Why Olympic Divers, Volleyball Players, and Others Are Covered in Body Tape

The Tokyo Olympics were largely held together by face masks and COVID tape. The first is compulsory, the second optional.

But it’s an option that many athletes have obviously chosen, because the ribbon is everywhere. On the wrists of gymnasts and climbers. On the thighs and shoulders of sprinters, throwers and rugby players. The body of a Chinese diver was covered with brown duct tape so much that it looked like a mummy.

“Athletes wear it for different reasons,” said Sue Falsone, a 25-year track coach who has worked with the Dodgers and the men’s national football team. athletes feel better wearing it. There is little downside to wearing it and if it helps them mentally or physically then I totally agree.

“Athletes don’t use stuff that doesn’t work. So he has to do something.

There are different types of adhesive tapes, from the stiff white sports tape, made of cotton, which has been around for a long time, to elastic therapeutic tape in bright colors, which is made of cotton, synthetic and adhesive. Commonly referred to as kinesiology tape, it was started by Kenzo Kase, a Japanese chiropractor, in the 1970s. Both types serve several purposes.

“The white ribbon that climbers or divers wear on their wrists is typically worn for support,” said Falsone, who now runs Structure & Function Education, an Arizona-based company that provides training in athletic training, performance and training. in physical rehabilitation. “They feel like it gives them some stability in the vulnerable joints. While science says the band loosens after a few minutes … it also gives the athlete a lot of mental support knowing he has extra support in the area.

The stretchable and flexible therapy tape also has advantages in the areas of self-movement and body position. It also provides sensory input to an injured or sensitive area. And because it’s elastic, it allows for a full range of motion, unlike traditional athletic tape.

The story continues

“Some [athletes] will say that if you put it on the muscle one way it can help a muscle work better, ”Falsone said. “If you put it in the opposite direction, it can relax the muscle. This has all been debunked in the literature, but people have their theories and stick to them.

“What we do know is that this tape is very effective in pain control. Study after study, this tape works well for this.

Former world record holder Dotsie Bausch was 40 when she won a silver medal in track cycling at the London Games in 2012. She said she used kinesiology tape not just for the training and competition, but also to relieve pain and tightness after long airplane flights and to treat sciatica.

“I have always been in pain and since I have always [trained] hard, I was living on ibuprofen, ”said Bausch, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Switch4Good. The use of the tape decreased his dependence on pain relievers.

Galaxy coach Cesar Roldan said elastic therapy tape has become ubiquitous in football. And it works best when athletes forget they’re wearing it.

“Your body never forgets the tape is there. So it constantly sends signals to this muscle to keep it functioning, ”he said. “A lot of times we put duct tape on someone coming back from hamstring strain to help with that muscle activation, while they’re training or playing.”

The therapeutic tape can also improve circulation and reduce joint swelling.

“There are little convolutions in the tape that help lift the skin,” Falsone said. “So you have skin, a layer of fat and then muscle. In fat, the blood vessels are there. If we lift the skin, the circulation improves. It helps reduce swelling.

In other cases, it is little more than a placebo. But even that can improve performance, Roldan says.

“There isn’t a lot of definitive research on these things,” he said. “My experience is that if this is going to help an athlete, even if it’s a bit of a placebo, I’m going to do it.”

Kase, who developed the kinesiology tape, was looking for an alternative to stiff sports tape, something that would mimic the elasticity of human skin. The first athletes to test Kase’s gang were Japanese sumo wrestlers, but he has also documented its effectiveness on dogs and horses and even recorded tree branches, fruit, flamingos, and fish.

Therapeutic tape didn’t really become mainstream until the 2008 Olympics, a popularity fueled in part by beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh, who won a gold medal with intricate spider web tape. , provided by Kase, on his surgically repaired right shoulder. .

Intrigued by Walsh’s performance, the entrepreneurs bought the rights to remove the elastic treatment from the clinic and offer it directly to consumers, founding Utah-based KT Tape.

“Every time there is an Olympics, we see a significant increase in consumer use. And visibility to the athletes, ”said Greg Venner, President and CEO of KT Tape.

The company works with several national governing bodies in the winter and summer Olympic disciplines and has provided bespoke supplies to approximately 15 countries including the United States, Canada, Germany and Japan, printing their abbreviation Three letter CIO on the strip.

“It’s people, athletes, who believe in our product, have used it before, and it’s genuine use with a wide range of athletes at the Olympics,” said Venner. “It’s really no accident.

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.