.RockTapeCanada.com for more information about kinesiology taping in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.

Other articles you will find interesting:

• Why is Rocktape Different Than All of the Other Brands on the Market?
• Everything You Need to Know About Kinesiology Tape and Taping