How Does Compression Help with Athlete Recovery?

When you’ve been hitting the weights, pounding the pavement, and training intensely, athlete recovery is crucial in maintaining your health and staying injury-free. Compression recovery is a form of muscle and health maintenance that pros have been incorporating into their everyday routine for years, but how does compression actually help with athlete recovery? Whether you’re using compression for sore muscles or additional support, the benefits of using compression for recovery can tremendously improve your performance and keep you safe while pushing yourself. Whether you’re using it before, during, or after your training session, there are several benefits when it comes to compression!

How Compression Works

Simply put, compression for recovery works by narrowing your blood vessels. This allows blood to travel faster to areas that need it. Whether it’s in your hands for improved circulation or your legs after hitting the squat rack, wearing compression tights, sleeves, shirts, and more provides you with better athlete recovery, keeping your body in optimal condition.

Wearing Compression Can Decrease Lactic Acid Buildup

There’s always a lot of talk surrounding lactic acid, and it’s usually pretty negative. Lactic acid builds up as a result of not enough blood flowing to your muscles. This is what causes “soreness” after an intense workout of lifting weights, running, or any other form of training. For athlete recovery, blood flow is crucial in keeping your muscles healthy and oxygenated. Compression recovery is a great way to increase blood flow and relieve sore muscles, and there are a variety of products like leggings, arm sleeves, shirts, and more you can wear all day to promote recovery.

Compression Can Help You During Your Workout

When you’re training, you’re putting your bones, muscles, and joints through a lot. An important part of athlete recovery is thinking about how you can minimize impact during your workout. Wearing compression minimizes vibrations and can help keep joints supported and aligned. This helps you get the most out of your compression recovery wear, and you’ll feel better while you’re working out. Compression wear can reduce fatigue and prevent your muscles from getting overtired during an intense workout, so you can train harder and make the progress you want to see.

It Protects Your Skin from the Elements

If you’re training outside, chances are you’ve had your fair share of overly sunny days and rainy afternoons. Compression wear can shield your skin from the sun, preventing burns and discomfort. Our Copper Znergy® technology has UPF 50+ to protect you. Another benefit of wearing compression recovery wear is that it protects from blisters. If you’re breaking in a new pair of shoes, the last thing you want to worry about in your athlete recovery is heel blisters. So, when you wear compression clothing during your workout, you can prevent skin damage and recover faster.

Compression Helps with Heat Regulation

An important part of athlete recovery is temperature. When muscles get too hot or too cold, recovery may take some extra time. Cramps can happen in both hot and cold weather, causing your muscles to contract and get incredibly tight. Wearing compression for recovery can help mitigate some of these effects by regulating your body temperature. If you’re in cool weather, compression can warm up your muscles to help prevent a cramp, or if you’re in hot weather, compression wear will keep your blood flow circulating to ensure your muscles get all the proper nutrients they need to perform.

Compression Reduces Delayed Soreness

Whenever you have a particularly good workout, there’s always the question: “How sore will I be later?” When you wear compression for athlete recovery, you greatly reduce the chance of delayed soreness. Whether you were getting a fantastic arm pump on or your quads are burning from a particularly intense bike ride, wearing garments for compression recovery will help your muscles pump out the lactic acid that causes sore muscles.

Discover Compression Recovery Apparel

At Tommie Copper®, we’ve been providing customers with trusted and effective compression garments since 2010. Whether you need them for athlete recovery or want to keep aching joints from arthritis at bay, we have the products for you. From compression recovery clothing like pants for hips, quads, and calves to wrist, foot, and ankle sleeves, you can feel confident that Tommie Copper® will help ease your pain. Explore all we have to offer and feel better now!