What Sports Teams Know About Back Pain That You Don't

If you watch a sporting event on TV, you may see athletes with tape on their body. Not the typical athletic tape wrapped around their knee, but strips of tape often aligned in what seems like an unusual, random pattern. Oftentimes this is on the shoulders, back, arms, or vertically down the leg.

This is called kinesiology tape. It's widely available and relatively cheap, but people may question its effectiveness. Sports teams are usually at the forefront of emerging recovery tools, even if the research hasn't fully caught up yet.

Recently, a meta-analysis looked at 54 randomized controlled trials (3,479 patients) to evaluate whether kinesiology tape helps with low back pain specifically.

The research found that kinesiology tape provided acute and chronic lower back pain relief. However, it does not provide treatment per se, so you can't rely on it to fix the situation. Functional improvements were smaller and less impressive than pain relief. It also did not seem to improve radiating pain or nerve pain.

While the research was robust, there are some limitations. There is a learning curve to using kinesiology tape properly, plus there are different techniques. There was not a standard taping procedure among the studies.

Also, it's hard to "blind" the participants. In research, blinding means participants don't know which treatment group they're in. In this situation, you're either in the group that received kinesiology tape or the control group that didn't. Being in the tape group could lead to a psychological effect; feeling improvement because you expect the tape to do something.

What's interesting, however, is that a few studies used a placebo tape, which provides no benefit, for the control group. This is the best way to get a true measure of success. But not every study in the meta-analysis did this.

Kinesiology tape is best used for pain management while you go through physical therapy or seek other treatment options. Back pain can be debilitating, so this is a relatively affordable option that is probably worth trying. It won't fix the underlying problem, but the research suggests it can take the edge off your pain while you work toward recovery. As with any treatment, manage your expectations. The research is promising but modest, and kinesiology tape is no substitute for addressing the root cause of your pain.

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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 1:15 PM.