Taping & Strapping: Buyer's Guide
Adhesive and Remover
Tape adhesive and tape adhesive remover are used when applying and removing tape jobs. Tape jobs for the ankle, knee, wrist, elbow and shoulder stick better and give more effective support if you apply the tape adhesive to the skin before taping the joint. Using tape adhesive also stops the tape from being loosened by the effects of joint movement and sweating, so the tape job provides more effective support to the joint.
Taking off the adhesive tape without using adhesive remover can be difficult and painful. However, if you spray tape remover onto the tape job, it dissolves the adhesive and makes removing the tape job from the joint easy and painless.
Kinesio Tape
Worn by an increasing number of athletes across a range of sports, including Kerry Walsh (beach volleyball) and Serena Williams (tennis), plus footballers David Beckham and Ashley Cole, Kinesio Style Tape is a super-thin, highly elastic therapeutic tape that is applied to the skin by means of a medical-grade, heat-sensitive acrylic adhesive.
Using Kinesio tape before, during or after activities, can help relieve muscle pain, promote the healing process of injured and surgically-repaired muscles and prevent injuries. It also increases blood flow to muscles and joints, soothes overworked muscles and strengthens weak or fatigued muscles.
Kinesio style tape has over 1200 recognized applications that include all the major muscle groups and joints, but it needs to be stretched in just the right places and applied in the correct way. The user can purchase DVDs, search the internet or consult a trained professional to discover the optimum taping method for specific applications.
Cohesive Bandages
Cohesive bandage sticks only to itself, so there is no need for underwrap to stop it sticking to your skin. Cohesive bandage is a compression bandage designed to limit the bleeding and swelling which result from a sports’ injury such as a sprained ankle or a knee ligament injury. The earlier you use a cohesive bandage to apply compression to an injury, the quicker healing and rehabilitation can start to take place.
Where there is a weakness following a previous injury, you can use cohesive bandage as a pre-sports wrap to support your ankle, knee, wrist, elbow or shoulder. Also, as it absorbs blood and doesn’t stick to body hair, cohesive bandage is ideal for use as a blood-spill tape.
Elastic Adhesive Bandage
Elastic Adhesive Bandage (EAB) is a lightweight strapping bandage that can be used for ankle taping, knee taping, hand taping and wrist taping. Because of its elastic properties, elastic adhesive bandage has a small amount of ‘give’, so it provides a superb level of comfortable support for joint sprains. The high quality of elastic adhesive bandage ensures that it unrolls smoothly and conforms to the body easily, making it ideal for the prevention and treatment of sprained ankles, wrist sprains and knee ligament injuries.
Elastic Adhesive Bandage is particularly popular with professional football players, as its light weight allows them to apply a tape job to their ankles, without the bulk that can make their boots uncomfortable.
Pre-Taping Underwrap
Pre-Taping Underwrap is thin, lightweight foam that you apply before a tape job, to form a barrier between the tape and your skin in order to prevent friction and chafing. The high-quality manufacture of pre-taping underwrap means that it comes off the roll smoothly and conforms comfortably to the joint that you are taping.
If you have sensitive skin, it is especially recommended that you apply Pre-Taping Underwrap before doing a tape job.
Tapes
Adhesive zinc oxide trainer’s tape can be applied directly to the skin or on top of pre-tape underwrap. Available in 3.8cm and 5cm widths, trainer’s tape is ideal for ankle taping, wrist taping, hand taping and knee taping. Trainer’s tape is often used in strapping and taping techniques on professional and recreational athletes to prevent, treat and rehabilitate sports’ injuries, such as a sprained ankle, a wrist sprain, tennis elbow and knee ligament strains.
Adhesive zinc oxide tape is popular with professional and amateur footballers to keep their shin guards in place.
 Taping & Strapping
|
||
