Overuse Injuries In Gardening

Gardeners perform many repetitive tasks over prolonged periods, and do so frequently while in uncomfortable positions like kneeling, squatting or bending. For example, they may spend several minutes or even hours squatting to weed or prune a bed of flowers. They may have to hold a pair or shears overhead for a similar period in order to trim a hedge. These activities can give rise to repetitive stress injuries of the back, elbow, wrist or even shoulder. Once this happens, wearing kinesiology tape for gardening tasks will help by mitigating the pain and discomfort of these overuse injuries.

Kinesiology tape helps by lifting the skin over the injured area and  promoting the flow of fresh blood and oxygen into the damaged tissues, ligaments, etc. It works in concert with the natural movements of the body and actually relies on you continuing to use your limbs and muscles in a natural fashion. This is in contrast with the use of traditional adhesive tape, which relies on regulating the movement of joints in order to give injured tissues an opportunity to rest and recover.Hence, wearing kinesiology tape while gardening will actually promote recovery instead of retarding it. You can get more information on how kinesiology tape works here.

Other Advantages Of Kinesiology Tape

Using kinesiology tape for gardening also offers the following advantages:

• The tape is 100% hypoallergenic, so no need to be concerned about allergies or other negative medical reactions;
• You can wear the tape for periods of as long as 4 or 5 days at a time. You can wear it even while showering or bathing. This is more convenient than using traditional adhesive tape, which requires replacement more frequently.
• If you choose to do warm up exercises before embarking on a stint of gardening, you can do so while wearing your kinesiology tape. You can combine any warm up, cooling down or rehabilitation exercises with wearing kinesiology tape for gardening and they will not conflict with each other.