Quick Tip–My Experience With Compression Gear for Runners

In Wednesday’s post, I shared an article that Teal Burrell had written for Outside magazine recently about the impact that compression gear has for runners both during a run and when used for recovery.

If you didn’t get a chance to read Teal’s article, please take a minute and check it out.

My Take On Compression Gear

Full disclosure on my part, I have purchased one pair of compression socks and was given one pair of compression sleeves for my calves. I have used both of these items multiple times, but I’ve never used any other form of compression gear.

Wearing Compression Gear Flying Home After the Blue Ridge Marathon

Now that I’ve cleared the air.

In my experience, when it comes to running performance, I think I side with the research that Teal cited in her article.

I’ve worn compression during my past few marathons, and I really can’t definitively say it did much for me.

I suppose there is a chance that I didn’t fatigue as quickly, but I have been so much better trained for my last few races that to compare them to the races that I didn’t wear compression gear isn’t fair.

Yet even though I don’t think they did much for me physically, I can see the placebo effect kicking in here.

I was better trained, yes, but the fact is I was less sore after the race, I didn’t seem to fatigue as much, and was happy with my performance when I wore my compression socks. So it would kind of make sense that I should keep wearing them, eh?

That said, there is no doubt in my mind that compression gear absolutely helps with recovery AFTER the race.

I’m not going to get too scientific to try and figure out why, though I’m not about to argue with the researchers in the article. I just know that wearing compression socks/calf sleeves after a marathon has helped me feel much better crawling out of the bed the next day, getting out of the car after a several hour drive, and coming off of an airplane only a handful of hours after finishing the race.

In fact, I believe in the recovery benefits of compression gear so much that I’m really thinking about investing in some tights to wear after a race, in hopes that compression all the way up will help with some of the quad soreness that tends to linger for a few days after a race.

Go ahead and press play below, and listen to me talking a little bit more about my experiences with compression gear, as well as getting into some issues I have with the studies in Teal’s article, and why there may be some reason to wear compression during a race after all.