by rocktapeuk | Oct 12, 2016 | Rocktape Kinesiology Tape, Studies
Don’t let aches and pains be an excuse. Tape up and get to work. Because of the way RockTape stimulates nerve receptors in your skin and deeper tissues, it also can downregulate pain and improve both mobility and stability. With plenty of upsides, here are picks for the top five best CrossFit applications for RockTape: Hands Every CrossFit athlete knows how easy it is to beat up your hands while training. RockTape can effectively protect your palms and those calluses you’ve worked so hard on, especially when your training involves lots of metal spinning in your hands. (Think kipping pull-ups and kettlebell snatches, for example.) This application requires some scissors work, but once you’ve done it a couple of times, you’ll feel like a pro! Adhere two strips down the palms of your hands and a strip around your wrist to lock them down. All your calluses should be covered and your palms virtually encased in armor. RockTape takes chalk nicely — and unlike most gloves — the layers of tape are so thin you’ll barely notice there’s anything between you and the work you’re doing. Shoulders Just about everything in CrossFit requires both shoulder mobility and stability. Whether you’re upside down on your hands, pressing overhead, or doing pull-ups or Olympic lifts, the demand on your shoulders is exceptional. We recommend taping in a way that basically surrounds the deltoid muscle while hitting the upper traps and AC joint (the point of your shoulder). Make sure you use enough tape on one of the strips to extend back onto your shoulder blade. Most of the mobility and stability...
by rocktapeuk | Feb 17, 2016 | Studies
Let’s face it… planks are boring. But they’re also effective, especially if you mix up how you’re using them. All too often athletes will get into a plank position, hold it for as long as they can, and call it good. That’s not the worst idea in the world, but your trunk or core or whatever you like to call it needs strength and stability in multiple directions of challenge, needs to be able to brace statically as well as dynamically during movement, and in different positions, so mixing up the plank is both fun as well as better training for the central axis of your body. First things first, make sure your plank is awesome in form before you do anything else. A good planker will have a relaxed neck (and a relaxed jaw and face), will have engaged abs and butt that you could bounce a quarter off of, a neutral head position (not looking up or clamping your chin down to your chest) and a neutral spine position (no butt up in the air or saggy back). Last, but definitely not least, a good planker will be able to do all this while maintaining normal breathing, not holding their breath or sounding like they’re about to give birth! Your first goal is to be able to do all of this (and either to this with mirrors or video yourself because planking is like drunk dancing at a wedding, what’s in your head is never as pretty as reality) for 30-90 seconds and eventually for several minutes at a time. Once you’ve mastered the basics, then it’s...
by rocktapeuk | Oct 28, 2015 | News, Studies
There is a particular news story that I can’t get out of my head. It was only ever a quirky, slightly comical story but I can’t help but think it’s part of a slightly bigger issue. The story of a lady temporarily paralysed because her jeans were too tight appeared in the news in June of this year. Now I am not concerned about what people wear but when people cannot move properly this does concern me – and it should concern them too. It is not ideal to awkwardly shuffle about while wearing restrictive clothing, but if you limit movement too frequently, you will end up limiting movement permanently by creating poor movement patterns. The end result is a stiffer and awkwardly moving body, with or without jeans. So while the skinny jeans may go out of fashion, they may leave their mark on our muscles and joints. In relation to back pain – if you stiffen up your legs with tight jeans then your spine naturally compensates by moving excessively and increasing the likelihood of poor lifting habits. Of course it’s not just about skinny jeans, lots of clothing can be very restrictive, in fact our culture and British history is marked by our sartorial standards, stiff collars, corsets, thick leather shoes, all wonderful refinery but coffins for our bodies. What’s the answer? Lets...
by rocktapeuk | Oct 2, 2015 | Medical, ROCKTAPE Study's, Studies
Our new Movement Beyond Mobility course is in the final stages of development and I thought our blog readership would like us to share some of the things we discovered while developing this course. It’s been an exciting experience, as we have been required to hone our physical ability to perform and present the techniques in addition to the theoretical content, its left us fitter and feeling a few years younger – we are eager to share these outcomes with our students at the British School of Osteopathy in London on the 15th of November. One of our overarching messages is the importance of movement and all of the systems that allow this to occur. Your clients and patients are likely to have read the recent reports regarding the latest health scare. I am not talking about Smoking, Cholesterol, Sugar, or Alcohol. This time it’s sitting – yes just SITTING. According to the research even FIT people are likely to be guilty of sitting too much. One fact that caught me by surprise is that even if you exercise for 30 minutes everyday, if you then spend the rest of the day predominantly sitting you are still categorised as sedentary with the associated health risks, which include, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Like many jobs, working for RockTape UK involves lots of sitting, to answer emails, write course content, reading research, and inevitable travel up and down the UK. One aspect of the job does provide some compensation for this and is considered the most rewarding part of what I do – Teaching. The new Movement Beyond mobility course...
by rocktapeuk | Jul 14, 2015 | Medical, Rocktape Kinesiology Tape, Studies
It’s always nice to find some research that backs up what we find useful in clinic. Anyone who has taken a FMT course will be familiar with the Spiral squat chain taping that we teach. This study by Song et al examines the effect of a very similar taping (basically it’s the top half of the application hip-knee) on female patients with patello-femoral pain (and a control group without pain) during a single leg squat movement. The study compared 2 taping techniques, one group with no stretch on tape and the leg in neutral posture. The second group had taping with ‘moderate stretch’ on tape with the leg in an externally rotated position. The first group is a little like our symptom reduction taping and the second group is pretty much exactly how we would tape as a dynamic postural taping. They found that in the PFP group both taping applications where effective in reducing pain on squats, but only the second taping application was effective in altering the pattern of movement and muscle contraction seen during the squat. The take home message here is if all you want to achieve is pain reduction, apply tape with little to no stretch. More stretch won’t create more relief. On the other hand if you want to use tape to alter posture and movement patterns it might be a good idea to consider apply tape in the corrected position and using a little more tape stretch, however if you do this you are inevitably upping the risk of skin reaction so avoid tape stretch over delicate areas and go gentle on...
by rocktapeuk | Mar 4, 2015 | Medical, Studies
Simple ROCKTAPE Applications for Common Aches and Pains By Paul Coker A lot of folks involved in kinesiology taping will tell you that tape should only be applied by a super-special, highly trained, jedi tape ninja. (Actual title may vary). They will discourage athletes and members of the public from even attempting to self-tape. They will probably also tell you that only therapists trained in their education system and accredited by their official sounding, but sort of made up, association should tape you up. I don’t really agree with any of that, bear in mind I am a physiotherapist, tape instructor, and tape company medical director!! I think that in many situations, many people can and should consider self-taping. There are some caveats and exceptions that I will mention. First and most important; if you have a pain that is any of the following you should see e a experienced, competent therapist/medic. You have a pain you rate as strong or severe (on a scale of 0-10: 6 or above) You have a pain which doesn’t stop or become mild (under 3/10) in any position You have a pain which is worsening despite resting it. Self-taping is best suited to those little niggles, aches and pains. The ones that don’t exactly stop you in your tracks, but none-the-less, stop you moving freely, playing your sport, standing at work. If you are anything like me, and 95% of the world, you know the kind of niggles I mean. Now before you grab a roll of ROCKTAPE and get sticking, there are a few things you need to know to ensure...
