You’ll have seen it everywhere at the Olympics and on the football pitch at the weekends – athletes sporting what looks like electrical tape holding them together. Kinesiology tape is the latest sports injury product filtering down from elite to amateur level athletes.
The tape is supposed to “provide pain relief, reduce swelling, assist a range of movement and give structural support”. But does it actually work?
Luckily for you, just a couple of weeks after I was sent some SpiderTech kinesiology tape, injury struck and I was forced to rest for a week. After seven days on the injury bench, my groin/aductor was still feeling a bit dodgy – but ever the slave to marathon training I decided to get out there and run anyway. The perfect opportunity to test out this new product.
I used the SpiderTech universal tape which comes pre-cut to a shape that you should be able to use most places – handy if you haven’t got a crystal ball to predict where you’re going to be injured in the future. With the bright blue cross stuck to my leg I went out for a 3 mile run.
It’s difficult to say how much the SpiderTech helped – if I’d injured both legs I could have been more scientific in my approach to this testing. Maybe next marathon cycle. It did, however, give me more confidence for that first post-injury run and I was able to finish without doing any more damage to my leg.
On my next outing I took my taped-up leg for a 10-mile run, then showered (the tape doesn’t come off in the shower and can be kept on for a couple of days) and cycled 10 further miles. The leg felt great and the tape was still in place after all that.
I wore the tape under running tights which I thought might rub and make it curl up at the edges, but it remained in place. And, although it stayed firmly in place, it wasn’t painful to remove. All in all I liked it and would use it again for slight niggles.
Great review! If you ever need any help taping or have any further questions about SpiderTech just let us know. Good luck with the training!
I guess some athletes need all the help they can get to keep away from injury. Personally, back when I was in my school’s varsity basketball team, all I needed was some relaxation and maybe a trip to the chiropractor melbourne.
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Does this product help people with back pain problem? I don’t like wearing braces for my back all the time. I am finding other alternatives that can ease my back pain.
Hmm, I wonder how its performance can stand up to other tapes already in circulation. I’m also curious as to what medical experts have to say about it.