Voodoo Floss and K Tape

Today we will be discussing the modalities that are physically applied to the skin:

  • Voodoo Floss – works by improving blood flow as a response to decreasing blood flow. Voodoo floss could be dangerous as you cannot occlude blood flow by a measurable percent. Would not recommend this
  • K Tape – complete and utter garbage. As useless as it gets

Voodoo floss

Here voodoo floss is applied to the calf


Claims to decrease the perception of tightness and to reduce soreness via assisting with
fascial gliding. There is some data that suggests voodoo floss can help improve ROM but the study qualities and quantities are not up to par.


Another benefit of voodoo floss is the blood flow restriction (BFR) aspect of it. There is excellent data showing BFR can help create a harsher cellular environment to stimulate growth and healing.

However, most of this data exists in geriatric populations that don’t have the ability to
exercise intensely. If you’re an athlete or otherwise healthy individual, you will not receive much benefit from voodoo floss.


My main concern with voodoo floss and BFR is that you cannot properly gauge occlusion pressure of the target limb. As there is no way to gauge the pressure being applied, you can’t really know if there is even enough pressure to get BFR benefits or if too much is being used and you risk causing damage.

K Tape

Behold the most useless thing to ever be used by an athlete


The red headed step child of CrossFit


Originally designed to help with lymphatic drainage as there is mild fascial decompression
with the application of the tape. Problem is that nobody uses it for that purpose


Unathletic people use K Tape to feel athletic and look like they are busy/productive.


K tape studies look at the color, yes the color of the tape, to determine varying effectiveness. This trash is useless and makes you look like a nerd

There is no reason to use K Tape for any reason as it provides 0 benefit and is costly

If you want to use modalities that actually have some benefit, click here for info on cupping/scraping and click here for the Normatec and MarcPro. For more info on therapeutic laser and ultrasound check it out here.