If you’re an avid sports fan, you may have noticed increasing use of coloured tape on our athletes in the last 10 years. If you have, it is most likely you are looking at kinesiology tape.
These days we see it a lot on our footballers, tennis players, swimmers, volleyballers, runners, crossfitters and pretty much most professional athletes.
Although you may mostly notice it on athletes, it is now also widely used in the general public for rehabilitation and improved performance in sport and daily activities. Rocktape is a particular brand of kinesiology tape which we use at BJC Health.
There are lots of other brands out there, but we believe Rocktape promotes the most positive rehabilitation and performance benefits.
What is Rocktape?
A lot of you would be familiar with traditional brown strapping tape which you may have used previously for rehabilitation or seen on athletes.
Rocktape is very different. Rocktape has more stretch in the tape that is used to aid rehabilitation or improve performance. The tape is made of a cotton weave, and hence when applied appropriately, can be tolerated by skin for longer periods of time (up to 5 days). As the tape has more stretch, it is more comfortable to wear, and will not restrict you if you need the body part to still have full range of motion.
At BJC Health, we use Rocktape as an adjunct to therapy and another method of helping the patient achieve their goals faster.
How does Rocktape help?
Rocktape can help with a variety of problems. Some of these are listed below:
- Reducing Pain
- Reducing Swelling/bruising
- Improving posture
- Increasing flexibility
- Providing joint support
- Improving movement patterns/corrective exercise tool
- Improving performance in sport
What conditions can you use Rocktape for?
The uses for Rocktape are varied, but some of the more common conditions we may use it for are listed below:
- Patellofemoral pain
- Plantar fasciitis
- Muscle injuries such as calf or hamstring strains/tears
- Shin splints
- Achilles tendon pain
- Tennis/golfers elbow
- Rotator cuff dysfunction
- Cervical spine pain
- Lumbar spine pain
All of our physiotherapists at BJC Health have been trained to apply Rocktape.
