EFFECT OF ATHLETIC TAPING AND KINESIOTAPING® ON SOME BIOMECHANICAL ANKLE INJURY RISK FACTORS IN MALE VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS WITH CHRONIC LATERAL ANKLE SPRAINS

Introduction: Chronic lateral ankle sprains arecommon in volleyball players (1). The purpose ofthe current study was to determine the effect ofathletic taping and kinesiotaping® (KT®) on somebiomechanical ankle injury risk factors in malevolleyball players with chronic lateral ankle sprains.Experimental: twelve male volleyball players withchronic lateral ankle sprains (age: 22.04±3.17years; weight: 79.74±4.56 kg; height: 188.75±5.85cm) participated in the study. The subjects wereasked to perform the landing after a jump in theathletic tape, KT® and without tape conditions. Thepeak ground reaction forces in three directions(Fx,y,z) and peak and mean compressive and shearmechanical forces of ankle joint were recorded viasynchronization of video camera (JVC, 200 Fps)and force plate systems (Kistler, winterthor, 1000Hz) (2). The One-way Repeated Measure ofANOVA was used to test the hypothesis in SPSSsoftware (Version23).Result: Significantly lower (41%) peak negativefrontal plane ground reaction force (InversionForce) was found when ankles were taped withKT®compared to athletic tape during landing (P=0.03).However, there was no significant differencebetween peak forces (P>0.05 for all conditions).Also, there were no significant difference incompressive and shear forces between two tapes andKT® and without tape (P>0.05 for all variables).The athletic tape lead to 45% and 33% significantreduction respectively in peak and mean shearforces compared to without tape condition (P=0.45,P=0.01) (figure 1).Conclusion: Kinesiotaping® reduced the peakinversion force compared to athletic tape that makeslower loading on frontal plane protective structuressuch as lateral ligaments of ankle during landing.However, both tapes did not attenuate the vertical,anterior-posterior plane forces and compressiveankle forces compared to without tape landing.