In the article “Finger taping” we will tell you about the most popular ways to apply tapes to your fingers with a regular band-aid.
Most sports fans, namely sports such as volleyball, all kinds of wrestling, basketball, handball, have noticed that athletes at competitions wrap their fingers with a regular band-aid. Why do they do it, and what is it all about?
It is no secret that every sport is associated with various injuries. Injuries follow athletes throughout their careers, and to minimize “sick time” they use a variety of tools to do so. One such tool is finger taping.
Finger taping is one of the methods of prevention/treatment of injuries related to the hand, which involves applying a special way of adhesive tapes to the damaged area. In Russia, in most cases regular medical adhesive tape is used, but there are also professional kinesio tapes.
In volleyball, the number of injuries associated with the fingers of the hand reaches 22%, and a quarter of them end with fractures. Poorly placed block, pass, or even the ball hit the finger – all these causes very painful injuries, which take a long time to heal. In volleyball, there are also frequent injuries due to strong serves, when, literally, the skin cracks.
In wrestling, injuries associated with the hand are second only to injuries associated with the auricle. Improperly executed gripping technique, throwing, violations of the rules by the opponent – all this leads to injuries to joints, tendons, sprains. Sometimes taping fingers helps to increase the strength of the grip, to give confidence to the athlete.
There are many methods of taping. This is a whole section of sports medicine, which has been studied since the late 1960s. An example is the sections on sports medicine in the scientific publications of Professor and Chief Physician of the USSR Vladimir Ivanovich Dubrovsky.
The Japanese choropractitioner Kenzo Kase also became world famous in this field when Japanese athletes entered the Olympics in 1988 wearing colorful applications. Now these techniques are used all over the world, and an international association has been created.
Did you know what?
Taping is used for cosmetic purposes. Tapes are used to remove age spots, wrinkles, double chins, and are used in face and eyelid lifts. Cosmetologists claim that taping is an excellent alternative to the well-known Botox.
Nevertheless, there are 4 common methods in finger taping:
- Single fixation of the finger joint;
- Fixation of two adjacent fingers;
- “X-Taping”;
- Combined (simultaneous use of different patches).
Let us consider the basic schemes of finger taping:
Scheme of taping the index finger
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Scheme of taping the middle finger
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Scheme of taping of the third-fourth finger
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Thumb taping scheme
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In order to learn the technique of X-typing, we recommend watching the thematic video below.
X-typing
We also recommend to read about preventive finger taping in volleyball. Professional players of Zenit-Kazan volleyball club tell and show in great detail how to properly perform finger taping.
