Kinesio tape-NCAA basketball tournament

Gimpy Tar Heels show their colors

By Robbi Pickeral - Staff Writer
www.drshoshany.com

GREENSBORO -- Strips of colorful athletic tape are making several North Carolina players in the NCAA basketball tournament look as though they are the vanguard of a fashion trend.

The rectangles of not-quite-Carolina blue running down the front of point guard Bobby Frasor's left knee, the inside of Tyler Hansbrough's left quad -- and on various parts of Ed Davis, Mike Copeland and Justin Watts -- are Kinesio tape. The adhesive was invented in Japan and is applied over muscles and joints to reduce pain and inflammation.

"It's magic," said Frasor, who had ACL surgery last season.

Staff Photo by Robert Willett - UNC's Ed Davis wears a strip of Kinesio tape on his left knee during Thursday's game against Radford. The tape reduces pain and inflammation in muscles and joints.

The tape has been around for 25 years but started gaining attention during the 2008 Olympics, when beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh wore an intricate pattern of black strips all over her shoulder. University of Connecticut center Hasheem Thabeet also uses it on his shoulder.

Traditional white athletic tape is used over gauze to immobilize joints and muscles. Kinesio tape is elastic. Applied directly to the skin in specific patterns and tensions depending upon the injury, the flexible cotton adhesive is designed to support and guide joints and muscles while allowing athletes a complete range of motion.

UNC senior Marcus Ginyard, who is redshirting this season because of a foot injury, was the first Tar Heel to try out the tape last fall, on a high ankle sprain. Frasor came next, and Copeland, a reserve, recently ditched the brace on his surgically repaired right knee in favor of the perpendicular piece of tape.

It comes in four colors -- blue, pink, beige and black -- but it wasn't hard for the Tar Heels to know which color to order.

"It's a little off,'' Copeland said of the slightly aqua hue. "But it works ... so I'm going to stick with it."
Kinesio tape is available in our Manhattan office.


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Kinesio tape is used in our NYC Physical therapy office for everything from ACL injuries support to pediatric patients.
We have found it helpful for patients that are undergoing spinal decompression therapy for herniated discs.
It is a great for wrist and elbow injuries and an amazing adjunct to shoulder rotator cuff injury treatment.
I recently have added a new type of tape into the protocol called Spidertech made by a company called Nucapmedical what I like about this product is the tape seems to stick for longer and it is pre cut for certain body areas.