035- The Research Behind RockBlades: An Interview with Dr. Steve Capobianco

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Hello, welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. This week we have a special episode. Finally, the long awaited episode with Dr. Steve Capo Bianco, medical director at Rock Tape. If you haven't heard of Rock Tape, I would be surprised. They are all over the place. Their products, services are absolutely top tier and I know they did a lot with the CrossFit Games this year as well. So without further ado, here is Dr. Steve Cabo Bianco talking about Rock Blades, Rock Tape and the research behind everything in their enterprise.

Welcome to this week's special episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor podcast. We have back for a second time a fantastic guest, Dr. Steve, a medical director from Rock Tape and he is going to talk a little bit about Rock Blades this week. So, Steve, thanks for taking the time, really appreciate it.

Well, thanks for having me back. I'm not sure that's a good or bad thing, but I'll take the positive end of it.

Hey, time will tell.

Yeah, no kidding, right? No kidding.

So I received, you know, a set a while back from Stephano and I've been super impressed with Rock Blades. They've been out, you guys have been out there like crazy, kind of bringing awareness around the product. But for anybody out there that has not heard of Rock Blades, what are they and what's up?

Well, good question. We as a company, those that don't know Rock Rock Tape started off as a Taping Company 2009 and in our, in the evolution of the company, Greg Venandries, the founder, and I sat around a table with some other key individuals and said, you know, what are we really, really trying to do here as a company? And we changed our platform at that time to say, well, we're a movement company that dabbles in tape. And what I mean by that is that the company's strategies changed dramatically at that time to deliver not only tape, to cue someone's movement, to decrease pain and improve inflammation, and on and on. What we wanted to do is develop an arsenal of tools for the practitioner, for the consumer as well, but primarily the practitioner to deliver to their patients to help them move more efficiently. And the Rock Blades are the newest addition to this team of tools and they're ultimately a version of the Instrument assisted tools that you'll see in the community already. And it's just our version of it, just diving in deeper. The tools come in a set, it's a stainless steel instrument along with a plastic instrument. They come in a kit. The kit includes Rock Rub, which is our version of the emollient, as well as Rock Wipes, which is a disinfectant wipes to be able to clean the instruments off in between patients.

So that's it.

Nice. One thing I'll say off the top is if anybody hasn't seen them at a conference lately, the packaging is just killer. I mean, the product itself is killer as far as being able to. The physical dimension of it is fantastic, but the packaging behind it also is something that really stood out to me. So what's the development process on something like that? I think with a soft tissue tool, it's very clear once you see them that there was a lot of thought put into the actual physical design of the product and also the packaging itself. But how did the evolution of that go?

I think it almost exceeded our capacity to manage. It felt like sometimes. Because once you embark on this process of developing a set of tools that could manage the majority of conditions and body frames and body parts adequately, it had become a difficult task in itself. And so ultimately the process was well over two years. It culminated in these two instruments that we developed. And it's. But it started at the CrossFit Games in 2014 when we were at a party, just like rock tape is known for. And there was someone wanted to open a drink and we didn't have any openers around and one of our team members pulled this, this bottle opener out of his pocket that had the opener attached to this frame, if you will, that had multiple different edges. And I pulled it out of his hand and I said this would be ideal to manipulate different parts of the body because the edges were cool and it was just enough to fit into your. Into your hand. And better yet, it had a bottle opener attached to it. So that's really where it started. And then the development of it was two years to develop the appropriate doubled, beveled edges that we had. And having a plastic tool and a stainless steel tool to mess with different weights accordingly and all the different handholds as well. So yeah, two years into development, started off with a party at the CrossFit Games and ended off with what we have right now.

Nice. Well, the finished product is awesome and the story is just as good to boot, so that's cool. One thing I Noticed. And I've been speaking around the country just as you and your team members have. And I know rocktape pours a lot of resources into education and I see a lot of emphasis on the education regarding the tools, these tools themselves. Rock blades. Why is the clinical education so important? And where do you see where the tool meets the practitioner and the education in the middle? Tell me a little bit about your philosophy regarding that.

Well, when it comes to the instruments and I've had the ability to practice with multiple different instruments and also take their respective education and the majority of the education that I've been exposed to in respect to instrument assisted techniques have primarily been focusing their attention on myofascial release. And I say though, that that term because that's the classic communication that you'll get when, when you're exposed to these instruments that you're releasing, you're breaking down scar tissue, you're affecting the myofascial system. And in doing more research in what I thought the instruments were doing, I started to discover that what we thought we were doing isn't necessarily what the research is supporting. And leaning on that I started to discover some researchers and scientists around the world that are communicating a different message in respect to manipulation of the body in general. And that could be with our hands and that can also be with an instrument. And the one that I'm spending more time reading is Dr. Robert Slipe. And I might have brought him up before in a previous conversation you and I have had. But Robert Slipe is a, is a neural biologist, if you will, a fascial neurobiologist. And he's studying the effect of manual therapies on the body, in particular, how it affects the spatial system that encases our entire body. And what he's recognizing is that what he's doing is he's debunking the idea of fascial release. And that's a very bold statement to say to the majority of the manual therapists out there, including chiropractors, that this idea, or dismissing the idea of the traditional explanation of thixotrophy and the piezoelectric effect mediated adaptation to manual therapies doesn't thoroughly describe what we're actually doing. And he's concluding what Robert has done is concluded that these plastic fascial changes that we observe when we manipulate someone, when we adjust someone can't be explained by a mechanical model alone. And that the nervous system needs to be considered when we're discussing and when we're training people of how to how to manipulate the human body. So in our education we take a different stance from the majority of the ones that I've seen in our space. And we've actually even redefined the terminology where we don't consider ourselves instrument assisted soft tissue manipulation, which is the classic acronym that you'll hear the I stm. We've redefined our method as instrument assisted neurosensory modulation. And that's really leaning on. Where the evidence is going is that what we are noticing is that by manipulating the nervous system through different techniques and different variables, that we can adequately observe similar fascial tone changes in the body and receive the outcomes that we're looking for.

Yeah, that's. That is intense. I mean, it's practically from a soft tissue perspective. It's really almost a paradigm shift and.

Well, that's a, that's a. It is a paradigm shift. It's a, it's a difficult stance to stand behind because the evidence isn't completely there. But it's leaning towards that idea that what we thought was happening isn't necessarily happening. And we needed a different model of.

Approach.

To support what we're observing. And it's leaning towards this idea of modulating the nervous system via mechanoreceptors and the tissue that we have access to. And that would be the skin and fascial system. Right.

And I think even, you know, that's kind of the 30,000 foot overview, as I'm sure you know, all the bits and details of it, but it just seems to make, when you state it like that, it seems to just absolutely make sense in coordination with what's occurring. I guess my biggest question for you is did you have, were your thoughts leaning that way before the development or did the development spur you down the rabbit hole to really evaluate what and how you had been doing things?

No.

I've been in practice for 14 years now and I think I started looking in the mirror as professionally as well as personally, but definitely professionally looking in the mirror and starting to question some of the theories and concepts that I've been presented with and taught over my educational as well as professional career. And they weren't answering the questions that I was asking. And as I started to dive into a different set of research to better explain what is going on when we put our hands on someone or put a tool on someone or tape on someone, I started getting better explanation of what we're doing in the development of the instruments. I wanted to present this model of approach and that's what I love about this company is that we're presenting a model of approach. We're not presenting a technique, we're not presenting that this is the only way to accomplish the task. It is a way that we're noticing as a clinical team that might be more appropriate.

Right. And I think the two words that come to mind for me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is really establishing a progressive framework. So it's a framework of opportunity to practice and it's progressing. The thoughts and ideas which have been around but certainly perhaps in some cases need refinement, need advancing, and need to be brought up to date with what we currently know of the body. Would you agree with that?

Completely agree. I think it's the best way to put. I'm gonna steal it. I'll give you credit once or twice, but I'm gonna steal that. That's just exactly what I wan across.

Nice. Well, it is all yours.

Thank you, sir.

What's the best place, you know, as we kind of wrap, what's the best place for everybody to learn about rock tape and rock blades? The education. You guys are all over the place all the time. So what's the best way for people to learn more?

Well, we're doing a good job in my opinion, of delivering the education.

Both.

Free education that we have on our YouTube channels, for example, where we just give insight on the instruments and tape and now special populations, which is a new one that we've just added to our arsenal. And finally the rock tape blades. So if you go to our website rocktape.com, click on education, you'll see the entire umbrella of education that we offer, including blades. And one thing that you and I were talking about prior to coming online here is that we do a lot with chiropractic associations, including the California Chiropractic association that I'll be speaking at, I think we will be speaking at next month in Southern California at Disney. I'll be speaking at the ACA Sports Symposium in October in New Orleans. So we do have quite a bit of exposure with chiropractic associations as well.

Cool. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. We could talk for probably five hours, but we try to get a podcast in and the time it takes for everybody to get to their office. So I think it was great. I really appreciate you sharing more the behind the scenes on the development of the tools, number one and also number two regarding really that progressive framework. And I think that really clarifies a lot for me and hopefully everybody out there got a bit of information and now they can visit YouTube page, learn more and certainly they'll see you or some of your trainers around town speaking about Rock Tape and associated products and services. So thanks for taking the time. Steve.

Anytime.

And there you have it. That was our episode. A new interview. Brand new. I've actually recorded that on location in Cincinnati just Last Week with Dr. Steve Capo Bianco at Rocktape. That is a man who knows the research behind his products and services. I give a lot of respect to him and the entire team at Rocktape for the amount of effort, the amount of research and the amount of back end work that they put in. So I hope you loved that episode. Direct links to rocktape.com in the episode Show Notes I hope you have a fantastic week in practice Doc and I will talk to you soon.

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