Fitness Swellness: Tips on using SpiderTech kinesiology tape for aches and pains

So I’ve been lucky enough to have never been injured since I started running in 2007. Some minor incidents with piriformis syndrome (that my RMT was able to help me out with, and I did some stretching to help ease it as well). So in March, when my ankle wasn’t feeling quite right before running the 2014 Around the Bay 30k, I was at a loss as to what to do, and then my sister (a runner herself) suggested taping it. I didn’t go to the race expo (so I didn’t have the chance to get it taped there), so I instead picked up some tape and fumbled my way through taping it by after watching a few YouTube videos on how to do it.

But I had all sorts of questions about using kinesiology tape and took the opp recently to chat with Dr. Nick Tsaggarelis; he’s a licensed chiropractor who specializes in soft tissue and sports injuries on how to best use SpiderTech pre-cut kinesiology tape.

What types of aches and pains would you use this tape for? And how does the taping help?

Nick Tsaggeralis: Lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, hip pain, calf pain. 

Take, for example, lower back pain. This can be the result of many many different structures and conditions, however a few commonalities that most lower back pain sufferers experience is that the lower back muscles are being over-worked because the abdominal and gluteal muscles (which are very important for walking, sitting/standing and supporting the trunk) are not working well enough. When someone has lower back pain that has been present for some time, the brain may have a “memory” of some issue that is no longer present. When this happens, the person experiences the sensation of pain that is not really present because there no longer is any damage to any tissues. This is why you go see a therapist, in an attempt to “re-boot” your system and make your body function better. When left untreated, faulty information coming from and going to the area of discomfort results in making you “feel pain”.

In this situation, where there is lower back pain due to excessive work, I would apply kinesiology tape to the lower back in a manner that would cause a rippling of the skin in order to maximally affect the little receptors located over the area of pain. This rippling tells the body that there isn’t much wrong with it because it is moving a lot and because of this the body needs to send more blood flow to the region. When we make the brain think that there is nothing wrong with this area, the “feeling” of pain diminishes and makes the muscles work better. When combining this with the application of tape over the abdominal muscles and gluteus maximus muscles you star to get the whole support system working better. When combining this with a proper exercise program, you area able to relieve the body of dysfunctional movements and poor support mechanisms and you achieve pain relief and improved strength and endurance naturally.

Advice/tips on how to apply kinesiology tape?

NT: The simplest way to describe how to use kinesiology tape is as follows:

 If you want to bend a particular body part without pain or discomfort, or if you want that body part to function at its best, say for example the knee, you should place it in the maximal stretch, and place the tape on it without any stretch.

 If you would like to have better posture, or prevent a body part from moving in a poor manner, place it in the ideal posture, for example, shoulder pulled back and place the tape down over the area with minimal stretch.

Is it best if you apply it as close to your event/race as possible?

NT: I do not recommend applying the tape close to an event or race if it is the first time you are applying it and a healthcare provider is not doing it. You just don’t know how you will respond. However, if you are familiar with your body’s response to tape, you can apply it moments before high-performance activity.

Is there a risk of applying it incorrectly — could you make your injury worse? 

 NT: There is always a risk performing something incorrectly. That being said, if you do put the tape on inappropriately, you will either feel nothing or you may hurt and even blister your skin if there is too much stretch placed in the tape.

 That being said, I always recommend that you have a qualified health care provider show you how to apply the tape if you have a specific condition that is not responding to self-care. For example, if you attempt to apply tape after an ankle injury, if you do not feel any improvement within a few days of applying the tape, it is best to contact the tape manufacturer and they can provide you with specific instructions, or see a qualified healthcare provider in order to identify if you have injured your body to the point that placing tape over the area may not be the only care your require.

Leave a Comment November 4, 2014

Fitness Swellness: How to prevent common running injuries

I’m not a physiotherapist, I just run a lot.

(Did you read that and hear it in your head like that dirty chorus in that Big Pun song? Enjoy having that stuck in your head all day…you’re welcome!)

Back to running — I get asked all the time what to do for shin splints or IT band issues or some other running injury. Other than a few stretches for some types of aches and pains, I usually can’t offer much advice as I’ve — knock on wood — never had to deal with an injury (other than scraping the skin off both kneecaps when I tripped over my own two feet, and that doesn’t count) so I’ve never immersed myself into the topic.

But I do have some help for you now — check out this post I wrote for CanadianLiving.com addressing a few common running injuries and how you can prevent them.

Leave a Comment November 6, 2013

Ramping up your running distance

Runners, we’ve all heard we shouldn’t increase our distance too quickly–rule of thumb is no more than 10 percent a week.

Turns out there’s no hard evidence for this rule, as I just found out reading this New York Times article. Runners who ramped up their running more quickly had same injury rate as those who stuck to the 10 percent rule.

(yikes, the article also mentions that as many as 40 percent of runners are injured).

Not that I plan on heading out and running all sorts of crazy distances right away–just intriguing how this is little bit of running myth has become so accepted as truth.

1 Comment June 22, 2011