Okay team, it's time to take a knee, cuz we're gonna tape a knee. Today we're
taping the medial collateral ligament or the MCL. G'day Guys and Girls it's
Anthony from Grandstand Sports Clinic here again for another taping tutorial.
Today we're going to be looking at taping the medial collateral ligament or the
MCL. This is just one of a series of taping technique videos that we're doing
to help you learn how to better tape your athletes, so if you're new to the channel
consider subscribing to stay up to date with all the latest videos. The medial
collateral ligament of the MCL is the thick ligament on the inside of your
knee that helps to hold your knee stable. It's most commonly injured when an
athlete tries to change directions or when they're hit from a side in a tackle.
This taping technique is really useful if you want to protect your MCL or for
those athletes who are coming back from an MCL injury. This taping technique is
just as effective for an LCL or lateral collateral ligament injury but because
they're so much rarer we'll concentrate on the medial collateral ligament for
this taping technique. If you do want to tape the lateral collateral ligament
just keep in mind that you're going to repeat the same taping except it'll be
on the outside of the knee rather than the inside. That being said, let's get
started on taping the medial collateral ligament. Remember, if you've got any
questions or comments about our taping, just pop them down in the comment
section below. Before we start it's always a good idea to know what you're
taping. Here we put the model of the knee side by side with the live subject so
you can actually visualize where the MCL runs and what it looks like. We've drawn
an approximation of the medial collateral ligament on our subject so as
we go through the taping you'll be able to see how the taping covers and
supports the medial ligament. When we start our taping, the first thing is to get
our taping position right. It's no good taping the knee when it's fully extended
because once the tape is on in this position it won't give much support in a
fully extended knee. To get the correct position we want to bend the knee to
about 15 to 20 degrees and the easiest way to do this is put an old roll of
tape underneath the heel of the athlete. This will produce exactly the right
amount of bend for you to tape the knee in. As with all our taping techniques,
it's important that we have good anchoring points for all the structural
elements of our tape to be adhered to. Here we're going to apply an anchor
below and above the knee making sure we stay clear of the space behind the knee
to improve comfort for the athlete. Because we're going to be surrounding
the muscular portion of the limb it's a good idea to use the elastic tape so the
taping has got some give when the muscles contract and relax. Keep in mind
the knee is going to be moving a lot of doing activity so the better adherence
we get to the skin at this stage the more effective our tape is going to be.
I find that using some fixomul strips underneath our taping job will make the
tape adhere to the knee so much better.
Once the fixomul is applied, we can start to apply the structural elements
of our tape. To try and recreate the MCL, we're going to use a star-shaped pattern
on the inside of the knee. Starting at the front of the knee, we're going to
cross over the inside of the knee and finishing on the inner border of the
lower leg. Then, starting from the inside of the thigh, again we'll cross over
underneath the kneecap and attach just underneath the kneecap.
A third strip of tape is going to run vertical and you can see that we've
started to reproduce the shape and the structure of the MCL with the tape that
we've put down. We're going to repeat the same pattern again, overlapping the
tape by half to maximize the strength of our taping.
Depending on the size and the strength demands of your athlete you may repeat
this pattern two or even three times.
Once we have these elements in place we are going to fix them down to our
anchors with some rigid tape. Again try to ensure that the rigid tape doesn't go
all the way around the leg so that the athletes muscles can still expand and
contract through the activity. To really shore up your taping job, you can use the
EAB bandage or the non hand terrible elastic bandage. This will give great
structural strength to your taping job, and it'll make sure that your taping job
ends the game looking like it did when it started.
Repeat the crossing pattern with the elastic bandage and this will really
give your tape some structural support and prevent it from tearing during
activity. As you know, this elastic bandage is almost impossible to tear, so
using it as our last layer we'll make sure that we have the most tear
resistance on our taping job.
Again use some rigid anchors to hold the ends of the tape in place and then our
taping job is complete.
Use your hands to get a good bond between the tape and the skin.
Now this is a really strong taping technique for the medial collateral
ligament and it's going to be very supportive for the athlete. The athlete
will find it hard to bend his knee past 90 degrees and may think the taping is too tight,
but given that the tape is going to stretch as the athlete warms up we
tend to find that by the time the athletes ready to start their
competition the tape has loosened up sufficiently to allow them have range of
motion, yet is still offering the support for the ligament. So, there you have a really
simple yet strong taping technique for the MCL. The important components of the
taping are firstly, get the athlete in the right position by using an old roll
of tape underneath their heel. Secondly, use the asterix pattern of taping to
essentially remodel the medial collateral ligament out of rigid tape,
and finally use the non hand tearable elastic tape over the top to really
strengthen up your taping job and make sure it lasts through a whole game. Again
any questions or comments put them down in the comment section below. I hope this
video has been useful for you. If it has, hit the 'like' button, consider subscribing
and we'll catch up with you at the next taping tutorial.