Course Review: Rocktape's Fascial Movement Taping 1 and 2 | Modern Manual Therapy Blog - Manual Therapy, Videos, Neurodynamics, Podcasts, Research Reviews

Course Review: Rocktape's Fascial Movement Taping 1 and 2

the FMT 2 crew from Ancaster, ON
I had the opportunity to attend Rocktape's Fascial Movement Taping 1 and 2 over the weekend at the Inaugural launch of Rocktape Canada. It was only a short drive to the Hamilton area from Buffalo. With a tagline of taping movement, not muscles, I cautiously hoped for somewhat updated theory and mechanisms.

My one sentence review: Even if you left the course with no intention of ever using any form of kinesiotaping, these courses are worth it because they are current with modern mechanisms of manual therapy and rehab.

Here are some of my take home points
  • we make changes in the brain through taping
  • neuroscience is always changing
  • it's just "tape on skin"
    • which leads to sensory-motor stimulation on skin
  • the different receptors of superficial tissues
    • Merkel discs
    • Meisner and Pacinian corpuscles
    • root hair plexus - don't fully shave
    • Rufini endings
  • skin drag effects the nervous system
  • reviewed the tensegrity concept and mechanotransduction
  • tape is not a compressive force, it creates a lifting effect
    • diagnostic US was shown in quadriceps during knee flexion/extension with an without tape
    • the taped region had increased space between the superficial layers of fascia during the sliding motion
  • over time, the tape creates "ripples" under the skin, useful for sending more information to the brain
  • he then referenced Moseley!
    • the tape may send information to the brain to decrease the perceived threat
    • education + movement = increased physical capacity
  • there is a reflexive activation 
    • if we can position the body appropriately, the CNS will make adjustments
  • one of my favorite concepts
    • taping is simple, direction does not matter!
  • taping also acts like preload (eccentric phase prior to movement) - pretension
  • studies have been showing little to no effects of KTape
    • they changed the parameters
    • for postural sway, they fatigued the particpants first
    • the taping group had significantly improved postural sway than the non taped group
    • fatigue was the key for the tape to make the neurophysiologic changes
  • Kinesthetic guidance can be 30 times faster for pattern retraining
  • Key to neuroplasticity is low threshold repeated stimulus
    • tape can provide this with the correct movement/education to the patient to keep the transient effects of our treatments between visits
  •  “The skin is the skin of  the superficial fascia”
  • An example for patients using a submarine
    • The helmsman in our brain example
    • tape can be like sonar to figure out where sub/the body is in space
    • the brain needs input to help movement
  • FMT is not protocol based
  • You can tape along
  • taped along the median line, HOLY CRAP it's painful to take off the tape after having it on for hours along the pec, thankfully, Steve's italian mother had the solution in olive oil, I practically bathed in it
    • anatomical based lines/patterns 
    • neural lines (sciatic, femoral, radial, median - my second favorite)
    • smaller patches of 1-3" tape "tweak taping" does this just as well or better than taping along long patterns or lines - my favorite
      • think of it as Mulligan taping with small manual corrections with a test-retest then a small patch of tape to continue feeding that info to the brain
All in all, I cannot recommend both FMT 1 and 2 highly enough! I went in thinking that the line of taping movement not muscles was merely a slogan to differentiate themselves from other taping methods. I love to be proven incorrect! You learn everything from the neurophysiologic effects of taping (which they also apply to all manual therapy), pain science, test-retest models, as well as different movement screens; Dr. Steven Capobianco put it best when he said the course was "open source." There were several other experts from different fields in the course and we learned some postural screening from Brad Norris of powertekfitness.com, a little DNS from Kate Hood, some different taping applications from Darryl Yardley and Connor Collins, and a little IASTM and modern STM theory from yours truly!

Steven Capobianco is an all around dynamic speaker, well read and researched and very open to many different forms of assessment and treatment. We've only been speaking via facebook and email for a few short weeks, but we could tell early on that our approach was extremely similar. I can't say enough good things about Steve.. my only mild disappointment was that I thought I'd have another American in the class, but it turns out he was excited to launch Rocktape Canada because he is originally Canadian! And here I thought I would be able to introduce him to Tim Hortons! He only lives/practices in California, but it's been long enough that he called hockey, "ice hockey." You've been away too long buddy!

I will definitely be integrating Rocktape into many of my treatments and you'll be updated on future Cases of the Week and with vids on omptchannel.com on my tweak taping experiments! If FMT 1/2 is in your area and you've been curious about kinesiotaping as an adjunct, I can't recommend it enough. It really has been one of the best courses I've taken in years!

Here are some pics

Here I am with Dr. Ranil Sonnadara, PhD from McMaster University. I saw him taping a fencer, and I said, my wife used to fence. He said, "I'm a fencing coach." I said she fenced for Mac, and it turns out he was her former coach! She told me as a student prior to being a physio, she didn't listen to him, didn't cross train and ended up with a right quad that was so hypertrophied, it no longer fit in her pants.

A couple of blog readers, Connor and Tom, great to meet you guys!
My chiro brother from another mother, Dr. Steve Capobianco!

What are you waiting for? Go register for the closest FMT 1/2 NOW!

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