Does the Direction of Kinesiology Tape Application Influence Muscle Activation in Asymptomatic Individuals?
Michelle Dolphin, Gary Brooks, Blair Calancie and 1 others
PMID 33604143WHAT IT FOUND
Taping direction made no difference to quadriceps muscle activity, strength, or jump performance in healthy young adults.
One small hop distance change was not significant after adjusting for multiple tests and fell well below the detectable change threshold.
Key findings
01Tape direction did not significantly change quadriceps EMG output or isokinetic knee extension torque compared to baseline.
02Tape direction did not significantly change triple-hop distance or vertical jump height compared to baseline.
03A small increase in average hop distance was not considered significant due to multiple comparisons and fell below the minimal detectable change.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (n=15) and homogeneous (young, healthy adults), limiting generalizability to injured or older populations. The study may be underpowered; post-hoc analysis showed only 35% power for the outcome closest to significance. Reliability for EMG measurements was poor to fair. Tape tension was not standardized using a strain gauge, which may have introduced variability. The effectiveness of blinding participants to tape direction using color changes was not assessed.
Declared interests
All authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the nominal p-values below 0.05 for hop distance or power as evidence that tape direction works. These differences did not survive the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons, and the change in hop distance was smaller than the minimal detectable change, meaning it is likely just measurement noise.