How Fatigue and Taping Affect Cricket Bowlers' Precision.

The competition is heating up in the world of cricket, with thrilling Test matches keeping us on the edge of our seats. These intense clashes, like the recent ones between India and England at Lord's, highlight the immense physical demands on players. This week’s research blog looks at Taping for Fast Bowlers.

More specifically: How Fatigue and Taping Affect Cricket Bowlers' Precision.

Ever wondered why a perfectly accurate cricket bowler sometimes loses their "line and length" as the game goes on? It might be more than just a bad day – muscle fatigue could be playing a significant role in disrupting their precision. A 2016 study explains how local muscle fatigue impacts a bowler's sense of their body position, and whether traditional shoulder taping can help.

Understanding the Mechanics

Cricket bowling is a unique skill, distinct from a typical overhead throw, primarily because the arm must not extend during the action. It's a complex movement, with the shoulder joint undergoing rapid rotation. Previous studies have shown that almost half of the ball's velocity comes from arm circumduction (48%), highlighting the crucial role of the shoulder.

Unfortunately, this demanding action also makes fast bowling a major source of injuries and pain, especially in the lower limb, upper limb, and lower back. What's more, injury and pain have a sneaky way of messing with our proprioception.

What is Proprioception?

Proprioception is our body's ability to sense its own position, movement, and effort. Think of it like your internal GPS signal. It's your ability to instinctively know where your limbs are in space, how they're moving, and how much effort and tension your muscles are exerting. This "sixth sense" is absolutely vital for coordination, stability, and ultimately, peak athletic performance.

Just like injury, muscle fatigue can throw this internal GPS off course. When your muscles get tired, your brain's "body map" – the central representation of your body's position – can get a little skewed. This means you might feel like your arm is in one position, when it's actually somewhere else.

Bowling, Fatigue, and Taping

While a lot of research has focused on the ankle and knee (common injury sites), less attention has been paid to the shoulder. Weerakkody & Allen (2016) studied whether a real-world fast bowling session would affect shoulder proprioception, and if athletic taping could make a difference.

The researchers recruited 14 amateur male cricket bowlers. Each participant completed two sessions: one with their bowling shoulder taped, and one without. In each session, the study measured:

• Shoulder position sense: Using a digital inclinometer to see how accurately participants could reposition their arm to specific angles after being passively moved.
• Maximum force capacity (MVC): To confirm fatigue, the researchers measured their shoulder muscle strength.
• Bowling accuracy: Participants bowled 8 "overs" (48 deliveries total) at a target zone on a cricket pitch, simulating a match scenario. They video-recorded where each ball landed to assess their "length accuracy" (where the ball bounces).

Key Findings:

• Fatigue Reduces Proprioception: After the bowling exercise, participants' shoulder proprioception significantly worsened. They consistently repositioned their arm further in the direction of shoulder extension (meaning their arm was more horizontal than intended). This confirms that intense bowling fatigue messes with your body's sense of its arm position.
• Taping Assistance: Here's where it gets interesting! When the shoulder was taped, the increase in repositioning errors after fatigue was significantly reduced at some angles (45° and 60°). This suggests that taping can help mitigate the proprioceptive disturbances caused by fatigue.
• Accuracy Not Directly Impacted (Yet): While taping seemed to help with position sense, the researchers didn't observe a statistically significant improvement in bowling length accuracy during the fatigued state. However, there was a trend where taped bowlers hit the "good length" zone more often, and had fewer "full" or "short" deliveries. This might suggest a subtle benefit that could become more apparent with a larger study or different accuracy measures.
• Why the Taping Help? It's believed that when muscles are fatigued and their primary proprioceptive signals are diminished, the pressure and stretching effect of the tape on the skin might become more crucial. This stimulation of skin receptors could provide additional feedback to the brain, helping it better understand the arm's position.

What Does This Mean for Bowlers?

The study provides valuable insights into the hidden impact of fatigue on a bowler's body awareness. While more research is needed to fully understand the link between improved proprioception and on-field accuracy, these findings suggest that strategies to combat fatigue and support proprioception could be beneficial for cricketers.

Whether it's incorporating targeted strength training, optimizing recovery, or considering the role of taping, understanding how fatigue affects our internal "body map" is a crucial step towards helping athletes maintain their edge, even when the pressure is on.

Note: This study used rigid tape rather than kinesiology, however the theory and principles would still apply to the use of elastic kinesiology tape such as RockTape.

Our tape work exceptionally well around the shoulder thanks to its premium adhesive (it sticks really well) and elasticity which allows movement while still providing skin stimulus.

Education: Our Level 1 and Advanced RockTape Courses teach evidence-based shoulder taping techniques.

Our education director Daniel Lawrence also has some great shoulder rehab videos on ThePhysioChannel