Modern life isn’t always conducive to optimal movement. Hours spent sitting or inactive often creates biomechanical issues which can cause injuries. Poor biomechanics also impacts your performance.

Whether you run, ride or lift weights, innovations in sports science have the potential to support efficient movement to boost performance and reduce injury risk.

A popular proactive option is kinesiology tape. Many physical therapists today use this brightly-coloured tape to address various biomechanical and lifestyle-related issues. 

Sensing movement patterns

Taping using the right product and application technique can help to improve functional movement. 

By stimulating mechanoreceptors in the skin, the tape can provide neurosensory feedback when we move, which can alert us to poor movement patterns or when we take a weak joint or muscle beyond a healthy range of motion (ROM). 

This proprioceptive feedback can improve movement patterns and creates better stability through the resultant structural effect, which helps to improve performance. Athletes can use kinesiology tape for better core stabilisation, hip and joint alignment, and posture, and enhanced muscle activation in primary movers like the glutes.

Sports taping also serves as a proactive injury prevention measure as it helps athletes understand their limits and work safely and efficiently within that range. 

And the tape aids rehabilitation programs by supporting compromised biomechanics and allowing injured athletes to train within a safe ROM.

Use SpiderTechtm sport tape to:

  • Support strained muscles
  • Protect injuries
  • Decrease pain after injury
  • Reduce oedema and swelling
  • Increase flexibility and ROM
  • Accelerate healing
  • Reduce soreness and swelling
  • Prevent injuries
  •  Improve postural stabilisation and alignment
  •  Increase speed and strength
  •  Aid recovery

Improved recovery

When applied correctly, kinesiology tape provides a form of mechanical lifting for the skin and underlying fascial layers. The resultant microcirculatory effects support better nutrient and energy delivery and improves drainage to remove more lymph and other exercise metabolites.

This benefit promotes better fluid movement to accelerate recovery following intense training or during blocks of high workloads. Similarly, kinesiology tape can help reduce swelling, bruising, oedema and/or ecchymosis around injured soft tissues and joints by improving superficial fluid dynamics and lymphatic drainage.

Pain reduction

Another benefit is the tape’s ability to relieve pain. SpiderTech™ tape is developed with advanced wave technology that activates Merkel cells (nerve endings) on the skin, which signal your nervous system to block discomfort. The enhanced sensory stimulation can decrease the neural perception of pain. 

Furthermore, the stimulation provided by wearing the tape over consecutive days helps to normalise the neural drive to muscles involved in painful conditions or after injury. In this way, SpiderTech™ may help to relieve acute or chronic pain while also providing support for joint instability, sprains and muscle and ligament strains.

An application for every need

Accessing these benefits has never been easier. Dis-Chem stocks a range of SpiderTech™ Precut Kinesiology Tape and Rolls made by the renowned Nitto Denko Kinesiology tape manufacturer in Japan, which boasts more than 30 years of proven clinical results. 

These taping products mimic the thickness, weight and elasticity of human skin which allows it to work with the body as it moves, offering applications for every need.

The material is made of high-grade 100% cotton with a 100% polyacrylic adhesive. No latex makes it hypoallergenic. The tape is water-resistant and breathable and works for approximately 5 days after application. 

SpiderTech™ offers rolls and more than 17 body part-specific pre-cut products, including ankle, calf, elbow, knee, lower back, upper back, shoulder, neck, wrist, groin, hamstring, hip and three sizes of lymphatic applications. 

The patented Snap-Stick-Go tape backing makes it simple to apply, with easy-to-follow numbered application instructions and online support for specific needs.