Olympic Athletes Sport RockTape

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In the Olympic world, you may have noticed some athletes covering parts of their bodies with brightly colored tape.

Its not a fashion statement...it may be giving them a competitive edge.

Californian Shelley Evans is training to cycle for gold in 2012.

And the bright tape is the Olympic hopeful's newest weapon.

"The yellow is going to be helping to coordinate the movement of the patella, the kneecap, as she's cycling."

It's not a neon bandaid, its called RockTape.

And you won't find Shelley without it.

"If I do a race and I don't have it on, I notice I didn't have the tape because I have soreness in the hamstrings."

That's critical for the athlete who often races three hours at a time, five days a week.

Her ability to recover quickly gives her a competitive edge. And that's not all.

"Then the next day I'll wear the RockTape and no cramping during the race, whatsoever."

RockTape was developed by a Los Gatos company.  The tape contains no chemicals. It's made simply of nylon and cotton. As for the color, pick your favorite because each one offers the same benefits.

"When we designed the tape we introduced a bias into the weave. And that allows the tape to stretch in one direction, and it offers what we call a simple biomechanical lifting mechanism," says Greg Van Den Dries, RockTape founder."

"And what that does is it pulls the skin away from the soft tissue and promotes blood flow.

The more blood that moves into the muscle the less it fatigues.

Also called kinesiology or power tape....it also helps injured athletes recover quickly.

"With injuries it has athletes support their structure but allowing full range of motion. So it allows the athlete to move while they're healing from an injury," says Dr. Steve Capobiaco of Sports Therapy and Performance Care.

Everyday athletes are turning to power taping too.

Including this new mom and yoga studio owner.

"I started using this tape to add more support to more injured areas and more vulnerable areas. I had just had two babies in the space of two and a half years. So there's a lot of toll on the body with pregnancies," says Lisa McGrath.

Shelley is convinced the tape enables her to go longer and stronger.

"I don't know why it works, I don't know how it works, but it works."

Initially you need someone trained in power taping to show you where to place the sticky stuff....but after that you can do it yourself.