Compression Garments

Whoever said running was cheap?? Take a popular activity and you can be sure some corporation will find some way to make money out of it. In my previous life, shoes were 'permanent', i.e. you threw them away when you wore a hole where your toes were and when the sole split from the upper. Throw away after 500k?? That borders on being disposable, how ridiculous.

Anyhow, we stand helpless against the march of consumerism. That HRM cum GPS device looks really space age and cool, maybe the next gen will have teleportation technology. That new shoe with xyz compound that returns 99.9% of the impact energy, how can I not improve my PB by 20 minutes? Oh yeah, you hear about that new protein/electrolyte mix that not only corrects all imbalances but actually builds muscle as you run!

I digress........

So, this new fangled (maybe not so new) compression garment stuff. $140 a pop, that's more expensive than any single piece of clothing I have ever bought in my life (ok call me a cheapo). But does it work?

So I get a pair of Skins long tights from a guy over the net, and put it on for the first time at the SgRunners 30k fam run. For one thing, it looks really cool! Score one for drool factor. When I show up, whoa.....Skins parade! Everyone and everyone's uncle was in compression tights. I must say, no matter what body shape you are, the compression garments do a flattering job, and some of the ladies looked......errr........delicious

Run wise, the Skins wore comfortably over the 30k, but I can't really say for sure if there were any performance improvements. However, there did not appear to be much of the delayed muscle soreness that accompanies such runs for me.

Not convinced, I ask DO to get me a pair of 2XU compression tights. So, 2 days later, I run out to SAFRA MF and pick it up from him, then run back home (7k) at sub-10k pace. Put on the 2XU immediately after a shower and wear it around for most of the day and through the night. So all in all, had run about 55k in 4 days, about a third of it at sub-10k pace, a training volume that would typically leave me significantly achy. Had worn compression tights for one of the long runs, and again following the last hard run for ca. 18 hours. Post run recovery seemed to be significantly enhanced.

Conclusions: In my personal experience, I cannot say for certain that the compression clothing confers any kind of performance enhancement DURING a run, but I certainly do feel that post-race recovery is enhanced. This will help with increasing training frequency and intensity, at the very least.

So, is it worth it? .... ;)