The Real Reason Why Olympic Athletes Wear These Colorful Body Tapes

As the 2016 Summer Olympic Games are already in full swing, there should have been a couple of sporting events that has caught your attention. With that said, you will also see a number of athletes wearing, not just their country's colors, but also a colorful tape on their bodies. So, what is it and why are there so many athletes using it?

If you have looked closely enough, you would recognize a lot of athletes wearing colored tapes known as kinesiology tape or more popularly known as kinesio tape. There are a number of different types of this bright adhesive. In the last 2 Olympic Games (2008 and 2012), athletes were seen wearing Kinesio Tex Tape developed by a Japanese chiropractor in 1979. Now, KT Tape is the official kinesiology tape licensee for Team USA, Science Alert reported.

The Kinesio website said, "[It] alleviates discomfort and facilitates lymphatic drainage by microscopically lifting the skin. [The Kinesio Tape can be] applied over muscles to reduce pain and inflammation, relax overused or tired muscles, and support muscles in movement on a 24-hour-a-day basis."

According to wonderfulengineerings.com, the KT Tape has been developed to primarily provide external support to the body. This way, the body is kept active while it recovers from certain injuries. KT Tape was also said to create proprioception, the neuromuscular feedback that facilitates muscular action.

Makers of the KT Tape said that it can also be used to treat certain conditions like headache and muscle sores to shin splints. However, these claims still need to be experimentally verified. Despite the growing number of athletes trusting the athletic tape to enhance their performance, researchers have not seen any benefits of using the tape. In a clinical research involving patients with different musculoskeletal conditions, researchers discovered that the Kinesion Tape was not able to improve their suffering in any way.

But, Tech Insider reported that a number of studies have documented a number of benefits of the placebo effects Kinesio Tape brings. So, even if does not do anything, it is still worth wearing when the athlete believe it helps. It's just like those people who think they've been given caffeine or morphine feel less fatigue or pain, even if all they've ingested is a sugar pill.

Meanwhile, human and applied physiology professor Steve Harridge told Reuters back in 2012, "The fact that athletes think it's going to do them some good can help in a psychological way." And a psychological edge and the confidence that comes with it may be just what someone needs to hurl a javelin further than their opponent or to spike that volleyball one final time.