Kinesiotaping as an adjunct to exercise therapy for symptomatic and asymptomatic swimmers: A randomized controlled trial

Objectives: Kinesiotaping is widely used in sport injury prevention and treatment, and sports performance improvement; however, there is insufficient evidence of its effectiveness. The purpose of this randomized trial was to determine if short- and long-term treatment with exercise combined with kinesiotaping results in better outcomes on static and dynamic posture in symptomatic and asymptomatic swimmers with forward-head, forward-shoulder posture than exercise alone. Material and methods: Fifty-two 11- to 25-year-old competitive swimmers were randomly assigned to an exercise combined with kinesiotaping group (n = 26) and exercise-only group (n = 26). Both groups received a 10-week exercise intervention targeting shoulder and thoracic mobility, upper back and shoulder strength with or without kinesiotaping following each exercise session. Static and dynamic posture including pectoralis minor length, scapular anterior tilting index, scapular upward rotation, and glenohumeral internal and external rotation were measured at baseline, after one session (short-term), and after the 10-week intervention (long-term). Results: Results from our study show that exercise combined with kinesiotaping resulted in immediate decrease forward-head angle (Cohen d = 0.84) and forward-shoulder angle (Cohen d = 1.37) and increase in dynamic posture including pectoralis minor length (Cohen d = 0.63), glenohumeral internal rotation (Cohen d = 0.91), total glenohumeral rotation (Cohen d = 0.91), scapular anterior tilting index (Cohen d = 0.48), scapular upward rotation 0–60∘ (Cohen d = 0.56), and 60-120∘ (Cohen d = 0.62). In addition, exercise combined with kinesiotaping relative to exercise-only did not have better effects after 10-week intervention for dynamic and static posture (P > 0.05), but it may be a good choice to improve pain, dynamic and static posture in swimmers in the short-term (P ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: Adding KT to exercise intervention may be a good choice to improve static and dynamic posture, and pain relief, in the short- but not in the long-term