Why spat your cleats

Wrap the other piece of tape around your other calf in the same manner. Begin the spat by making a continuous wrap of tape that begins at the midpoint of the laces, continues under the sole of your shoe between the cleats and comes back over the top of the laces. Make three additional wraps around the sole of your shoe and over the laces. Each wrap gets progressively closer to the tongue of your shoe and covers the upper section of your laces.

The last wrap should cover the tie in the laces. Wrap both shoes. Start a new series of wraps at your ankle, just above the tongue of your shoe. Wrap tape two or three turns around your ankle and then bring the tape from the front of your ankle down to your instep at the sole of your shoe. Wrap around the instep a complete turn and come back up to your ankle.

Make two turns around your ankle and wrap around your instep again. Continue this process until you have wrapped your instep five or six times. Tear the tape to end this wrap section at the sole of your shoe. Repeat the process on the other ankle and shoe.

Then the American Cancer Society is something that's important to me because I lost my grandma to a battle with cancer. One of my closest friends was affected by cancer last year, as well, and he beat it. It means a lot to me to go out and represent those people. Erving spoke more about his connection to the fight against cancer and what it means to him in October at the Chiefs' annual "Look Good, Feel Better" clinic. Click here to check out the story. His Cleats: "I love both designs.

It highlights each cause and this is just a great way to bring awareness to things that people hold near and dear to their hearts. His Cause: "This is important to me because the sickle cell families that are out there are affected in ways that people can't even imagine. My mom has it and its all throughout my family, plus there are some NFL players that either have it themselves or carry the trait.

There are a lot of foundations for diseases that are out there that occur later on in life, but this is an illness that you are born with. People need to develop a sense of awareness about that, because there's the possibility that one of your loved ones could be affected by it. Ware invited several families affected by the disease up to training camp in August, where he provided them with a front-row seat to practice before hosting a discussion on living with the condition.

Click here to read the story. His Cleats: "I like them a lot. They're simple and a little funky, people might be wondering, 'What is that on there? They're pretty cool and slick. I like how clean it is. They're perfect. His Cause: "There's something like a one percent chance of kids surviving with DIPG, and Chad went through it and passed away at the age of five.

Chad was the grandson of my college coach, Lloyd Carr. His Cleats: "They're awesome — I think John did a great job with them. They represent the organization well.

They have a picture of Chad's face on them, which I think is really cool. To learn more about The ChadTough Foundation, click here. About the KC Pet Project: To end the killing of healthy and treatable pets in Kansas City, Missouri by using the most progressive and lifesaving programs and promoting effective animal control policies. About the U. Army: The Army is the largest military branch in the United States.

Its job is to protect the country and its citizens. Then the U. Army is important to me because my little brother is deployed right now and supporting him and everything that the Army does is really meaningful to me. Dieter visited Whiteman Air Force Base last month as part of the Chiefs' "Salute to Service" initiative, where he talked further about why the military is so important to him.

His Cleats: "They're sweet. All of my dogs are on here and they all look pretty accurate — that was my biggest concern — but they all look pretty good. I got a third dog in August after I had already met [with John] for the first time, so I had to text him late and thankfully he could add the third one on there. Then my brother is in the Army, so I got a shoe for him, too.

Current data has focused on comparisons of traditional ankle taping to ankle bracing and most have reported equivocal results in terms of prophylactic benefits most often in the context of ankle sprains and performance outcomes 6 , 7 , 17 , though these results may be contingent on the rigidity of the specific ankle brace used. Given these findings, athletic trainers are naturally weighing benefits and drawbacks to different ankle support options. For example, one recent study in high school football athletes found that taping and bracing were equivocal in terms of ankle sprain prevention, yet bracing was financially and logistically much more pragmatic 9.

Athletes sometimes request spatting because they perceive their ankles as being more supported and hence better protected from injuries compared to taping alone. Athletic trainers may be reluctant to routinely spat ankles due to the time, energy, and costs involved. Much less research exists regarding spatting in comparison to standard taping or bracing. Spatting has been shown to reduce translational and rotational forces on the heel during cleat contact with playing surface in a mechanical model 5.

A retrospective study of anterior cruciate ligament injuries in National Football League players found that spatting did not lessen the risk of ACL injuries 16 ; although it is likely that the authors implied spatting was done in conjunction with taping, this was not specified.

To the best of our knowledge, only three experimental studies on ankle spatting have been conducted which varied in modes of exercise and taping protocols.

In one study of 17 young men, ankle spatting was more effective than taping at reducing ankle inversion and plantar flexion during 60 minutes of playing non-tackle American football 19 ; in that study, taping and spatting were tested only as separate conditions e.

Though subjects reported no differences in perception of movement-restriction or stability between the 2 conditions in Likert scales, they did perceive ankle taping as more comfortable than spatting Using the same 4 ankle conditions, a different study of 10 male college athletes asked to execute 3 trials each of a yard sprint or yd cone drill found no differences in performance times or post-exercise eversion, inversion, or plantarflexion ROM between conditions We employed an exercise model similar to that of 18 consisting of 2 field drills a dash and a cone-based cutting drill for each ankle condition, but used a hybrid intervention design incorporating both bracing and taping techniques and asked our subjects to give a single, maximal effort for each drill under each condition.

Heart rate and performance times for both drills, as well as bad contacts or misses on the cutting drill, were compared across ankle conditions. Also unlike all previous studies reviewed, we implemented additional levels of control in the cleats, socks, and braces worn.

Fourteen active young adult males participated in the study after signing informed consent age Eleven of the subjects reported never being taped previously; for the 3 subjects who had experienced ankle taping, the most recent experience was over 2 years prior; hence, our subject pool was generally unfamiliar with the ankle support measures employed. We did not ask subjects about previous football experience. Subjects whose running shoes were size Each subject was given a brand new pair of identical socks Adidas Climalite cushioned comfort, calf-length, size large; Adidas Inc.

All ankle preparation procedures were conducted on the sidelines near the exercise site and subjects only wore the cleats and socks when their ankles were being prepped or when on the field. Standard ankle taping technique for American football players was employed as described immediately below. For the taping procedure Figure 1 , 3 anchor strips were applied to both the proximal and distal ends followed by 2 medial stirrup strips alternating with additional anchor strips.

Closing strips were then used to cover all exposed underwrap. Finishing strips were then applied starting at the proximal anchor strips and ending at the distal anchor strips. In this protocol, ankle taping was sometimes performed by itself and other times in conjunction with spatting; however, spatting was always performed in tandem with taping. For the spatting procedure Figure 2 , subjects first had their ankles taped as described above, then donned a sock and cleat before spatting.

The taping technique for spatting replicated the same order of operations as used for standard ankle taping with slight modification to avoid covering any spikes. Due to the additional ankle circumference generated by the sock and cleat being over the ankle, a greater number of closing and finishing strips were necessitated.

Subjects that wore a size 11 cleat used a size medium brace whereas subjects that wore a size 13 cleat used a size large brace. To ensure the braces were consistently taut between subjects, subjects were allowed to thread the laces but the same researcher GDR tightened and tied all brace laces. All measurements were taken at rest.

Subjects were allowed an unstructured 5-minute warm-up period prior to their first trial during which time most subjects jogged lightly and stretched. Two drills were performed: a yard dash and a yard cutting drill. Each subject performed both drills in all 4 ankle conditions only once because they were instructed to give maximal effort each time and we wanted to avoid both physical and psychological fatigue.

Heart rate was recorded before and after each exercise using a heart rate monitor F6 model; Polar Electro Oy ; to ensure consistency between all drills, subject heart rates had to be within 10 beats per minute of baseline as determined when standing on the field before initiating movement.

For the yd dash, subjects started on the goal line and ran out to the yd field line. Time was recorded via stopwatch. For the cutting drill Figure 3 , 6 orange disc cones Adidas Inc. The start point was 5 m to the side and 2. The total running distance from start to the last cone was 34 yards.

Time from start to last cone was recorded via stopwatch and both bad contacts such as contacting a right-side cone with a left foot and missed contacts not touching the cone were tabulated. Subjects were not allowed to see any performance measures until the completion of the experiment. Depiction of the cutting drill. The red dot indicates the where the athlete would stand on the goal line to start.

The light blue line indicates the path ran by the athlete. Hash marks are given on each field line to indicate field position. The total distance traversed was 34 yards from start to finish. In this procedure, subjects were presented with a solid line with 2 anchor terms on both ends and asked to make a mark on the continuum indicating their perception. Subjects were presented with blank scales each time so they could not see previous responses; additionally, only one scale was presented per sheet.

Previous research has indicated that a difference of 9. When significance was detected, post-hoc tests LSD were conducted. Data from the dash and cutting drills were analyzed separately. Ankle condition and trial order served as between-subjects factors and the following outcomes served as dependent factors in 8 separate analyses: dash-time, dash-comfort, dash-stability, cutting-time, cutting-comfort, cutting-stability, cutting-bad contacts, cutting-misses.

Bracing was perceived as equivocally comfortable to all 3 other conditions in both drills. There were no significant differences for other comparisons.