Does McConnell Taping Work? This Is What the Research Says

Does McConnell Taping Work? This Is What the Research Says

By Jenny McConnell AM, FACP. B.App.Sc.(Phty), Grad.Dip.Man.Ther, M.Biomed.Eng.

Does McConnell taping work?

On the current evidence, yes, for pain at the front of the knee and for knee osteoarthritis. It's designed to be used as part of a physical therapy program, where it eases the pain enough for the surrounding muscles to be retrained.

That's a more cautious answer than you'll find on most pain relief packaging, where nearly everything claims to be clinically proven and the phrase has stopped meaning much.

So rather than just making the claim, here's the evidence. Four studies carry most of the weight, and they're linked at the end. Some are much stronger than others.

What is McConnell taping?

McConnell taping uses firm, non-stretch tape (like our Rigid Tape) to shift the kneecap slightly and take pressure off the painful structures around it. The direction and tension of the tape are what matter, and they're what separate it from simply strapping a joint. Our McConnell taping page has a fuller description.

It isn't the stretchy colored tape you see on athletes, which does a different job. We've compared the two in a separate post.

Why the tape and the exercises go together

Pain does something unhelpful to muscle. When your knee hurts, the quadriceps muscle at the front of your thigh stops firing properly, and the inner portion, which helps hold your kneecap in place, tends to be affected first. A weaker muscle lets the kneecap track poorly, poor tracking causes more pain, and more pain weakens the muscle further. The cycle keeps itself going.

Tape breaks that cycle, but it doesn't do the strengthening for you. By bringing the pain down, it lets you load the muscle properly and do the exercises your physical therapist gives you without the pain shutting the muscle down again. That idea was built into the original 1986 program, which specified that retraining had to be relatively pain free for muscle control to improve.

The tape works a bit like training wheels, helping while the muscles relearn their job. That's also why nearly all of the studies below tested tape as part of a program rather than on its own.

Where the evidence starts

The starting point is a 1986 paper in the Australian Journal of Physiotherapy. It described a treatment program for pain at the front of the knee based on two things: a careful assessment of how the whole leg was working, and retraining the muscles that control where the kneecap sits. It reported a 96 percent success rate, and the patients reviewed at twelve months had stayed pain free.

That number needs some context, because this is exactly where health marketing tends to overreach. The 96 percent came from following up patients treated in a clinic. There was no comparison group, so the paper can't tell you how many of those people would have improved anyway. What it did show was that a condition then seen as stubborn and likely to come back could be treated in a structured way. The controlled trials came later.

Does McConnell taping work for knee pain?

The stronger evidence came in 2002, from a randomized controlled trial in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Seventy-one people with pain at the front of the knee were divided into two groups. One received a six week physical therapy program of muscle retraining, joint mobilization and patellar taping. The other received a convincing placebo: sham ultrasound with an inactive gel, and tape applied so that it gave no correction.

Neither the participants nor the researchers measuring the results knew who was in which group. That's hard to achieve in a physical therapy trial, and it's a big part of why the study is still cited. The treatment group had significantly greater reductions in average pain, worst pain and disability than the placebo group.

One point about this trial is often misreported. It tested the whole program, and the tape was only one part of it.

Does patellar taping work for knee arthritis?

One trial did look at tape on its own. In 2003, the BMJ published a study of 87 people with knee osteoarthritis who were split into three groups: therapeutic taping, tape applied with no corrective pull, and no tape.

People in the therapeutic taping group had less pain and found daily activities easier than those in either of the other groups. What interested the researchers most was that the benefit could still be measured three weeks after the taping stopped.

If tape were only a mechanical prop, you'd expect the benefit to disappear as soon as it came off. It didn't, which suggests something had changed in how the joint was being loaded and how the surrounding muscles were working. For practical advice on living with the condition, see our guide to taping and bracing for knee osteoarthritis.

Can you see the difference on a scan?

A smaller 2016 study looked at exactly that. Twelve people with knee osteoarthritis had an MRI before treatment and again four months after six physical therapy sessions.

Pain came down for every one of them, and so did swelling in the infrapatellar fat pad, a small cushion of tissue below the kneecap with a lot of pain sensitive nerve endings. The kneecap also sat measurably higher and slightly closer to the inside of the knee.

There are two caveats. With only twelve people and no comparison group, the study suggests a direction rather than proving anything. And not everything changed, since the bone marrow changes seen on the scans showed no consistent pattern afterwards.

What the research doesn't show

Nothing in forty years of research shows that this technique cures anything, so be wary of anyone who says otherwise. These are conditions that can be managed, often very well and for a long time, rather than fixed for good.

Most of the research has focused on the knee. The technique is used on other joints too, but the knee is where the evidence is strongest.

So, does McConnell taping work?

Based on the evidence, yes, with all of those caveats included. The case rests on forty years of steadily building evidence rather than a single dramatic result: the program first described in 1986, a placebo controlled trial where it outperformed a convincing sham, a BMJ trial where tape alone helped knee arthritis with benefits that lasted after the tape came off, and imaging that suggests the joint itself responds.

That's a more modest claim than "clinically proven" printed on a box, but it's more useful because it tells you what to expect. The relief is real, it comes from a program rather than a product, and the tape makes the strengthening possible rather than replacing it.

If you'd like to read beyond this summary, the full list of published research is here. And if a physical therapist has shown you the technique, it's applied with the McConnell Taping System. Under Tape goes against the skin to protect it, and Rigid Tape goes over the top to do the corrective work.

The research behind this article

This blog is for educational purposes only and does not replace professional medical advice. Always consult a healthcare provider for diagnosis and treatment.

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