Tearing 101: How to Tear Athletic Tape
Hey from shield. Today we’re going to talk about tape tearing 101.
For a lot of people, when they’re working with athletic tape for the first time, tearing tape consistently without thread, folds, creases and struggles can be tough. Athletic tape is very different from common household tapes, such as blue painters tape or masking tape.
Quality athletic tape is rigid and is a woven cotton fabric. Without the adhesive coating, it would be like trying to tear a shirt without scissors! But with proper technique, we can show you how to tear tape consistently, every time.
Shield designs its tapes to be extremely high-quality, and while that means our athletic tape is a dense, strong, all-cotton fabric, it is still hand-tearable. We spend a lot of time evaluating and engineering our fabric to have the right orientation, and density of yarns. And then when we coat, we coat to make sure our adhesive invades the fabric. So you really get a good construction. That helps make it easier to tear.
One thing that will often happen with folks is, if they’re tearing for the first time or they’re new to it, they will wind up struggling with tape that feels like it’s twisting instead of tearing. When it starts to twist, you can see that you’ll get fabrics start to bunch up and block together, making it way harder to tear.
With the right technique, you don’t need scissors. You don’t need a ton of hand strength. To get tears done consistently and repeatedly.
The method to tearing athletic tape easily and consistently, every time, is three steps.
One, you want to grip consistently. I grip my thumb and forefinger on either hand pretty close together.
Step two is you want to pull apart, so I'm pulling my hands away from each other.
Finally, step three - as you pull apart, you stabilize the fabric so that it’s much easier to tear.
And so when you have, grip close together pulling apart, and twist. You naturally will get a clean tear. When you have this technique down. It’s really easy to tear even if your hand’s not close to the roll. It’s easy to tear if you only have a couple of free fingers. It’s easy to tear small pieces.
So it’s worth maybe a little bit of practice, but once you get it, it becomes like second nature. Grip. Pull. Twist. When you get this down you can even take your tape and rip it lengthwise, which can be handy if you’re taping for something like combat sports or mixed martial arts, jiu-jitsu or other martial arts when you need to tape small digits like toes. We’ll cover that in a future video. But for now, happy tearing. Remember:
Grip
Pull
Twist
Thanks, good luck, and take care
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This video is intended for information purposes only. This video is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition, nor is it intended to be considered as medical advice. Our goal is to educate and be a useful resource for how to more effectively use tapes to support your fitness journey. We realize that all experiences are different, and that not all products may suit you. Our hope is that we can help you find the right SHIELD product to support your fitness journey.