For elite athletes, effective and efficient recovery is essential for achieving peak performance. Enhanced recovery enables athletes to increase training loads more quickly and is crucial for those competing multiple times a week or even daily. Speedier recovery translates to better overall performance.
One popular method for speeding up recovery is the use of compression garments. While these garments are widely used and known to aid recovery, the results from various studies have been somewhat inconsistent. Fortunately, Freddy Brown from St Mary’s University College in Twickenham, UK, and his team have clarified the situation with their meta-analysis, published in the journal Sports Medicine.
Their review of 23 studies found that compression garments have a modest yet likely beneficial effect on recovery. The benefits are minimal in the first 0-2 hours after exercise but become more noticeable between 2-8 hours, 24 hours, and beyond. The most significant improvements are observed in the recovery of strength and power, with endurance recovery showing some benefit but perhaps not enough to be practically significant. Both trained and untrained athletes experience similar benefits, and variations in pressure among commonly available compression garments do not appear to affect outcomes.
In summary, compression garments likely offer a small but tangible advantage for improving strength and power recovery from a few hours up to a day or more after exercise.
