Taping fingers in volleyball: when to tape and when not to

A player pulls her hand back, shakes it out and looks over to the sideline. There is a roll of tape in your bag and the temptation is to wrap it round the finger straight away. But tape is not the first thing you do; it is the third. First you have to know whether this is a finger you are allowed to tape at all — and that costs you three questions and a couple of minutes.

Tape is step three, not step one

Tape does exactly two things. A buddy tape straps a painful finger to its neighbour so the joint can no longer bend sideways or hyperextend backwards. A thumb anchor limits how far the thumb can travel away from the hand. That is all. Tape heals nothing, tape does not hold a broken phalanx together, and tape does not turn a ruptured tendon into a working one. It is a brace, not a treatment.

That is why the first question on the sideline is never "how do I tape this", but "am I allowed to tape this". Reverse that order and sooner or later you strap up a finger that should have been on an X-ray — and then the tape is not merely useless but harmful, because the player carries on playing on something that needed rest. Why so many fingers go over in your gym, by the way, is a completely different conversation: that is rarely bad luck and usually technique. That story is in learning to play the ball overhead without sore fingers.

Look, squeeze, play: the three sideline questions

Don't run this test in the first few seconds. Let the player settle — two minutes, hand up, start cooling if you like — because in the first shock everyone flinches at any touch and you measure nothing. Then ask three questions in this order. Together they take a couple of minutes.

1. Is the finger straight? "Put both hands next to each other on the bench, palms down." Always compare with the same finger on the other hand, from above and from the side. Then have her slowly make a fist: all four fingertips should point to roughly the same spot in the palm. If one crosses over its neighbour, if a knuckle is out of line or if the tip hangs down limply, the test stops here.
2. Is there strength in it? "Straighten your finger fully, without me helping." Then: hold the middle phalanx and ask her to bend only the tip. And finally the squeeze: "Squeeze two of my fingers as hard as you can" — the healthy hand first, then the painful one, so you feel the difference instead of talking about it. For the thumb, do the same with a sheet of paper pinched between thumb and index finger: you pull, she holds.
3. Can she still play? The ball answers this one, not the conversation. Have the player toss herself three balls calmly and play them back overhead, then five forearm passes. What you do not do is "just join in and see how it goes" — then the test is a hard serve out of rotation 1, and you have a second injury instead of a test.

Three clear yeses: taping is fine, and the rest of this article is about how. One doubt or one no: read the next section first.

The exclusion list: this is not a taping job

With the following signs, tape is the wrong tool. Not because it hurts — pain is a poor yardstick — but because they point to something in the bone, the joint or the tendon that a professional needs to look at.

• The finger sits crooked or the tip hangs down. Never straighten it yourself, not even if a teammate offers to.
• She cannot actively straighten it. You can straighten it, she can't — that difference is the signal.
• She cannot bend the tip while you hold the middle phalanx.
• The squeeze is gone, or the thumb is painful on the inside of its base and feels loose when you move it gently sideways.
• The finger swells hard within minutes, goes blue over the joint, or the joint feels unstable.
• Tingling, numbness, or a white or blue fingertip.
• There is an open wound, or the joint has been dislocated — even if it is already "back in".

What you do in those cases: get the ring off before the finger swells, cool for ten to fifteen minutes with a cloth in between, keep the hand elevated and make sure the player sees a doctor or urgent care the same day. With youth the threshold is lower than with adults, because children's finger bones still contain growth plate tissue; what else to agree around complaints and recovery is in injury prevention in volleyball.

What belongs in your bag

Taping fingers in volleyball takes little kit, but it does have to be the right kit.

• Non-elastic sports tape, 2.5 cm wide (zinc oxide tape). This is the only type that genuinely restricts movement. For fingers you tear a strip lengthways down the middle, leaving you about 1.2 cm.
• A 3.8 cm roll for the wrist anchor under a thumb tape.
• Elastic tape is something else entirely: it stretches with the joint and therefore stops nothing. Fine for holding something in place, useless if you want to prevent hyperextension.
• Small scissors or tape that tears by hand, and a strip of foam or a folded gauze pad to place between the fingers.

Two fingers together measure about ten centimetres around the lower phalanges, so count on strips of twenty centimetres or so: that gets you round twice. You tear both from the same piece of tape, so one buddy tape costs you twenty centimetres off the roll — which makes a ten-metre roll good for around fifty applications. Check at the start of the season whether the tape still sticks; a roll that has spent a summer in a hot car often doesn't. Never tape onto a wet or sweaty hand: dry it off first, or you will be taping again halfway through practice.

Buddy taping step by step

1. Choose the neighbouring finger. Always the immediate neighbour: index to middle, little finger to ring. If the ring finger itself is the problem, you have a choice between the little finger and the middle finger — take the middle finger, because it is longer and stronger and gives more support. Never skip a finger and never strap anything to the thumb.
2. Put something between the fingers. A strip of foam or a folded gauze pad. Skin on skin will rub, and with sweat that produces a raw patch within a single session.
3. Tear two strips of about twenty centimetres, half width.
4. Place the first strip above the painful joint and the second below it. This is the step where it usually goes wrong: never tape over the joint itself. That locks it instead of supporting it, and the player can no longer bend the finger.
5. Two turns around both fingers, the second half a width alongside the first, and no tighter than needed to hold the fingers together.
6. Check immediately. Have her make a fist: both fingers must be able to bend into the palm together. Then press the nail until it goes white — the colour should be back within two seconds. Ask after a minute whether it feels right or tingles.

Then do one more thing: look again after the warm-up. Hands swell as soon as they get warm, and a tape that sat well at seven o'clock is pinching at twenty past. Also be clear about what buddy taping does not do: it does not protect against a fresh blow straight onto the fingertip. A player who hurt the finger at the block is not suddenly ready for exactly that action again because of tape — only a different hand position and better timing help there, see blocking.

The thumb anchor for the base of the thumb

The thumb is a different story from a finger. Pain on the inside of the base of the thumb, after a thumb that was bent outwards at a block or in a fall, belongs on the exclusion list above: get that checked. The thumb anchor is for the thumb that does pass the three questions — tender, but straight, strong and usable — or for the player who has hyperextended a thumb in the past and wants support at the block.

1. Wrist anchor. One strip of 3.8 cm around the wrist, loose: you should be able to slide a finger underneath. Overlap the ends by two or three centimetres and do not pull the strip tight.
2. Set the thumb in the position you want to hold: slightly towards the palm, as if the player is holding a ball. Never tape in the extreme position, because then you fix exactly the posture you are trying to avoid.
3. Strip one (2.5 cm, half width): from the anchor on the thumb side of the wrist, over the back of the base of the thumb, around the lower thumb phalanx and back to the anchor.
4. Strip two follows the same route along the other side, so the two cross at the base of the thumb in an X.
5. Strip three runs as a half figure-of-eight around the web between thumb and index finger. This is the strip that really stops the thumb being bent outwards. Never make a closed ring around the thumb itself.
6. Finish with a second wrist anchor over all the loose ends.

The test is functional: the player must still be able to touch the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger and to wrap her hand around a ball. If she can't, it is too tight or set too far out. At the same time the thumb must clearly move less far sideways than on the other hand — otherwise you have decorated it, not supported it.

How tight, how long, and when it comes off

Tight enough means: the fingers stay together, the nail regains colour within two seconds and there is no tingling. If a player complains halfway through about a numb feeling, the tape comes off — not loosened, off. After practice or a match it comes off anyway; sleeping in tape does nobody any good. Peel it off along the length of the finger, not with a sideways rip, and use an underwrap on red or sensitive skin.

How long you keep taping is decided by whoever is treating the player, not by the calendar. The principle is: tape during sport only, and phase it out as soon as the finger copes without it. If the pain has not eased after a week, that is a reason to get it looked at after all. Watch out for one misunderstanding: a sprained finger joint can stay thicker than its neighbour for weeks or months. That on its own is no reason to keep taping.

One more thing for match day: what a player may wear on the hand differs by federation and by competition. Tape is usually not a problem; hard material such as a splint, a brace with metal in it or a ring often is. Check that with your own federation before a player walks onto the court in a splint, and agree in advance how you handle a player who is not fully fit — that is what an injured player during a match is about.

The finger that comes back every week hides a technique fault

Finally, the point that reaches beyond this one evening. Tape is first aid for an incident. Once it becomes routine, you are measuring something else: a passing or setting technique that is off, or an organisation that provokes the error. Use a simple threshold. The same player three times in six weeks, or three players from one team in a single month — at that point you stop taping and start watching.

You watch in the moment itself: on which action does it go wrong? A finger that goes over while receiving a hard ball overhead points to the hands and the contact moment, and you repair that through overhead setting technique, not through a roll of tape. With youth the cause often lies in the build-up and the equipment; those four causes and the six-step progression are set out in teaching children to play the ball overhead. If it mostly goes wrong at the block, it is a matter of hand position, tension in the fingers and the moment of the jump.

To see a pattern like that you need a memory that reaches further than three weeks. Note per player the date, which finger and what you did — in a notebook or with the player in Koach, as long as it all sits in one place. See keeping player notes for how to keep that short. And be reluctant to tape every finger preventively: it makes hands stiffer in a sport where the fingers are supposed to give, and it removes the reason to fix the real cause.

What you arrange before the season

• Fixed contents in the bag: a 2.5 cm roll, a 3.8 cm roll, foam, small scissors and something to cool with. Check it once a season.
• One person per team who tapes and who decides. Two people with half the story hand two different pieces of advice to the same parent.
• The rule when in doubt: if in doubt, we don't tape. That is not caution but policy, and it saves you awkward conversations afterwards.
• Rings off at the start of practice, not afterwards. A ring on a swollen finger is a problem you do not want to have.
• With youth: tell the parents the same day, even if it looks minor, and say what you would keep an eye on. Record agreements like that once, for example in your team agreements.

Frequently asked questions