How to Use Athletic Tape

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Oz Pineda. I'm a Professional Basketball Coach here in Miami, Florida. In this clip we're going to show you how to use athletic tape. When you're playing in a game or practice, if there's not a trainer around and you have to use athletic tape yourself; I'm going to show you few things you can do for simple injuries. Anything more serious than that, you probably would do have to see an athletic trainer. A lot of times in basketball, you'll have a lot of jammed fingers; when the ball hits it or you get caught up with someone's jersey. Okay. The athletic tape we'll use is to take the jammed finger. There's two ways of doing it. You want to take two fingers together; tie against them up or you want to get just one strand and just tape over the, the swollen part of the finger. You want to take the tape; you want to rip it off. You want to be able to get the tape and you want to split it down the middle. Now if that finger is not be very big; now with that piece of tape, if you take two fingers together, okay, you just want to wrap it around and be able to do that. Okay. That's one way to wrap a finger; the jammed finger. The other way is, "Go ahead", if you have just one finger that's swollen; you want to get a tape and just wrap around a few times. Okay. You may want to use a longer piece of tape to be able to get it a cushion on the finger. Again, those are things you can do on your own to; if you jam a finger. If anything more serious again, you would have to see your trainer or a doctor. Another thing about athletic tape, it's very easy to purchase. You can go out to your local drugstore or some sporting good stores, have tape and you have to ask for athletic tape; okay; special type of tape that doesn't stick when you sweat. If you use regular tape, it's going to fall off when you sweat this tape or not; slip off when you're sweating. Make sure after you finish with the tape, you ice down the injury. Again, thank you for watching, I'm Oz Pineda."