SCAPULAR TAPING IMPROVES FUNCTIONAL THROWING PERFORMANCE among NORMATIVE YOUNG ADULTS: A RANDOMIZED CROSSOVER TRIAL

Objective: To assess the effect of scapular taping on the functional throwing performance index and medicine ball throwing performance. Design: A Randomized crossover trial. Setting: Out-patient Physiotherapy department at a university hospital. Participants: Forty-four healthy participants were randomly assigned to scapular and sham taping procedure. Outcome measure: Functional throwing performance index (FTPI) and Medicine ball throw (MBT) were recorded at baseline and following each taping procedure. Results: Analysis of variance with repeated measures on the dependent variable (Index percentage for FTPI and distance in meters for MBT) were used for analysis. Significant improvements were observed following scapular taping (p<0.05) on FTPI and MBT. Post hoc analysis for FTPI and MBT obtained a statistically significant difference between the scapular taping condition to baseline (p<0.05) with a mean difference of 19.20±11.45%; 0.17±0.21m, respectively. Similarly, scapular taping to sham taping (p<0.05) shown a significant difference of 18.32±10.20% on FTPI and 0.16±0.17m in MBT. No significant differences were found following sham taping on FTPI and MBT. Conclusion: Scapular taping improves functional throwing performance index and medicine ball throwing performance among normative young adults.