Boobs are back. And they never went away. This is part of Boobs Week – read the full article Here.
Honestly, I’d rather not think too much about how much money I’ve spent on running shoes. I have shoes for easy days and track training, long runs and tempo runs. I have a pair of trail shoes designed specifically for women, and of course I have a pair of super shoes, the same kind of carbon plate racing shoes that Eliud Kipchoge wore when he broke the two-hour mark in the marathon in 2019. (OK, I have two pairs.) You could say I’m neurotic about running shoes!
I bought the Super Shoes in 2021 and 2022, for two consecutive attempts to qualify for the Boston Marathon. These shoes, which cost about $250 a pair, have become increasingly popular in recent years among people like me who care deeply about running and want to maximize both the quality of the experience and their performance. During both races, I wore my least bad bra, the one that chafes just a little bit — not enough to bother me during a race, but usually enough to make me scream in pain in the shower afterward.
I may have high expectations for running shoes, but I can’t say the same for running bras. A good sports bra is one I can ignore; a bad sports bra is one that’s so painful it slows me down. The best I can hope for is… nothing.
Lately, however, I have come to believe that we can – and should – expect more from our sports bras! We should all have sports bras that active nice to wear, just as we have shoes that do much, much more than just protect our feet from the ground. According to a small but fascinating study, a well-designed and properly fitting bra can even improve Mileage. No more super shoes. Where is my super sports bra?
Not long ago, after a 15-mile training run through New York City, Kelly Roberts came home to find she was bleeding. And bleeding heavily. “I was so sore, it looked like I’d been shot – there was this huge blood stain on my shirt,” she said. “I didn’t realize how bad it was at all because I’m used to that slight burning sensation. I had no idea I was bleeding.”
Roberts is a running coach with a sizable following on TikTok and Instagram, where she regularly posts in-depth reviews of bras she’s tried. She estimates she’s reviewed about 30 bras so far, joking about the performance and aesthetics of each one. (“If your nipples are hard, it shows. It’s weird,” she said in a recent review of a bra.)
When she started training seriously, she started getting tension headaches and pain in her jaw, so much so that it hurt even to open her mouth. Eventually, a physical therapist helped her connect these problems to her sports bra. “My physical therapist was like, ‘Hey, your bra is ruining your life,'” she said. An ill-fitting bra can compress the muscles around an athlete’s shoulders and neck, which can reduce blood flow and lead to pain like Roberts’.
But it can be difficult for women, especially those with larger breasts, to find a bra that not ruin their lives. A 2015 study found that 17 percent of the 249 women surveyed said their breasts prevented them from exercising. They agreed with statements such as “I can’t find the right sports bra” or “Excessive breast movement embarrasses me.”
Even a bra that performs basic functions can be a nuisance to wear. In a study published earlier this year in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Olympic runner and exercise physiologist Shalaya Kipp set out to quantify the impact of this impairment on performance. Kipp asked competitive runners to undergo a series of treadmill tests in three scenarios: once in their preferred sports bra size, once with a tighter band, and once with a looser band. Her results showed an improvement in oxygen consumption in the looser condition compared to the self-selected and tighter conditions—an improvement of up to 2 percent between the tighter conditions and the looser condition.
So a tighter sports bra makes it harder to breathe. Yes, no joke. But there is a case for taking at least as much time choosing a sports bra as you do choosing shoes, rather than just ordering something online and hoping for the best. Imagine going to a store that specializes primarily in sports bras, having a specialist examine your breasts, and then running around the store or on the treadmill for a bit to see how the different options feel. That’s how runners buy their shoes, after all! The selection of sports bras may still be a little sparse, but it would at least be a good start.
And Kipp’s study is exactly the kind of research that could be built upon to develop—eventually—a performance-enhancing bra. (Incidentally, Kipp’s study was funded by Lululemon.) Kipp has estimated that the difference in oxygen consumption could make a marathon runner running for three hours three minutes faster than she did—recalling the super-shoe maker’s claim of a 4 percent improvement in oxygen consumption. “This is basic science,” Kipp says of her research. “It has the potential to help everyone on the field.”
(Incidentally, it’s not clear whether super shoes help everyone on the field. While it’s true that this technology has helped elite runners improve their finishing times, that may not be true for amateurs. While I love my Alphaflys very much, the real performance benefit seems to come when you’re moving much faster than my eight-minute marathon pace.)
For sports bras, even small improvements could be enough to earn the “super” moniker, says Laura Tempesta, a sports bra designer who was formerly Nike’s sports bra innovation director and has consulted on design for other brands. “If we designed a fantastic sports bra, it would solve all these basic things that haven’t been solved,” she said. Namely, it would improve sweat wicking and prevent chafing while providing comfort and support. “I mean, those are such basic things, right? But no bra out there can say it’s solved all of those things.”
There’s a reason brands haven’t developed a bra like this yet. “It costs a lot of money to make a really good sports bra,” she said. But brands can’t charge as much for a bra as they can for a pair of shoes. “So in the hierarchy of things they sell, bras always end up at the bottom in terms of how they allocate their resources because it’s just not worth it for them. The money just isn’t coming in for them.” Originally made up of two jockstraps sewn together, sports bras have certainly evolved over the years; today you can buy sports bras with underwires, zippered fronts, adjustable Velcro fasteners, seamless bras and even ones with heart rate monitors. But it’s still very hard to find a bra that GoodTempesta believes that most of the features of sports bras that are touted as innovations are mere gimmicks.
Partly it’s down to consumer behavior regarding bras versus shoes. Many runners keep their sports bras for years. (My favorite bra is at least ten years old, the Nike swoosh mostly worn off by now.) But most runners replace their shoes every 300 to 500 miles—about every few months, depending on running habits. And you can really only use super shoes for about 200 to 250 miles; after that, the cushioning wears down to the point where you’re at risk of injury. This is also why running in carbon-plate shoes every day isn’t recommended. In fact, most elite and amateur athletes alike show up to a race in a nearly new pair that they’ve typically only worn once to break them in—I’ve worn my Alphaflys five times in total. The price per wear is exceptional.
Currently, Tempesta is taking a break from her consulting work and trying to design a super sports bra of her own, but she isn’t sharing the details. In the meantime, both she and Roberts have mentioned that they want to appeal to the morale of athletic apparel brands. “What we need is a company that will really commit resources to this over a long period of time and say, ‘We’re not doing this because we care about profit, we’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do,'” Tempesta said.
That’s a nice thought, if not entirely convincing. (Capitalism, etc.) May I offer an alternative suggestion to sports brands: Invest time and money developing a great sports bra – one with straps you can adjust to your body, that wicks sweat, and doesn’t chafe – and pair it with a real, lab-validated claim that I can shave precious minutes off my marathon time. Take advantage of the booming interest in women’s sport and make a big, sensational deal out of someone like Emily Sisson or Keira D’Amato debuting it, breaking a women’s record in the process. And then sell it to me and my nervous runner friends who are paying too much money for it and will probably believe you when you tell us it can only be used a couple of times – after that, we’ll buy it. another.
