It seems that the newest trend in athletic gear these days is tagged with the word compression. You hear it in any sport where endurance and speed is involved. The sport industry has responded by creating compression gear that covers you from your neck to your toes. I jumped on the trend by trying out one of the original compression manufactuers, CW – X.
Well made and I say this because I have seen other pieces of compression clothing not produced by CW – X have tears on the seams and this is while they are still in the retail store hanger.
I’m no sports therapist so the thinking on compression clothing is to support your muscles during a hard workout or race to increase your performance. With this in mind, I created my own field study.
First off, me being the guinea pig, I’m not a big guy, 5’6″ weighing in at low end of the light weight scale at 143 lbs and lean. I figured let’s test CW-X with a variety of sports over a 5 day period.
The testing involved on day 1, a 5 KM Trail race, day 2, a 10 KM road race, day 3, 2 hour mountain bike ride and a 1 hour trail run, day 4, a one and a half hour Muay Thai class and day 5, 2 one hour Muay Thai classes, one in the morning one in the evening. For these workouts I wore either the tights or shorts and yes I did wash them between the workouts for all you smell consious people.
My non scientific results, I didn’t really notice any significant performance increases during the workouts. I honestly felt the same. HOWEVER, what I did notice by fluke was after I had gone home to shower and for some reason I decided to put on the CW-X tights. I immediately noticed that they SUPPORTED my tired over stretched tendons and muscles which helped with my recovery for the next day and to not limp around the neighborhood. The shorts also had the same effect as long as you were looking for quad and hamstring recovery. I’ve seen the marketing now that compression gear is broken into use, as in performance and recovery. I can say an absolute yes to recovery.
Another tip I learned from a staffer at the RF store in Markham, pull your compression tights up high before you cinch them. This will stop them from being drawn down as you run.
