Over the past few years, sportswear has become increasingly more popular. With professional athletes endorsing and using top brands, almost everywhere you look someone is wearing a form of sportswear.
More recently, it has become ‘trendy’ to wear sports brands as a fashion statement. Often seeing people strolling around the city in their branded fitness gear.
This piece will not direct you towards that great new color zip-up top online. Although sportswear can look tight, sleek and trendy, I am here to give you an insight into how the technical side of sportswear is improving.
Specific Sportswear
Your everyday clothing such as cotton t-shirts, fashion tracksuit bottoms and hoodies are all designed to look good, be comfortable, and to keep you warm. They’re not designed for high-intensity activities such as cycling, running, or gym workouts.
We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve worn an everyday t-shirt for exercise. Very quickly it becomes soaked through and weighs you down, causing unnecessary distractions and harder work for you!
This is one of the many reasons why professional athletes and fitness enthusiasts wear highly technical, functional sportswear. The comfortable feel and fit really adds a touch of ‘luxury’ to your workout.
Some say they are unable to perform at the same level without their favourite sportswear. Why?
The highest quality sportswear has been carefully created to offer the best support for your muscles, helping you train harder, for longer, and to recover quicker.
New smart sportswear, made from infrared-emitting fabric, can also increase blood circulation and regulate body temperature during exercise. Along with wicking away moisture, it will allow you to say goodbye to that overheated, sweaty, stuffy feeling during a workout. If you haven’t tried it already, you should.
Sportwear for Performance
Unusual movement patterns, changes in climate, and physical instability can all contribute to injuries. Serious athletes regulate their movement patterns and increase their stability, while also being mobile and adaptable, for optimal performance.
Sportswear designed specifically for your sport can further add to your overall performance by supporting the right muscle groups during training and by giving you protection in the areas that need it most. This helps you perform more effectively, with less chance of injury.
Fitness sportswear can have a major influence on how your body and muscles move during exercise. For example, if you wear a specialist top during your weight-training sessions; the technical design and nature of the garment will influence how your body and muscles move during a workout, whilst the neural memory of repeatedly performing a movement correctly can lead to your being able to train injury-free, with correct movements, to the best of your ability.
The reality of high-intensity training and competing is that if you become injured you can’t perform. Performance and recovery therefore, go hand in hand. So, if you’re not performing effectively, you may not recover correctly, leading to further injury and long-term problems.
Some specialist sportswear [especially using infrared-emitting fabric] can increase blood circulation, particularly to the muscles that are being worked the hardest. This increased blood flow can decrease muscle fatigue and reduce the risk of muscle cramp. For example, wearing compression socks when running will help hold your muscle in place to reduce friction damage as well as maintaining blood flow and reducing swelling. Wearing infrared performance leggings when skiing can help maintain a constant temperature and even flow of blood to your leg muscles. In conjunction with the correct nutrition, this increased blood flow will deliver vital nutrients, including minerals and oxygen, to these muscle groups, helping them to work harder and longer, while also accelerating the recovery process.
Sportswear for Recovery
The right sportswear can improve performance, can help prevent injury during exercise and can help the recovery process in-between workouts.
Wearing sportswear during training can significantly reduce the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) and post-workout muscle cramps compared to wearing non-specific sportswear.
In particular, The constant and efficient flow of nutrients and minerals to your working muscles means the recovery process has already begun during your workout.
Meanwhile, some of the more advanced fitness sportswear boast some major recovery benefits Made using an advanced infrared material, they provide your body with temperature regulation, pain relief and accelerated recovery, compared to many other products on the market today.
Sportswear for Performance and Recovery, Yes or No?
It is clear that everyone can benefit from sportswear in one way or another. The intra-workout benefits explained above will set you up in the best way possible to perform at the top of your game, greatly reducing the risk of injury and fatigue.
We can also see that all high-quality sportswear can assist your body and muscles with recovery as opposed to general fashion sportwear. Technical advances and smart fabrics can further improve your overall exercise experience including faster recovery rates. This means you can train harder, and more often, which can only lead to one thing – an improvement in overall performance.
Whilst performance-enhancing sportswear is relatively new to the sports scene, the rapid advancements in sports technology means there will be plenty more performance and recovery sportswear options available in the not too distant future.
So don't forget to check our Recovery Range & Performance Range and start improving your overall performance and recovery!