What is KT taping?
Kinesiology Therapeutic (KT) tape is used to support and relieve pain in muscles, joints, and/or ligaments. It reduces swelling, increases mobility and enhances recovery.
What is Kinesiology Tape?
A therapeutic tape that’s applied strategically to the body to provide support, lessen pain, reduce swelling, and improve performance.
What’s Kinesiology?
Kinesiology is an anatomical science that focuses on the treatment of connective tissue, joints, muscles, and tendons – the science of muscular and skeletal movement. The holistic technology of kinesiology tape was developed to balance bodily health, endurance, and energy, without the use of medications or surgery.
Kinesiology tape was developed back in the 1970s by Kenzo Kase, a chiropractic doctor, in Japan; instead of using stiff medical tape, he wanted to create something that mimicked the elasticity of human skin. While it was used widely by professional athletes, physical therapists, and trainers alike, it didn’t really go mainstream until the 2008 Summer Olympics when volleyball player Kerri Walsh wore KT tape on her shoulder and subsequently won the gold medal. Now, kinesiology tape is ubiquitous in the athletic world.
Most kinesiology tape is made from a combination of cotton, spandex, and adhesive, which is what makes it different from the standard athletic tape you might see wrapped around someone’s ankle.
The kinesiology taping method is based on the science of maintaining support to the body while allowing blood and other bodily fluids to move freely through and around the injured muscle. Kinesiology tape stabilizes the injured area by lightly adhering to the skin and applying pressure to the tissues the tape is wrapped around.
This tape allows the connective tissue surrounding the affected muscle or tendon to move along with the body. It gently allows the free flow of blood and lymphatic fluid to cleanse and heal the inflammation without the use of medications or surgery.
This special tape helps to improve circulation, support muscles, allow the internal injury to heal, and help prevent further muscle injury while still allowing motion.
Kinesiology tape works—when applied correctly—by lifting the skin from the tissues below it. Everyone has nerve receptors in their skin, as well as in the deep layers of the fascia, muscles, and other connective tissues. When tape is applied, it causes compression or decompression of these areas, supposedly allowing it to alter pain signals to the brain.