HISTORY OF PHITEN TAPE

As people say ‘health is wealth’ yet unfortunately people still seem to put their own health and well-being second, in terms of importance. The good news is that more of us do appear to be finally taking our health and well-being a little more seriously, though we still have a long way to go. This is where Phiten enters into the fold. For more than three and a half decades, Phiten have been helping people take care of their health and fitness, and with more people currently using Phiten athletic tape than ever before, it’s easy to see why.

Nowadays, Phiten is an internationally recognized company, but once upon a time this wasn’t the case. We all have to begin somewhere, and for Phiten, their beginnings were humble, to say the very least. Before Phiten was established in 1983, Yoshihiro Hirata, a founder of Phiten, was running a clinic to help people to recover after training, and those who were simply in need of a little rehabilitation. Initially after receiving rehab treatments, people felt great, but soon the aches and pains began to return. People wanted a solution that they could utilize in the comfort of their own homes. Hirata came up with the concept of quartz balls, which were attached to tape, which could then be stuck onto the part of your body where the discomfort was coming from.

Initially, Hirata didn’t sell these balls to their patients, he simply lent them out. The results were amazing however, and soon, word of mouth took over. More and more people began requesting his quartz balls. Customer testimonials were unanimously positive, and soon people were practically begging Hirata to sell these quartz glass balls to them vs. lending them to the consumer. The main reason for the request, was the fact that people could feel amazing at home, rather than having to travel to and from the clinic in order to use the quartz balls. Soon after, Hirata established Phiten and eventually released their first body care product, entitled ‘Quartz Beads’.

Evolution of the Tape

The product worked very well, but at $12.50 for a piece of Quartz Bead, it wasn’t cheap. (Remember, this was back in the 1970s, and $12.50 to this day is still a decent amount of money.) Also, the problem with the Quartz Bead was that it couldn’t be used anywhere, and that it would sometimes lose its stickiness, so people were losing the Quartz Bead. As a result of this feedback, Phiten then had two goals:

- Produce an equally superior product for a cheaper price
- Improve efficiency and ease of use

Phiten switched things around slightly, and thanks to Titanium Metal, a new and improved athletic tape was born in 1995, and was sold as “Phiten Power Tape”.

Popularity Through the Ages

Shortly after being released, Phiten Power Tape was featured on the TV and sales went through the roof. People loved the simplicity of the tape, as the idea was to simply stick it on the part of your body with discomfort. Phiten sold 6 months’ worth of stock in just 3 days! It was sold in more and more stores, and eventually, companies overseas started stocking it. In 2007, it was officially recognized as the go-to Athletic tape for MLB in the US. Phiten Power Tape is sold over 18 billion discs worldwide (as of March 2018). Currently, Phiten are working on expanding their athletic tape line so that it can be used on joints and slightly more awkward parts of the anatomy and thus far, things are looking incredibly promising.

Want to try out the tape that is the core of Phiten? Click here to browse our assortment of Phiten Athletic tape now available to ship throughout the United States:Phiten Athletic Tape.