Pressure Situations

Feeling the pressure these days? Are you using compression garments? Kidding aside, what was originally used to prevent deep vein thrombosis made it onto our playing fields over a decade ago. The use of compression wear is now ubiquitous among recreational to elite athletes for improved performance & recovery. 

Generalizing the effectiveness of such a practice is difficult to ascertain for a number of reasons. A labyrinth of biomechanical, physiological & psychological factors is at play, and unsurprisingly, heterogeneity of studies ensues. Even meta-analyses struggle to overcome this hurdle given the degree of diversity, thus key considerations need to be addressed before accepting or rejecting their use.

Is the effectiveness of compression on the upper and lower body the same? A far greater number of studies have assessed the lower body garments, especially that of the lower leg. For the most part, the evidence isn’t convincing to support the use of upper body compression wear as an ergogenic aid primarily based on the dearth of studies and secondly the equivocal outcomes in the research that does exist. It still doesn’t imply it is ineffective in select conditions, e.g. thermoregulation, aerodynamics, etc.

Purported physiological effects from lower body compression wear leading to performance gains include improving venous return, proprioception, movement accuracy, and reducing muscular oscillations, inflammation, cardiac load and fatigue. Further to this, a reduction in soreness and fatigue are touted effects that promote recovery. The diverse array of experimental factors such as, actual pressure induced, environmental conditions, lack of blinding, placebo effect and metrics assessed, etc., make any strong evidence-based conclusions on utility challenging. We believe the best approach is to test if you thrive under pressure & see if the research catches up with you!