Does compression clothing work? The answer is…

Mine does!

If you’ve got this far in your quest for knowledge on this subject then you have probably already read various articles on the scientific explanation of how / why compression clothing works.

You’ve probably also read various peoples opinions on whether or not compression clothing helps them to recover after vigorous exercise. And also how compression clothing may improve performance during intensive training or racing.

Compression clothing for recovery

The problem is that proving these things is difficult at best. Whether or not something helps you to recover is an extremely subjective concept. Some days I ache more than others after training. Some training days are more exhaustive than others, but the effects I feel the following day don’t seem to be directly proportional to the effort I put into the training.

I can do two almost identical training sessions or even complete weeks and the way I feel the following day will be different. There are so many variables;

1. how tired I was going into the training session,
2. how much food I had before training
3. and what type of food.
4. Then there's the food I ate to recover,
5. the amount of sleep I got that night,
6. the quality of the sleep,
7. how much rest I actually got after training,
8. how many coffees I drank.
9. Even the temperature of my post workout cold shower will have an impact.

So to conclusively say that compression clothing helps recovery is difficult.

Compression clothing for racing

Yes Paula Radcliffe made great use of compression clothing all those moons ago and probably swears by them. But who's to say she wouldn't have performed as well without them on those particular days?

Recovery may have a lot of variables, but racing has far more! Think about it;

1. The training that has gone into preparing for the race
2. your diet on race day, the day before and all the way through your training
3. sleep – not just the night before but in the days or weeks before,
4. injuries – are you carrying any niggles?
5. stress – how worried are you about the race? A little stress will help get the adrenaline pumping but too much and it will all fall apart.
6. crowd support - if you've ever ran or cycled past your family and/or loved ones in a race you will know that little lift it gives you. As humans we want to perform well in front of those who are important to us.

I could go on to talk about how other competitors affect your race and the weather and so much more but I think you get the picture.

So will adding compression clothing to the mix actually help you get over the finish line faster? It’s difficult to say one way or the other. But what I can give you is my personal experience…

Compression clothing DOES work…

For me anyway. Let me clarify. Recently, as you are hopefully aware, I have started training for the London Marathon 2012. As a keen cyclist this has not come without aches and pains.

To begin with it was all good, I have given myself plenty of time to slowly increase running volume and so on. But one day I got a slight niggle in my right calf. I can’t tell you how I got it, just that when I ran I felt pain in my right calf. It wasn’t horrendous pain but it was hindering my performance massively.

So I rested and it seemed to go away. So I started running again and it came back straight away. Perhaps I didn’t rest for long enough but I’m not very good at taking time off training for too long.

Out of pure desperation I tried a calf guard – the type of compression clothing that goes purely around your calf. You can see it in the picture of me. To my absolute amazement, I can run with this thing on, as hard as I like and feel absolutely no pain.

I took it off during one run to check that the pain hadn’t just magically vanished and sure enough I could feel it slowly coming back so I put the calf guard back on at all was good again!

The reason it helps, I think, is because it supports my calf muscles during the run, it holds the muscle still. But also, after the run, if my calf is aching then putting it on genuinely helps ease the fatigue.

I’m not advocating that anyone should try and train through an injury, but for me this is exactly what I have done. I continued training and even racing (10k running races) and now my calf has fully recovered. I can now run completely unassisted again which I much prefer.

Conclusion

I think, sadly for you, it comes down to personal experience. Compression clothing is a suck it and see type thing. If you feel you need support during training or a little help recovering, give it a go.

In terms of brands, 2XU seem to be the big player. The calf guards I bought are made by 2XU. You can buy them from wiggle here.

It would be fantastic to hear your thoughts and experiences on this…