Kinesiology tape, or K tape has picked up a lot of momentum in recent years. since its first appearance in the 90’s, when almost all of a sudden. Athletes were coming onto the field of play, with strange blue tape on them.
Now is this form of therapy nothing more than a fashion statement? or does it have real world application in the world of therapy?
The problem with anything new is that it tends to blow up an industry before any research can be done. in all honesty, there’s less research surrounding sports massage than I care to admit. But here’s how the process usually works; we try something, and we feel good. Then we use the product, telling everyone how amazing it is. Its only years later when the research is done that we find out whether our new favourite thing works, or whether we’ve wasted our money on nothing more than a placebo effect. (although a placebo effect still may have application).
Medial tibial stress syndrome, or shin splints, is an overuse injury caused by too much force being exerted on the tendons and muscles of the lower leg; usually due to too much, to fast, or uncontrolled rates of pronation of the foot during the gait cycle.
A recent study published in march 2016 (I will share a link at the bottom of this article) found that kinesiology taping could decrease the force exerted on the structures of the lower leg. In other words, taping from the under side of the foot, to the medial side of the lower leg would decrease the rate of medial loading.
Now it’s important to remember that as manual therapists, K taping may offer us a part of the solution, but is not the entire programme. These techniques should be used with exercises to strengthen areas that need strengthening and massage therapy to relieve the tightness of the areas that are too tight or “locked short”.
Although its difficult to prescribe treatment through a screen, I would recommend as a starting point; manual therapy such as trigger pointing and soft tissue release to the lower leg, paying special attention to the peroneals and lateral aspect of the calf. As well as exercises that activate the tibialis posterior, such as the “calf raise flair out”.
The question I wanted you to ponder at the start of this article is whether kinesiology taping has a place in our therapy plans? I think it absolutely does, it’s just about getting proper instruction in how to apply the tape, and knowing the do’s an don’t of taping strategies. Many of the companies out there can sometimes market the tape as something it isn’t, this can be a problem and actually devalue the good that K tape actually does.
I will be posting some video links to help show you how to tape for MTSS, as well as the link to the research on MTSS and K taping.
thanks for reading
Luke Ursell
Tutor/Assessor for the sports massage academy.
Taping research on MTSS:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1466853X14000029
