ANALYSIS OF THE RANGE OF MOVEMENT WITH

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ANALYSIS OF THE RANGE OF MOVEMENT WITH TWO TYPES
OF PROPHYLACTIC ANKLE TAPING INELASTIC VS.
ELASTIC TAPING Abián Javier1, Alegre Luis M1,
Fernández-Rodríguez José M2, Aguado Xavier1
(University of Castilla-La Mancha, Faculty of
Sports Sciences1, University of Castilla-La
Mancha, School of Physiotherapy and Nursery2,
Spain) INTRODUCTION The ankle is one of the
most injured joints in sport, and therefore it is
frequently protected with prophylactic ankle
taping (designed for subjects without previous
ankle in-juries). Prophylactic ankle taping can
be made with dif-ferent types of fabric, mainly
inelastic fibres. On the other hand, ankle taping
made with elastic fabric is more utilised in
therapeutic ankle taping, that is, designed for
subjects with previous injuries. It was
hypothesised that elastic tape could be utilised
in prophylactic ankle taping with the same
effectiveness as inelastic tape, and that this
kind of ankle taping would be more comfortable
for the users. PURPOSE The purpose of this
study was, on the one hand, to com-pare the
changes in range of movement (ROM) caused by the
loss of restriction of the ankle taping in two
different types of prophylactic ankle taping, one
made with inelas-tic tape (IT) and the other one
with elastic tape (ET) after 30 minutes of
intense exercise (jump and landing drills). On
the other hand, the subjects perception on
taping re-striction and comfortableness, and the
relationships of this perception to the ROM
restrictions were studied. METHODOLOGY Twenty
seven active young women (age 20.64.1 years
body mass 58.57.0 kg height 164.36.2 cm)
vol-unteered for the study. They carried out
three test sessions randomly distributed without
taping, with IT and with ET. The ankle ROMs in
plantarflexion, dorsiflexion, pronation and
supination were assessed before and after the
taping procedure, and after exercise, with and
without the ankle taping. The subjects answered
in a day apart a scale where they ranked from 0
(minimum) to 10 (maximum) the degree or taping
restriction and its comfortableness. RESULTS
The ankle supination and plantarflexion were
significantly restricted with both types of
taping (IT 40.74 and ET 41.77 IT 14.54
and ET 11.15 P lt 0.001, per-centage of
restriction in supination and plantar flexion,
re-spectively). After exercise, both types of
taping reduced the degree of restriction in
supination (IT 26.74 and ET 20.84) and
plantar flexion (IT 14.54 and ET 11.15).
The inelastic ankle taping loss more restriction
ef-fectiveness than the elastic one (P lt 0.05)
furthermore, the elastic taping was perceived by
the subjects as more com-fortable (IT
5.101.75 ET 7.761.25, P lt 0.001) and less
restrictive than the inelastic one.
DISCUSSION-CONCLUSION The lower losses of
restriction effectiveness and the greater
comfortableness with the elastic taping were
probably
caused by its greater stiffness and a mechanical
behaviour similar to that of the ankle
structures. From these results, we would
recommend the use of elastic taping as the first
choice when preparing prophylactic ankle taping
to limit plantarflexion and supination.
Keywords Ankle, Biomechanics, Taping
12thAnnual Congress of the ECSS, 1114 July 2007,
Jyväskylä, Finland I