Do Compressions Clothes Help You Recover Quicker?

Compressions clothes are used by a lot of athletes either during exercise or to assist with recovery afterwards.

There are a lot of claims made about the benefits, including that they can reduce your risk of injury, which leads people to try out compression tights, socks and tops to recover more efficiently.

A lot of people swear by this as an effective recovery tool, and some athletes even sleep in their compression clothes.

But now, comprehensive research has emerged suggesting the clothes might not be as useful as some people think.

A systematic review was carried out by an international research team looking at the data from all relevant studies.

While there are lots of individual research studies out there pointing to the effectiveness of the clothing, the researchers used a model to weight the evidence according to the number of participants examined in each case.

By doing this, they found the total evidence suggests using compression clothing during or after exercise does not speed up muscle recovery.

The leader of the study, János Négyesi from Tohoku University in Japan, said: "Even data from our previous study supported the idea that such garments have the potential to reduce strength loss after a strenuous workout.

"However, when we synthesized the data of all relevant studies, we found no effect of compression garments on strength recovery -- even when factoring in exercise type and when and where the compression garment is applied."

This should make you think again about whether compression clothes actually work.

It might be that you’ve been using compression garments for a while and you’re a firm believer that they work for you. If that’s the case, don’t throw them away just yet.

There’s certainly an individual element to what our bodies respond to, and compression clothes may work for some people. The psychological impact can also play a part, and you might feel better rested if you’ve been wearing the recovery clothes you like best.

But if you’re an athlete looking at investing in compression clothing or considering new approaches to help with your recovery routine, it could be a good idea to look at other options.

Looking at things like massage tools, hydration aids or even a home sauna could do more for your recovery between sessions.