Does Compression Wear Actually Improve Speed, Recovery? We Find Out

Compression garments have gone from a luxury to somewhat of a necessity for athletes looking to get the best out of their performances.

The reason for this is particularly for your muscles. The more a muscle moves or vibrates, the more energy it consumes, so compression garments aim to help apply pressure to muscles, and in turn, decrease muscle oscillation and therefore energy expenditure. This has the physiological potential to reduce fatigue and improve recovery; but do they really make a difference.

Research with athletes has shown that compression garments may provide physiological benefits for athletes during exercise, so, as you can expect, some poor people were put to the test.

According to the research on compression garments by Berry and McMurray (1987), the findings demonstrated a reduction in blood lactate concentration during maximal exercise on a bicycle ergometer.

Jump power was also improved, as investigations have shown improved repeated jump power (Kraemer, Bush et al. 1996; Kraemer, Newton et al. 1997; Kraemer, Bush et al. 1998) and increased vertical jump height (Doan, Kwon et al. 2003) .

The suggested reasons for the improved jumping ability with compression garments include an improved warm-up via increased skin temperature, reduced muscle oscillation upon ground contact and increased torque generated about the hip joint (Doan, Kwon et al. 2003) . Combined, these results show that compression garments may provide both a performance enhancement and an injury reduction role during exercises provoking high blood lactate concentrations or explosive-based movements.

Other investigations have suggested that the use of compression garments during recovery periods may reduce the symptoms associated with delayed onset muscle soreness (Kraemer, Bush et al. 2001; Chatard, Atlaoui et al. 2004) . For example, Kraemer et al. (2001) reported that subjects wearing compression garments for three days following severe eccentric exercise showed a decrease in perception of soreness, reduction in swelling and an improved recovery of force production.

Not only can compression garments help your muscles work at the optimum level during the workout, but compression helps reduce muscle-damage post-excersize, so you won’t be hobbling into the office or lecture hall come Monday morning.

But it’s not just professional athletes that can benefit from those perks, and everyone who is active enough should consider the advantages, as Athletics8 compression garments offer these benefits, and feature the F7 Comfortweave fabric, which allows for durability, cleanliness, compression, comfort, and serious stretching. So you can put your own box jumps to the test, or try knock some time off your recovery period before that next Sunday soccer session.

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