Using Kinesio Tape to Prevent Injury – Kinesio tape is a practical asset for athletes and passionate sports men and women. Learn how to tape any weak areas you have to prevent a number of common injuries.

Kinesio tape is a practical asset for athletes and passionate sports men and women. Learn how to tape any weak areas you have to prevent a number of common injuries.

If you lead an active lifestyle, you need to understand how injury strikes and how to avoid it.

Excessive wear and tear is one of the main reasons people are injured. Long hours playing sport or exercising increases the strain on your joints and muscles and makes you more prone to injury. So, how can you protect yourself?

In addition to a thorough warm up and cool down, enough rest and plenty of nutritious food, taping or strapping is one of the best ways to prevent injury. 

Electric colored kinesio tape is seen on athletes and sports legends everywhere. It was created in the 1970’s in Japan to help physicians maintain the results they achieved with patients following manual therapy. Kinesio tape is designed to re-educate the neuromuscular system and improve circulation for pain relief and protection.

When the correct kinesio taping techniques are followed, kinesio tape can be used to help with anything from chronic pain to mild strains and performance enhancements.

Kinesio tape is a practical asset for athletes and passionate sports men and women. It offers a number of rehabilitative and preventative benefits, the top seven being:

1. Receive instant pain relief following a sudden injury
2.  Rehabilitate damaged muscles and joints more quickly
3. Reduce your chance of injury
4. Optimise performance
5. Reduce muscle fatigue
6. Prevent cramps
7. Reduce the likelihood of bruising

Kinesio tape can be applied to weak joints to help prevent injuries. Elastoplast’s Kinesio Tape is the gold standard when you need to control an ankle, stabilise a shoulder or protect a collateral ligament.

Next time you are preparing for a big event, follow these four key kinesio taping techniques to help protect yourself:

 

1. Back injuries

1. While standing, place one end of the kinesio tape on the left of your sacrum, parallel to your spine
2.  Gently bend forward and secure the other end where it lands on your back
3. Repeat the same on the other side of your spine

 

2. Hamstring injuries

1. Stand and gently lean forward onto a table-height surface while keeping your knees straight
2.  Apply 1 piece of kinesio tape to the middle of your upper hamstring area.
3. Gently stretch the tape as you apply it down your outside hamstring muscle to end below your knee joint
4. Repeat down your inside hamstring muscle

 

3. Calf injuries

1. Lie on your front with your foot over the end of a bed
2.  Gently bend your ankle forward and apply kinesio tape under your heel
3. Gently stretch the tape along your Achilles tendon and up the outside of the calf muscle
4. Repeat, using a second length up the inside of the calf muscle

 

4. Ankle injuries

1. Apply one end of the kinesio tape just below and behind your outside ankle bone
2. Gently stretch the tape up along the outside of your lower leg while you gently turn your foot inwards

For further information regarding Elastoplast products, please contact us via email on anz.consumerservices@beiersdorf.com. Carefully read the instructions for use given in our products’ packages.