How to Tape Your Achilles Tendon

The Achilles tendon is the largest tendon in the body. Despite its size and strength, the Achilles tendon is often prone to strain or injury from repetitive motions like those in running, football, tennis, basketball or other sports. Taping the tendon provides a certain degree of protection by limiting the stretching of the tendon and allows for continued activity in mild cases of irritation or strain.

Things You'll Need

• Elastic adhesive bandage
• Under wrap or very thin gauze

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Instructions

• 1

  Position yourself so your calf rests naturally with the foot slightly flexed. Do not pull your toes back all the way but allow the shin and calf to just flex slightly.

• 2

  Wrap a piece of adhesive bandage around the top of your calf, just below the knee and just above the main belly of the calf muscle.

• 3

  Wrap another piece of adhesive bandage mid-foot, just below the ball of the foot and just forward of the arch.

• 4

  Wrap the under wrap or gauze around the entire leg from the calf down to the foot to protect your skin from the adhesive.

• 5

  Measure a piece of bandage that will be long enough to extend from the bandage at the top of your calf, along the back of the leg, over the heel to the bandage on your foot.

• 6

  Cut a hole in the bandage a quarter of the way up from the bottom.

• 7

  Secure the long bandage at the top of the calf by looping more adhesive around it, then lay the bandage down along the back of the calf, stopping just above the Achilles tendon, maintaining tension all the way.

• 8

  Enlarge the hole you cut in the bandage so your heel can fit through it, secure the bandage down on either side of the heel, and continue securing the rest of the bandage to the bottom of the foot. Anchor the bandage with another loop of tape at the foot.

• 9

  Measure another length of bandage from the calf to the bottom of the foot.

• 10

  Secure the bandage under the foot, then split the length of the bandage starting from the top all the way down to just above the heel. Be careful to keep the halves apart to avoid adhesion to each other.

• 11

  Take one half of the split bandage and loop it around the heel to cross over the thinnest part of the Achilles tendon, wrapping the rest of the bandage up around the calf.

• 12

  Take the second half of the split bandage and loop it around the heel in the opposite direction so an "x" is formed by both halves crossing over the thinnest part of the Achilles tendon.

• 13

  Wrap the remainder of the entire calf in elastic loops to secure the wrapping over the tendon.