♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet. ♪
- Hi there folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our opinion of course.
- Today we're gonna talk about kinesio taping,
best how-to hacks, for at-home K-taping.
Which is kinesio taping.
- Um-hmm.
- Stop pain and swelling on all body parts.
- That's right, Bob.
This is a comprehensive video
so that you can learn how to do this,
no matter what part, instead of just picking out
the knee or the hip-
- Gotcha.
- Or the shoulder.
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- That's right.
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interviews. - Interviews.
- Yep.
So this is a Sleepovation mattress.
It's got 700 individual mattresses.
Yours won't come like this, it'll be covered.
- We counted 'em.
- Yeah. We counted 'em.
We made sure they were on the up and up.
It was also got air channels.
So keeps you kind of cool.
It's really good for pain control.
If you have a pain issue, like back pain.
- Yeah.
- Or knee pain, or...
- And you might oversleep with it
because it is hard to get out in the morning
'cause it's-
- [Bob] That's right.
- It's comfortable.
Okay, Bob, should we continue on?
- [Bob] Let's continue on.
- Kinesio taping.
- Right.
- So, you are familiar with it.
With our work in the physical therapy world.
It's started in the seventies
by a Dr. Kenzo, I'm not sure if I got that, Kosa.
I believe he's from Japan.
- Sure.
- And since then, it kind of took a while to get going
but it really made a big debut in 1988, Seoul, Olympics.
- I remember this.
- You do?
- I do.
- Yeah, it's like people have got this-
- Every, all the athletes had it on.
- Colorful tape.
- Colorful tape on.
- Yep, yep, so, and since then, you know,
it wasn't just a fad that came and left.
It has continued to be used oftentimes
by high level athletes, but you know,
people like you or I can benefit from it.
So, and it can be done at home.
You can do it yourself.
- Sure.
- Okay, but you're not just gonna go buy
some kinesio tape and put it on.
- And slap it on.
- Right, there's definitely-
- There's absolutely, you gotta do it correctly.
- The skill.
Yep, there's a skill, art, and a little practice
that comes-
- Yeah.
- But you can do it.
What I'm going to recommend or Bob and I are going
to recommend to you, if you do it,
you can go on YouTube.
I've gone on YouTube.
I've watched videos of, you know, a 10-minute video,
it'll give you just the start.
- Right.
- You really should get into it and understand it.
And so we've got this book, as you know,
we do promote books for self-education
as well as our videos.
This is by-
John - John Gibbons.
- Gibbons.
- Yes.
- Is that what you said?
- Yep.
- Okay, so, good.
Anyways, John has been taping for 25 years.
Started in 1996.
He works with high-level athletes, Olympic athletes.
I believe he's from the UK and just a wonderful guy.
- I watched some of his videos.
I didn't even know that, you know, we'd received this book.
- Yep.
- And I didn't know it was him.
And I went on the Internet and caught some of his videos.
- Sure.
- He does a really good job.
- Sure.
- Really excellent.
I was, I've always been a little bit skeptical about-
- Yeah, yeah.
kinesio tape, but he turned me around.
- Well, we got a video on K-taping-
- Yeah.
- About five or six years ago.
And we're a little negative on it.
- Yeah.
We didn't like the research at that time.
- Yeah.
- But now, the way he's using it a lot of it
we've been doing that type of taping before.
- Right, yep, so-
- We just used a different tape.
- I think it's evolved.
- It's evolved then.
- The use of kinesio tape has evolved to more of our liking.
- Right.
- So that's good.
- Exactly.
- All right.
So how does it work?
Well, anyways, so in the book, what you'll want to do,
it's not a hard, you know, big book, obviously.
- Right.
- It's a little bit technical.
So you're going to have to take your time,
as far as anatomy, as far as for PTs,
physical therapy assistants, anybody in the medical field,
that's already familiar with anatomy.
It's perfect for 'em.
- Sure.
- It'll really, you'll go through it quickly.
If not, you got to take your time with that,
but, you know, don't-
- Well, what helps Brad is they have, you can actually
go to the video, right, you just actually-
- Right, so say, for example,
you want to do, on this one, the heel.
What do you call these little...
- What's it called, Tanner,
When you...
The squatches, you know.
- Yes.
- You scan it and it
- [Tanner] No, man.
- Our expert doesn't even know.
Anyways, you take your phone, you scan that,
and it'll take you directly to-
- Right to the video.
- The video.
- Right.
- So it's, you're gonna get information here on paper,
as well as a video.
But you really need to spend some time in the front
of the book when he talks about how it works.
- The whole philosophy, and-
- Yep, yep, and how it works.
It's not gonna take long.
So I'll go through that briefly.
There's four keys that I feel why it works.
And one is called lifting.
- Sure.
- The tape actually is stretchy.
I'm gonna take one piece off here.
- And it stretches and there's a
specific amount of elasticity it has.
It only stretches one way.
You can't stretch it this way.
- Sure.
- It only goes one way.
- Lengthwise.
- Yep, and that's critical.
It has to be a tape like that.
And it's like a cotton mesh,
and that may be different, I'm not sure,
on all the deep-
- From tape to tape.
- Yep, he tells you what he uses and what he uses.
- Sure.
- And whatever he uses, I'm sure it's the best, I mean-
- Sure.
- I'm sure it's great tape.
- It's like a rock tape.
- Yeah, that's the name of it.
- Yeah.
- So it lifts, which allows lift flow,
which is just under the skin, which is critical
for healing.
- Yes it is.
- And swelling, as well as pain relief.
The next thing is mechanical support.
It's like when you see someone taped up, you know,
in this country, football.
- Right.
- You'll see it, that white tape all taped out
- For the ankle?
- Yep, that's strictly mechanical.
- Yes.
- So there's nothing else going on.
- But to be honest, Brad, I mean,
that's why I've used tape for in the past.
- Sure.
- It's mechanical.
And the fact that you can use this stuff is even better
because the tape I used, if you got hot
and sweaty, it would come off.
- Let's loose, yep.
- And this can, you actually ran with it, right?
- Well, yeah.
Well I'm gonna run with it today.
- Oh, I'm sure.
- I, I got a hamstring issue.
I biked with it, which I still have symptoms of biking,
and I went 11 miles yesterday,
which is not a long ride for me,
but you know, it's, it's April.
- Are you bragging or what?
- No, it's not, if you're a biker,
they'd laugh at me, 11 miles, ba-ha-ha.
- Okay, all right.
- Anyways, so the mechanical support,
and I'll show you, we'll later on,
we'll show you how to do an ankle.
And then it stimulates muscles.
- Sure.
- By tactile, you know-
- You're given feedback.
- you can tap a muscle.
- Yes.
- And it wants to contract.
Well, this does a similar-
- Gotcha.
- Firing, if you will, of the muscle.
A slang term that contraction,
and then appearance.
- Sure.
- You know, he does admit there's, you know-
- There's something about it.
- There's a potential placebo effect in there.
- Sure.
- Which I don't have a problem with that if it works.
- If placebo works, it's great.
- If you've studied placebo-
- Like 30%, sometimes, even higher.
- It works.
- Yeah, it's amazing, some of the tests
they've done with placebos.
But that's another story.
All right, so Bob, should we continue on?
- Sure.
- Let's look at ankle sprain.
- Okay.
- So if you've sprained your ankle
and you went in this, oh before we get
to that point the precautions.
- Sure.
- You never use it over any skin that's not healthy.
- Sure.
- It's gotta be healthy skin, no rashes, no injuries.
- No open skin, obviously.
- Exactly, and the other thing is
you may be allergic to the adhesive on this.
- Sure.
- So the first time you use it
if you start to break out, red rash, or whatever,
or itchy, get it off right away.
'Cause I had a patient once that broke out
and it wasn't pretty, it was uncomfortable.
- Well, what I've had, Brad, is I've had,
and this has happened more than once,
I would tape a knee and I would tape it for weeks
on end and it was fine.
- Yep.
- And all of a sudden it started to break out.
- Oh, long-term use kind of a thing?
- Yep, yep.
- Yep.
- So you've gotta keep it, you know,
it's not the worst thing.
You get itchy.
- Yeah.
- And red, and we soon take it off and it recovers, but-
- And then you're just, it's not your, you can't use that.
- Yeah, you can't use it, right.
- So here we have the tape,
I've already opened it up here
and I'll show you that on another thing.
I'm gonna start here, let's say my ankle sprain
as 90%-
- Now normally, yeah.
He's going to go into inversion.
- Yeah.
- That's how he sprained it.
- So I want to support it this way.
Now I'm going to stretch that tape 75 to 100% stretch.
So that's pretty tight.
- Yes.
- Yep, and I'm going to bring it down.
You have to have clean skin,
make sure you've washed up.
- Yeah.
- Dried it, all that.
Now it's critical on both ends that the very end
the last inch or so you put no stretch on it.
And that goes across the board every time you use this.
'Cause that allows the ends-
- To stick.
Yep, because that, again, my complaint
about regular athletic tape, Brad is, it lets loose.
I mean, I often have to,
what I have to do is I have to
actually go put another piece of tape
across to stop it-
- Right, to lock it in.
- To lock it in.
- I've done that too.
- Now, what are you doing here, Brad?
You're heating it up?
- Yep, you've got to do this for about 30 seconds
to 60 seconds and you can use the paper,
you can just use your hands,
but the paper make, allows it to slide a little bit better.
- Sure.
- That heats up from friction.
And that allows that adhesive to set into your skin.
- Gotcha.
- So you have better, better locking, so it sticks better.
If you've got a real hairy,
you may have to shave to get this, you know.
- Yeah.
- Otherwise when you pull it off, it will stick.
And when you pull it off
it pulls your hairs off and it sees
how tough you really are.
- Sure.
- Yeah.
I'm not going to take the time
'cause I wanted to get on to the next,
but I'm going to take another piece
and the way you, don't spend time trying to peel this,
like this, it's really hard.
You just pull.
- Rip it in the middle.
- Rip it, and it makes it really easy.
- To pull off.
- Yep, and before you do that,
you actually cut the corners.
If you see, these are rounded, you have to do that manually.
You cut that.
And that, if you have corners,
they tend to catch and peel off.
Yeah, and some of the tapes are pre-cut.
- Yep, exactly.
- And some are, are, are they're length-wise
and they got the curve on 'em already.
- Exactly.
He shows all that in the book.
- Sure.
- So I'm going to put another piece right there,
about a half lap or so.
And then I would do, he calls it the I-, the I-Band,
where we're gonna go across this way
for a little more support.
And if you have particular pain in one spot
oftentimes you're going to put that tape right
over the painful spot.
And you're gonna put stretch on that as well.
So make sure your ankle's in neutral,
dorsiflex like this when you do it.
And I can feel that support already.
And my peroneals are right under here.
Those are the muscles that help support your ankle.
And that's another benefit.
- Yeah, that's a great idea.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause it's the muscles you want to stop inversion.
- Right, exactly.
It's their job.
- Yeah.
- So we're just helping 'em out.
Let's go to hamstring strain,
which I have a mild one right now.
- By the way Brad's wearing my shorts.
- Pshaw.
Well, I would never wear shorts like this.
- It's like regular pants.
- Yeah, well, yeah.
They're not shorts, they're longs.
- Yeah, they're longs, there you go.
- But I did need to show you.
I taped this yesterday afternoon.
I went for a bike ride on it,
like I'd mentioned, felt great and I took a shower with it.
So it's doing exactly what it's supposed to.
- Stays in place.
- Yep, now the unique thing about when you have a stream
and this is why you really have to be careful
and look at the book or his videos,
whether you on this
you don't stretch the tape, you stretch the muscle.
- Sure, and then you put the tape on.
- Yes, so what I did here is I went
like this, straight knee, you know, good posture.
I got a stretch on the muscle.
I'll put the tape here, again,
I'm not stretching the first inch,
and on this, you don't stretch it.
Maybe a little bit, he said, but not much.
And then you bring all the way back up.
- You don't stretch the tape.
- Yeah, right, but you are stretching the muscle.
- Sure.
- So you put that up all the way
up to the ischial tube where the hamstrings at.
- The sit bones.
- Yep, you can't get that far at, you know,
it just gets in there, you don't want to do that.
- Right.
- You'll know how you put up as far as you feel comfortable.
And then you put two of 'em on there, like you see.
And then you leave it on.
He says typically it'll last two to three days, maybe more.
Depends on the quality of tape you have,
how clean your skin is,
and what you're doing-
- And how much you sweat, maybe.
- Yep, when you've take a shower
and how much soap and all that kind of thing.
- Right.
- And lastly, but not leastly,
and this is what Bob and I really appreciate.
- Yeah, we used to do this all the time for patients.
Yep, and Bob is actually gonna undress here,
a little bit, but this is posture taping
And this can be done for the back, mid back,
low back, the neck, shoulders.
And it really works well.
We are just all over this from our experience.
So, in this particular situation, what we're going to do...
We're gonna use, the color tape is your choice.
Purple, he's a Viking fan, so, you know.
What could I say?
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say anything bad about that.
Now, the way you do postures,
Bob's gonna sit with good posture.
Now pull your shoulders way back.
We're not going to go that far back.
We don't want to have wrinkles.
- [Bob] Wrinkles.
- But that's kind of exaggerating.
So right there, we've got posture
and he has really wide tape, but I don't have any.
He says, if you don't have that extra wide tape
you can certainly put two pieces of tape on there.
I didn't cut the corners on this
'cause I didn't want to take the time
but I'm going to split it here like that.
I'm going to put it in the middle,
stick it here,
and then I put that stretch.
So I'm going to pull, I didn't make this long enough,
but you get the idea.
I'm going to pull, pull, pull, stretch.
And at the end, no stretch, lock it down.
And this is why you need practice.
You got to get used to how far
you're gonna put it.
Pull, pull, pull, and then no stretch at the end.
In there.
Now when he starts to round his shoulders forward,
can you do that, Bob?
Can you easily feel that tape?
- [Bob] Yes, I can.
- So.
- [Bob] It's giving me feedback.
- Yep, gives you feedback.
Oh, I'm rounding.
- [Bob] Oh, I'm rounding, I need to straighten back up.
- Yep.
- [Bob] It even kinda pulls you back a little bit.
- Yep, yeah, absolutely.
Now to get posture rounding this way
we got rounded this way
and this way, we put a vertical piece on.
- Yeah, so when I round like this now,
- Yep.
- It pulls me.
And I, Brad and I used to do this
with patients all the time.
- Yep.
- And the problem with that is
if it got sweaty, it, it would come loose.
- Right, when you're not using this type of tape.
We were using the, the typical rigid tape,
which works well, but it does let loose.
- [Bob] It does let loose.
- Yeah, particularly if you don't have or whatever,
not clean skin, poor tape.
Now I would put two of these on one here and one here
and then these two across, and then it's gonna work
as a double benefit-
- [Bob] Sure.
- As far as postural correction.
- And then just going to leave that on
until it comes off.
Again, you may get three days or more with that.
So...
- And it's been my experience,
like I will spend 15 minutes teaching somebody to
keep their back straight while they're lifting.
- Yep.
- And then I watch 'em go outside
and they reach down and get their purse-
- Yep.
- And they round out like this.
- Right.
- That's why I started taping because as soon
as they reached down, they go, oh.
- Yes.
- I did something wrong.
- Yep.
It is probably one of the most effective ways to
teach posture.
- [Bob] Feedback.
- The feedback, yeah.
- [Bob] Constant feedback.
- The only problem is you gotta to have someone
put it on.
- Yeah.
- And then it comes off after a while.
But you know, if you want to do it for, say a week
do it two or three times and which will last a week or more,
I have a feeling that you're gonna have,
without the tape,
your body has learned muscle memory a little bit that-
- Now Brian Mulligan used to take ladies bras
and tie 'em,
so they're tight.
- Brian Mulligan is a, I think he's,
we think he's still alive.
He's a therapist from New Zealand.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- And he is just, he's a guru.
He has his own system, a worldwide system,
- [Bob] He's quite a character too.
- But he is a character, so yeah,
he would do off, we may consider it off the wall.
I think for him it just makes sense.
- Yeah, that that was normal, normal behaviors, so.
- Anyways, yeah.
So very good.
Again, do your homework at this.
- The book is called A Practical Guide
to Kinesiology Taping for Injury Prevention
and Medical Conditions, by John Gibbons.
- John Gibbons.
Yes, so good.
- We'll have a link below.
- Get the book, you can do this.
- Yeah.
- Take your time.
- You can do this.
- Do it right.
- All right, thanks.