Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68013
KINESIO TAPING FROM DRAWING BOARD TO OLYMPIC STANDOUT Most massage therapists (and much of the rest of the world) first heard of Kinesio taping during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing when U.S. women's beach volleyball standout Kerri Walsh showed up to play wearing a strangely designed web of tape on her right shoulder. In that moment, Kinesio taping was given recognition on the world's stage, as everyone wanted to know more about that mysterious "tattoo" Walsh was sporting. When NBC's Today Show explained the tape and its function, the company distributing the product—Kinesio USA—was bombarded with inquiries and had 1,600 immediate online orders waiting for fulfillment, up from 250 orders a month just days earlier. During the height of Walsh and teammate Misty May-Treanor's Olympic gold- medal moments, the Kinesio website went from 800 to 54,000 hits a day. It's not that Kinesio taping was new to the world. In fact, Kinesio taping was developed more than 25 years ago by Dr. Kenzo Kase, a U.S.-trained Japanese chiropractor intrigued with the use of kinesiology and other less invasive ways of treating soft-tissue injuries. First-class athletes including Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, and Serena Williams had publicly used and endorsed the tape years before. But its use had been a more discrete affair compared to the Olympic venue, and instead showed up most often in medical, chiropractic, and physical therapy offices across the country. According to John Jarvis, director of the Kinesio Taping Association (a subsidiary of Kinesio USA), Kinesio taping has been in the United States for 10 years, but has only been marketed to therapeutic practitioners the past six. Jarvis says Kinesio taping initially struggled to find its market. "We first went after the athletic market, but we got almost nothing," he says of the response. The reason? "The technique itself is almost backward to what they're using," he says. Where traditional athletic tape offers a strapping, immobilization process, the flexible, water-resistant, latex-free Kinesio Tex Tape encourages movement and the channeling of fluids and can be left on the skin for up to five days. Even though athletic trainers didn't initially warm to the product, physical therapists (PTs) and occupational therapists (OTs) began using the tape for rehabilitative purposes. "They liked the results and within a couple of years, they were our primary market," Jarvis says. Massage therapists were soon to follow, after the Kinesio organization first went through a two-year process ensuring the taping protocol fit within an MT's scope of practice and then sought out leaders in the sports massage community to facilitate the way. "It really made sense to start going after that MT," Jarvis says. "We knew we had to go and find people that could help us introduce it within that market." TAPE TRENDSETTERS Sports massage therapist Benny Vaughn was one of the first from that early group of MTs to try the product. With 35 years in the profession and an extensive background working with track and field athletes, Vaughn says Kinesio taping can enrich the desired therapeutic neuro- sensory response that the massage therapist or bodyworker initiates. "Whether you're doing structural integration, myofascial release, neuromuscular therapy, or Swedish, Kinesio will enhance the effects of your hands-on work," Vaughn says. This sports massage veteran, who worked with the U.S. Track & Field team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, says it's all about pressure and surface tension. "It's a surface stimulus," he says. "[Kinesio] utilizes the neuro- sensory and proprioceptive system of the body in the same fashion that massage and all touch therapies do. 54 massage & bodywork may/june 2009 "Whether you're doing structural integration, myofascial release, neuromuscular therapy, or Swedish, Kinesio will enhance the effects of your hands-on work." sports massage therapist Benny Vaughn, Kinesio taping promotes controlled and predictable 'touch' stimuli to the skin." Vaughn, who owns Texas Athletic Therapy in Fort Worth, Texas, says almost half of his office clientele receive Kinesio taping as part of their session care. "I have found that Kinesio taping can address any orthopedic condition," he says, adding that massage and taping "work beautifully" together. Whether it's a soft-tissue condition that interferes with postural balance, a muscle-tendon injury, or fascial adhesion, Vaughn says