You may have seen striped or patterned athletes in the Games. Called Kinesio tape, it promises to relieve muscle pain and strain.
Some swear by it. Some don’t.
I got some sports tape, sort of a tape-on elastic bandage after a shoulder injury, and it did help—for one thing, reminding the user ‘don’t do that’ is a biggie, but not so sure that works with Olympic athletes. It did help the shoulder heal. It was so bad that it would send stars through my vision if I had to stop short or catch my balance and that shoulder kept moving a tad. Now I have full range of motion (I did a lot of pushing that, and yes, it hurt.) And no pain at all. Took most of a year to get the range back.
I’ve had benefit from something a little more extreme. I have strained occasionally a shoulder–you know the type where you look in the mirror and the sore shoulder is 3/4″ lower than the good one? I got some relief from geting an old belt and cinching it up just below the armpits.
Ow. That’s bad.
View from some reports in the UK was it yet another brand of snake oil with nothing serious to back it up other than the placebo effect – which is a potent force….
I’d think there would be some benefits from bracing and stabilizing the joint, which helps the ligaments. It may also take some of the load off the muscles by slightly limiting the range of motion which might help to heal tiny muscle tears.
I hear you about shoulders. Try rotator cuff surgery (and two knee surgeries for a busted kneecap) when you’re allergic to narcotics. . .
Just heard that Liaden authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s house had a major plumbing malfunction Friday and they’ve got severe water damage in the bathroom and basement — most heartbreaking is that water rained down onto their current inventory of printed books and their authors’ copies, not to mention computer equipment, that were in the basement.
I can’t be the only one who saw this headline on this site and thought of something more science-fictional than this. ☺
Lol!
You have a point. Florian’s equestrian tape. A handsome lad and horses. How can you go wrong?
Re the snake oil: Jane’s mentioned a point. As with mine, putting on that tape not only reminds you, it also ‘supports’ the muscle through the period of relaxation after use. So it would prevent overused muscles fatiguing and letting the joint move too much. In my case, and with heavier elastic, it prevented some of the pain, which also helps relaxation.
wish that Florian’s tape could be the real thing. watching olympic dressage and showjumping over the last few days. there are some riders who just HAVE it, and some who just DON’T. including nasty German rider Christian Ahlmann who disgraced himself, losing his temper after he wrongly placed his horse at the last, a double, which forced the horse to stop after bringing down the first part. whip spurs and bit were all used in a nasty display of anger. I wonder he wasn’t eliminated .. I wish he could have been (he won’t be going through to the next stage) :(( So nice to see riders with no spurs or whip and a mild bit .. particularly the French, who trust their horses and have a lovely free forward-flowing style.
We also don’t understand why the German rider who was disqualified in another meet for her horse having a bloody mouth was scored so high here and so praised by the commentator. Her horse was constantly resisting, she had the reins as tight as she could pull constantly, and ‘relaxed’ did not describe that horse at all: I felt sorry for the horse and I kept hoping they’d score her in the twos because of her handling. Relaxation is a major point with the dressage. And what is it with the judges’ inability to see this behavior? I’m also suspicious that the excuse that the horse bit his tongue in the disqualification that did happen may not have been where that injury happened. I’m wondering if they’re using the kind of bits that can cause that injury, then switching for the competition. I really do not like their style, at all.
apparently there are some issues with some german dressage riders, but watching today I discovered Christian Ahlmann jumping for the german team, so his poor mark didn’t disqualify him, more’s the pity. our Carl Hester seems to be a real horseman …. here is a youtube of his protégée Charlotte Dujardin doing her freestyle in another competition (score over 90%), with a very interesting some what opaque comment below about the state of german dressage.
ah, here is the problem with some dressage riders, in a rather large nutshell – and thankfully, team GB don’t do this
rollkur is riding your horse with its head drawn right in and its neck overbent so its chin is practically touching its chest.
“I’m a showjumping rider myself but I have done abit of dressage and all the research I have done has pointed to the fact that rollkur is harmful to the horse. Anky did say a scientific article was coming out to say that rollkur was biomechanically better for the horse but this article has never turned up. The problem with rollkur is that they are trying to achieve lightness from the front of the horse and not from the hind. This means that the hindquarters get left behind. This isn’t noticable in the Krack C video but if you watch the grey Matine at WEG you can see her hind is not truely engaged and she is always overbent. Rollkur also causes the nuchal ligament in the neck to calcify/start to form bone in it to try and strangthen it from the stress that rollkur causes. Rollkur causes the nuchal ligament to rub on the vertebrae of the neck, with lesions forming after just minutes of rollkur. Also horses in rollkur cannot swallow and they have the great strings of saliva hanging from their mouths. Finally you can often see horses in rollkur bouncing off both back legs together in trot as they cannot probably balance with their heads pulled in like that. Finally all they can see are there hooves. How would you feel in a medium canter and all you can see is your feet-scary huh. So basically rollkur is bad and a lazy way to get a horse with a fixed headset rather than ride it properly. And to be honest is Anky really that good of a rider?? She certainly grinds her pelvis into their poor spines and sometimes looks unbalanced. And when her horse bolts she panics and screams for help?? A world champion?? ”
noticed some of the Saudi jumping team had their horses in draw-reins which do the same thing, out of the arena, as when they came back in for their medal, the horses had them on.
:(( all lazy shortcuts which don’t do the horse any good.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/weird-tape-olympians-bodies-does-202510355.html
What I used wasn’t kinesio, which looks quite thin. Mine was not decorative. It was pretty sturdy stuff, good old Elastikon. http://www.amazon.com/ELASTIKON-Elastic-Tape-One-Roll/dp/B000GJVMLG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344177368&sr=8-1&keywords=elastikon+tape My chiropractor puts it on like a cast, pretty well echoing the direction of the muscle he’s assisting. I do credit this tape for helping my shoulder. And if you have a strained neck it’s good for helping prevent you making ‘wrong moves.’
ooops, forgot the link …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRuRQatxyik
oh, this is REALLY interesting …http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK3TzBuGN0w&feature=related
It is really sad that a horse and rider have to be broken up, especially when the horse is then given to what does not seem a good situation.
This attack of meningitis that kept this rider out of the Olympics is beginning to look odd, too. The ‘best dressage horse in the world’ and this new highly-praised rider is having difficulties perhaps the team doesn’t want on display.
🙁
I may be after some of that tape, after crawling about under the sink first installing the dishwasher electrical outlet, then reattaching all the plumbing. We shall see if my solder joints on the copper pipes (they are UGLY and would win no prizes!) are sufficient. I am also going to try a newish product, Shark Bites. They are the snap-on joints that require no expertise, aside from having a clean pipe end. I doubt my ability to sweat a stable join where the pipe is not controllably clean and dry (the business end where it emerges from the wall), so we’ll see if this works.
Aside from the Olympics, anyone going to stay up and watch Curiosity hopefully land safely?
I will.
I will re Curiosity.
We use Gator Bite as the connector on the pond. Now, since that’s underwater there’s no way to tell if it leaks, but I can tell you that’s one of the best inventions ever.
And if you have not started using those little screw-in (Lowes/Home Depot/Ace) quick-connects on your garden hoses and sprinkers—do. They’re marvelous. Similar principle, very much easier on the fingers, and they don’t leak.
if anyone is interested, here’s a link to a video with some of this rollkur warm-up going on – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moTxBLAEhLw&feature=player_embedded
from an article here – http://everyrider.typepad.com/everyrider/2007/03/the_rollkur_deb.html
when I worked in an eventing training yard we rode the horses at canter in circles encouraging them to stretch their necks and work with their heads almost on the floor, to strengthen and round their backs for jumping. this required balance and sensitivity from the rider to keep the horse working in a collected manner and keep a contact, even at the buckle end. quite natural to a young horse, grazing and moving about in a field; difficult for a horse that has had its muscles set by work. later I was criticized for doing this by someone from the world of showing, as this was seen as training the horse on its forehand – in fact it brought the hocks under it … all politics – poor horses ….
It is truly beyond disgusting. I’d always been put off by over-flexion in the necks of horses being shown as seeming to be unnatural and unkind and it appears that I was most certainly correct. I did a lot of riding for both work and pleasure growing up and I have to say that any damage taken was due purely to ineptitude on one side or the other and mostly suffered by me. Dominance games, particularly with respect to dependent females or helpless animals are simultaneously infuriating and nauseating. I’m so tempted to tell someone to leave off and buy an oversized 4×4 with a chromed 4 foot lift kit and wheels from a front end loader in order to satisfy his feelings of inadequacy.