I’m back from the Isle of Wight Festival now, but I’ve loved mixing things up on Miss Wheezy and featuring other great fitness bloggers.
I’d like to carry on having guest posts every now and again so get in touch if you’d like to participate!
Today is a feature from Lesli who blogs over at fit & happy about all things health & fitness. She is a marketer by day and a fitness, health, wine & baking obsessive the rest of the time. Head over and check her out!
Under pressure: experimenting with padding and compression
A while ago I was lucky enough to go to the BoomBoom Athletica new collection launch at Shoreditch Boxpark. Not only was it brilliant because BoomBoom has got great looking performance workout clothes, but I’d been in the market for some padded tights for cycling and they had a pair in their newly launched range.
As a fitness clothing addict, I managed to hold myself back from buying said tights for about two weeks (I’m pretty sure that’s a new record for me!) but finally caved when I ran into the founder, Ann, and her team on their stand at Be:Fit and had the chance to try the tights on.
Now, it wasn’t just the fact that I already had quite enough pairs of tights at home that had made me hesitate in those two weeks: the BoomBoom tights aren’t just padded for cycling but they’re also compression tights. Until now I’ve stayed away from compression, not knowing what (if any) the real advantages were and also not being keen on being sausaged into my clothes. I’m generally a fan of comfort in what I wear for working out and I couldn’t see how compression could possibly equal comfort!
Let’s get an important detail out of the way, since I mostly want to talk about the compression… the padding is AMAZING. Why I haven’t had padded spin/cycling shorts or tights in the past is now a total mystery to me and I’ve started to plan my washing days around when I’ll have spin so I know these tights will be clean as I can’t imagine going back to an unpadded ride. They’ve got padding designed with the help of a Tour de France-experienced padding expert so you know they’re not joking around.
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So, I wasn’t wrong when I tried the tights on for the first time. My first impression of compression was very sausagey. But, despite the super-tight feel, when I looked in the mirror they were really flattering and they didn’t feel uncomfortable.
When I wore them for my first spin after buying them, my focus was mostly on how my butt (and other sensitive bits!) felt as I’d bought them mostly for the padding, which, as mentioned, was very effective. But the next day I was amazed to find that my legs weren’t killing me the way they normally might after a hardcore spin session.
I didn’t think much about it but I was curious about what the compression aspect was actually doing for me. So I did a little research.
What I found was really interesting — although it all seems a little inconclusive (a good round-up of the various studies here)! — and varied by sport. Studies with cricketers and rugby players have showed that compression may have helped performance but definitely helped recovery time, while for cyclists and runners, the performance advantages weren’t necessarily backed up by science but, again, the recovery showed interesting positive changes when wearing compression.
So the one thing all the studies seem to agree on is that, whatever the questionable benefits during your workout, compression gear does seem to have a clear effect on helping to get rid of muscle waste products which means that you don’t feel as sore the next day after wearing compression kit.
I’ve now worn the BoomBoom tights more than half a dozen times for spinning and the next day has always felt noticeably better than before I had them. Particularly after doing a double-header GymClass HIIT/strength workout and Psycle ride, when the number of power squats combined with the ride should have pretty much hobbled me, I was almost perfectly fine the following day, with only a little soreness two days afterwards.
Given the scientific studies about it and my own mini-test, I’m now a fan and advocate of compression. I think it would be particularly useful when getting ready for an event and needing to be fresh for daily training sessions, so I’m now in the market for a pair of running compression tights to prep for a half-marathon in October.
What do you think? Have you tried compression and did it do what you thought it would?
