Skins Compression Gear

[Tyson Wright]

Anyone sporting this gear for wod's? I was hoping to get a recent review.

[Rob Darden]

I am curious of this as well.

[Jesse Gray]

The basic idea with compression wear is that you increase your blood pressure, specifically, more at the extremities of limbs. This increases blood flow to your muscle which speeds recovery. A variety of testing has been done which shows it does work. Currently, the main uses of compression wear are medical, for diabetics, pregnant women, anyone who may have circulation issues.

Commercial compression wear runs a pretty wide range from being virtually useless to providing the maximum amount of compression allowed without a Dr.s prescription (yes, there is prescription tight pants!). The factors that make compression garments good or bad are the materials and the fit. A pair of Under Armor compression pants will offer a very minimal amount of actual compression and you won't see much of a difference. The company Skins makes a better product which does get into the range of actual compression but due to technological restraints, the fit can't be made to utilize its compression well. Others in the category of Skins would be triathlon companies like 2XU. The only company with really good, functional compression gear available commercially is another tri company called Zoot which has a lock down on the only looms in America capable of making high quality compression garments. That being said, the only Zoot products really worth getting are the recovery focused lower body stuff. I should state that Zoot makes two kinds of compression wear, active and recovery. The active stuff is good but not much use for Crossfitters, it's designed for endurance athletes and you're not going to see any real benefit from it even in a long WOD like Murph. The recovery gear is meant to improve recovery time/reduce soreness and it does this well. Wearing the gear during your workout and after it will significantly reduce muscle soreness. I also only recommend getting the lower body stuff because the upper body is so complex that even Zoot with their fancy looms can't do much to get proper gradient compression over the upper body muscle groups.

[Edward Guzman]

Wow. Thanks Jesse for an insightful overview of compression gear. You've answered the very questions I've had.

[James Orr]

I used compression socks a year and a half ago when I partially tore my achilles in karate. The recovery took a long time, but the compression made it bearable to train in the latter part when I was only experiencing discomfort rather than risk of further injury. The compression during training significantly mitigated the pain. So now that I'm all healed up and whole again I wear your typical compression-esq ankle supports whenever I start to feel any soreness there or in my ankles. They work like a charm.

[John Kelly]

I'm a CrossFit spammer

[John Kelly]

Crossfitters wearing BSc in competition.