How to Wrap a Pulled Quad With Athletic Tape

Your quadriceps are the large muscles on the front of your thighs. This muscle helps push you forward or climb up stairs or a hill. It is essentially the driving force of your body. Because of this fact, the quadriceps, commonly called quads, get a ton of use and can easily become overworked. When you attempt to do too much with your quad, whether it be lift too much, extend too far when walking or tweak it in some other way, you can pull or strain it. When this happens, you need to take care of it as soon as possible.

Things You'll Need

• bag of ice or ice pack
• bandage or athletic tape
• athletic pre-wrap
• pillows

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Instructions

• 1

  Ice your quad as soon as you can after the accident happens. You will want to reduce the swelling that occurs with a pulled muscle. Putting ice on it will not only reduce the swelling, it will ease the pain and prevent future swelling.

• 2

  Wrap your quad with the pre-wrap. This athletic wrap is merely a padded, non-sticky tape that goes around your leg to prevent putting tape directly on your leg, which can cause rashes or cause the tape to pull on your skin while you walk or move. You will want to start about an inch or two above your knee and continue to wrap up about ¾ of the way up your thigh. Make sure it isn't tight--it should be comfortable.

• 3

  Wrap your quad with the athletic tape. This will go directly over the quad. The easiest way to tape is to put a band of tape around the bottom of the pre-wrap, wrapping around twice. Then, start a new piece and wrap around the top of the quad twice (again, at the top of the pre-wrap). Do not wrap too tightly--the leg around the tape should not be bulging and you should only feel pressure in those taped areas. Movement should not be constricted. Then, wrap in between those two pieces of tape, working your way from the bottom to the top, overlapping the tape with each pass. Again, this should only be applying pressure.

• 4

  Elevate your leg. This can be done with a stack of pillows or the side/back of a chair or couch. Lifting your leg will help ease the pain and again reduce the swelling.

• 5

  Remove the tape at the end of each day, then ice and retape the next day.