Kinesiology Tape

Kinesiology Tape

Have you ever taken a seat to watch the Olympics or a match of your favorite sport and found yourself wondering why the athletes have strips of colorful tape all over them? You might be wondering how tape of all things can help – and what it actually does.

The tape that athletes and many physiotherapist clients wear is called Kinesiology tape. This is a special kind of tape created by blending cotton and nylon together to create an extremely stretchy tape.

There are many brands and options of tape to choose from but to understand how the tape really works and why it was created, we need to hop into a time machine and travel back to the mid-1970s. There we will visit a Japanese chiropractor by the name of Dr. Kenzo Kase.

Dr. Kenzo Kase wanted an alternative to the stiff athletic tapes that were used to tape up injured or tight muscles and support joints – a tape that could stretch and move to incorporate normal movement, just like our skin. That’s why he created a tape that is much more stretchy and is used to provide compression and support natural healing. It is usually made of cotton or a cotton blend, and it tends to be waterproof (and also sweat-proof!) so that it can be worn for long periods of time.

Since then, a range of brands creating similar tapes has sprung up, creating many options for people looking to make use of this stretchy method of taping.