Kinesiology Tape: Evidence Still Not Sticking

Kinesiology Tape: A cure for everything, or just more quackery?

You will have seen this product at some point. Even if, like me, you don’t even watch the Olympics or play sports, you will have still noticed bright strips of tape on an athelete. Last week a colleague had injured her foot playing hockey. With injury came the swelling and limping, and where there’s pain, there’s a snake oil cure. The colleague was telling me about a magical tape; kinesio tape (also known as rocktape).

What is Kinesiology Tape?

Kinesio tape is a tape, with a certain amount of cotton or synthetic fibres, that is applied to muscles in order to, apparently, enhance the performance of an athlete. The tape, developed by Dr. Kenzo Kase in the 1970’s, claims to reduce injury, soreness and ‘stabilise’ the muscles. The colleague sounded somewhat skeptical of this, but then said ‘its what all the athletes have’ – a sentence which pretty much nailed the coffin. Sports competitions are rich with pseudoscience, good luck charms, false claims, superstition and just plain stupidity. 

 

I recall a while back a bracelet (ion loop) being sold that was just a flimsy piece of rubber that ‘improved athletes performance’ by removing 'negative ions'. You will see, ever year, atheletes supporting new devices that ‘help their performance’. Whether they believe this snake oil recipes for success or they do it because they are shills is unknown. But all it takes is for a company to approach them with some 'data' that has been self and mass produced in order to get someone on board. Although, in this crazy world of sports doping, I was surprised to learn than kinesio tape contains no drugs, but maybe that's just my cynicism.

How does it ‘work?’

The tape can be used for an ‘array of injuries’. To Promote the healing process of muscle strains and aches. The most common ‘belief’ is that the tape, ‘increases blood and lymph flow to muscles and joints to sooth and strengthen overworked muscles’. When applied to bruised, the tape is said to lift the skin away from the area to allow better blood flow, draining the internal bleeding’. If that makes sense to you, think again. Picking and choosing keywords to make a product sound smarter than it is is a trick that has been used around the world for many years. None of these claims make basic scientific sense.  

The kinesio website has this to say:

"The Kinesio Taping Method is designed to facilitate the body’s natural healing process while allowing support and stability to muscles and joints without restricting the body’s range of motion. It is used to successfully treat a variety of orthopedic, neuromuscular, neurological and medical conditions. Both Kinesio® Tex Tape and the training protocol have shown results that would have been unheard of using older methods and materials."

The tape is placed as strips over muscles that have injuries, but what is it about the tape that allows the company to make these claims? After having 30 years to market and research the product, you would think they would have come up with tangible evidence. 

Evidence? Who needs that?

Like most pseudoscientific bull, there is little in the way of research. I found a study published in the Research in Sports Medicine.  in which 30 subjects applied kinesio tape to their abdomens, to which they then tried a rand of movements and had an ‘increased range of motions’. That was genuinely the conclusion; the tape increases range of motions. I assume you are sat at a computer or on the sofa reading this, stretch your arm out and note as to where it stretches. Now, relax and stretch the same arm out again. Goes a little further, right? This study plays on the simple fact that when you stretch for the first time, you can always (usually) stretch further the second time. That’s nothing to do with the magic of the tape, that’s basic biology. I could repeat the experiment whilst holding a phone, cup or even a small puppy in one hand and conclude that the object helps you stretch. As far as I am aware, none of these products possess that power.

Another study published in the Journal of Sports Medicine in 2012 reviewed the use of KT as a treatment for injuries. They concluded that there was very little quality evidence to support the use of KT over the use of other taping (such as elastic tape). Which was even further reinforced in the study published in Manual Therapy Journal – an actual randomised, double blind controlled study.

"Application of KT to RF, VL and VM muscles did not significantly change lower limb function, postural balance, knee extensor peak torque or electromyographic activity of VL muscle in healthy women."

The Kenesio website contains a list of research, shockingly, none of the studies finding it doesn’t work. Mostly, they are pilot studies with highly interpretative outcomes which have not been repeated nor continued.

Finally, this year a meta analysis was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. They found that taping with kinesio tape was no more effective at pain relief when compared to cheaper methods of stabilising a muscle (elasticated) concluding with:

"Kinesio taping is superior to minimal intervention for pain relief. Existing evidence does not establish the superiority of Kinesio taping to other treatment approaches to reduce pain and disability for individuals with chronic musculoskeletal pain"

Conclusion

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Consumers should be, as with anything, skeptical of claims made by products that seem even slightly hallucinatory. There is very little research, let alone evidence, to support the claims made by this tape. More effort has been used on marketing and promoting this product than going into actual research to see If the product works. The hype of this product seems to be so widespread with such extraordinary claims, however, there is zero evidence for such claims. For example, this blog, claiming to be skeptical of the tape, but is certainly not, states:

“Those Osteopaths and kinesiologists who have successfully treated hematomas on their patients have recommended have reported that in order to successfully treat it they must leave the tapes on for at least 4 to 5 days”

Where is the evidence? I cannot see a link on that site, nor can I find any other information that isn’t circumstantial. The evidence that is being seen is purely anecdotal, yeah, you may feel better with it on. But there's no evidence to say that it is 'making' you better.

There is however, some evidence to suggest that taping an injury, to a muscle, could help it perform a little better: - acting like a splint. Regular tape costs around 80p whereas kinesio tape costs a good £5 - there is no evidence to suggest that kinesio tape is any better than regular tape in this respect, just prettier. This is essentially just a reinvention of a bandage and what we are seeing here, which was admitted by my colleague, is a placebo effect. In terms of athletics, such as the Olympics, the belief that they have an advantage may be enough to give them an edge, but it should not be promoted as something it is not. It is just colourful tape. Nothing more.