*2.2. Participants*

A total sample of 38 healthy male individuals aged between 15 and 17 years was recruited from two elite sports and divided into two groups following their sports discipline: A group composed of elite soccer players (n = 18) and B group composed of elite basketball players (n = 20). All the players were taped in both ankle joints, usually for training and competitions with a prescription of the medical doctors from their clubs. Elite U18 individuals followed a training schedule of 3 hours-per-day, 5 days-per-week and played 1 to 2 matches in a week [17]. In addition, both groups were composed of individuals who have played at least 1 time with the national team [18]. Subjects were excluded if: they underwent a physical therapy treatment, suffered any musculoskeletal injury the last 6 weeks, had skins allergy and any history of lower limb surgery, did not complete all the training sessions, and had other foot orthoses.

#### *2.3. Ethical Considerations*

The Research and Ethics Committee from the Universidad Europea de Madrid has been approved this research (Villaviciosa de Odón, Madrid, Spain. Record code: 10-04-2019. CIPI/19/157). Before participating in the study, the players and parents were fully informed about the protocol and written informed consent was obtained by the parents of the players. The Declaration of Helsinki was fully respected throughout the study.

#### *2.4. Taping: Procedure and Materials*

Ankle taping was performed by two physiotherapists—one for the soccer team and one for the basketball team—both with more than 5 years of experience in taping methods in accordance with Williams et al. [19] procedures and the Sports Medicine Australia [20] guidelines protocol. Before the taping, all of the ankles were covered with a pre-wrap (Rehabmedic, Barcelona, Spain) by the physiotherapist in order to prevent skin alterations for daily use [21]. For the ankle taping, two anchor strips were applied around the leg 10 cm above the malleoli with a 38-mm self-adhesive tape (Leukotape, BSN Medical, Stockholm, Sweden). Secondly, with the foot maintained in a neutral position, two strips were placed from the medial side of the anchor tape and fixing to the lateral side. [19] The "figure sixes" for the subtalar joint were initially placed onto the medial anchor through the plantar surface of the foot to attach back onto the medial anchor. Finally, all the free endings and spaces without tape were covered to complete the ankle taping [19].

#### *2.5. Training Sessions*

The training session, in which subjects were evaluated in both groups, consisted of a 90-min technical session and was structured in 3 phases: warm-up (15-min), tactical skills (15-min), and scrimmage (60-min). This session did not comprise of a pre-game or post-game session.

#### *2.6. Outcome Measurements*

Ankle ROM assessment was developed by the *Dorsiflex* app (v.2.0, Balsalobre-Fernández, 2017, Madrid, Spain) installed on an iPhone 8 (iOS 12.1, Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA). To measure dorsiflexion ROM, the iPhone 8 was placed at the tibial tuberosity to assess the angle between the tibia and the ground in a weight-bearing lunge position. This procedure was repeated with both legs, and the *Dorsiflex* app reported the dorsiflexion angle for each leg and the percent of asymmetry between the legs. In addition, the *Dorsiflex* app was considered as a valid, reliable, rapid, and easy-to-use tool to assess the ankle ROM and asymmetries in a weight-bearing lunge position [22]. Measurements were made in 3 time periods: (1) baseline, before the practice without bandage; (2) pre-training, immediately after the baseline measurement and before the training session; post-training, immediately after the end of the training session.

#### *2.7. Statistical Analysis*

SPSS v.23.0 for macOS (IBM SPSS Statistics for macOS, NY: IBM Corp) was used for statistical analysis. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to check the normality data distribution. For each group separately, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni's correction were developed to assess significant differences between the three-time points (basal, pre-training and post-training) and check the multiple comparisons, respectively. The effect size was calculated with the Eta<sup>2</sup> coefficient.

In order to observe the difference between groups, the Student's *t-*test—parametric data—and *U* Mann-Whitney test—no parametric data—were applied to test sociodemographic data between groups. To assess the effects of intra-subjects (time) and inter-subject (treatment groups) values on the dependent variables, a two-way ANOVA for repeated measures was performed (considering the significance of the Greenhouse–Geisser correction when the Mauchly test rejected the sphericity). The Bonferroni post-hoc test was employed for multiple comparisons. Furthermore, the effect size was calculated by the Eta<sup>2</sup> coefficient. The level of significance was set at *p* < 0.05 with an α error of 0.05 (95% confidence interval) and the desired power of 80% (β error of 0.2).
