How to Tape an Ankle

So you need to learn how to tape of an ankle whether it’s because you’re coming back from an ankle injury or you’re just looking to protect your ankle while you’re playing sport. A technique I’m going to show you today is our standard ankle taping and we’ve used this in the NRL in the a-league in the NBL and in international rugby. Before we start today it’s important to understand that there’s literally hundreds of different ways to tape up an ankle and the technique we’re going to show you today is our basic one where you can guarantee that you’re going to give the joint the support that it needs without restricting the ankles movement at all. It will serve as a good model for starting your ankle taping and feel free to modify your taping as you need to for the needs of your athlete. We’re going to be using the 38 millimetre tape to tape up the ankle but to make it clearer we’re going to use the coloured tape so it’s easier for you to follow along. At the end of the demonstration we’ll show you in real time how we tape up an angle using just the rigid tape, so you can see what it looks like at a real speed. So let’s get started on our taping tutorial!

Before we start make sure that the ankle is in the right position of 90 degrees there’s something sure that the taping doesn’t get too tired when the athlete moves off the bed. We’re going to start with two anchors and position these anchors high enough above the ankle so that they don’t move when the ankle moves. Angle the tape slightly around the leg so that it sits nice and flush with no creases. We’re now going to do a black stirrup which runs from the inside of the anger underneath the foot and it touches to the anchor on the outside of the ankle. You can apply some tension to this tape once you get to the outside of foot to increase the support on the lateral side. For our second step, we’re going to move slightly forward of the first anchor so overlap the tape by half again run underneath the foot apply some tension and stick to the outside anchor. Use your hands to smooth the tape down and get a good stick to the skin. Our next step is to do a figure six shown here in red again overlapping the tape by half moving forward we’re going to go under the foot but this time we’ll go across the front of the foot and touching back to the inside of the ankle. It’s important to just lay your figure six onto the skin, don’t apply tension or your athlete will complain that the taping is too tight. We’ll follow this up with a yellow half eight, this starts on the outside of the ankle goes across the forefoot under the foot back across the foot to finish up close to where the figure six ended. We could finish our taping here but the addition of two heel locks will really make the taping much more supportive for the airf eight with a heel lock. I like to start just above the ankle and cross over the Achilles tendon around the heel bone and then finishing up on the lateral part of the ankle. Repeating this heel lock coming from the other side will help to reinforce your taping and stabilising the back of the ankle really well once the heel locks are done. It’s simply a case of closing off your ankle tape you try to make sure that any areas exposed skin are covered with tape to prevent the taping cuts. Here, we’ve used three more anchors working back up to make sure that all of the ends of the tape are secure. To finish the taping use your hands to make sure that the tape is well and truly stuck a good angle taping should be neat with very few creases or folds in the tape.

So there you have an easy step by step approach to taping an ankle. Now you may need to go back and watch the video a few times, particularly for things like the heel locks to make sure you get the lines right. A bit of advice where most people go wrong is they try to pull the tape too tight. With the exception of the stirrups, the rest of the taping should be applied without any tension on it at all. With some practice you’ll get used to the properties of the tape and you’ll find it really easy to take the ankle neatly and don’t forget you can always go back and review parts of the video to get your taping right.

Finally let’s have a look at an ankle being taped in real time. Our first step is to apply our two anchors far enough above the ankle so that they’re not going to move when the ankle moves. Progressing from there we put a first of our stirrups on, our second stirrup overlaps the tape by half and attaches again to the lateral side of our anchors moving forward by half a tape width again we’re going to produce our figure six going underneath a foot across the foot and finishing on the ankle itself our half eight is. Next underneath the foot then back across to where the figure six finished finally our here locks going backwards from above the ankle cradling around the heel bone and then finishing off from the other side of the ankle repeat that on the other side so that the heel bone well cradled and lock back on to the medial side. Finishing off to cover all the skin with three anchors so that the ankle job is nice and secure. Use your hands to press the tape down and get a good bond, check the movement of the ankle so that you know the tape is doing the job you want and all going well with a bit of practice you should be able to complete an ankle taping in around 90 second.

So there you have our basic ankle taping, that you can use with a variety of athletes and have confidence that it’s actually going to support the joint. Is this method similar to taping techniques you’ve seen before? Let us know in the comments below if you have any other variations that you use. If this video has been useful for you please hit the like button and consider subscribing and we’ll see you in the next video.