What are the benefits of wearing a sports bra?

Whilst you might be able to get away with not wearing a bra for lounging around the house, you cannot do the same for exercising! Here are a few essential reasons you should 100% wear a supportive sports bra for running and exercise, especially if you are blessed with larger breasts.

Benefit #1 – avoid damaging your breast tissue

Without the correct support, exercising without the right sports bra can result in breast pain. In the UK, the average bra size is a 34D, which is 500g per breast. This means 95% of women that are within peBe’s size range are carrying 1kg+ of extra weight in their boobs.

Remember that 1kg+ weight and then understand that your breasts move in a figure of eight shape when you run, and at a different speed to your torso. This is only made trickier as your boobs only have the support of your skin and no muscles to keep them in place.

If you aren’t wearing the right bra size, you can also get tension in your upper back and neck from a lack of support.

Potential end result … saggy boobs and back pain. So we’d recommend that you invest in your chest asap, as much as you would on those bum-sculpting leggings (which support the biggest muscle in your body!)

Benefit #2 – improve your performance

Research at Portsmouth University has found that a decent sports bra has been proven to improve a marathon time by up to 8 minutes and that running in a sports bra with poor support can shorten your stride by 4cms which results in a massive extra 1.5kms over the length of a marathon.

So if you’re a performance focused gal and like going for a PB or you just want to do as few steps as possible to make it over that finish line, then we’d recommend that you up your sports bra game asap! Particularly if you have larger breasts.

Benefit #3 – feel confident and supported

No one wants to be worrying about what their boobs are doing when exercising. The only thing you should be focused on is your form and getting through (and if you can, enjoying!!) the exercise.

Your sports bra is there to do a job, so you can focus on the one in hand, whether it’s achieving a personal best, or starting couch to 5k. One tip here is that it is important to think about matching the sports bra impact level to the exercise intensity. You’ll need a high impact sports bra for anything like running, cycling, HIIT, horse riding or team sport.

A decent high-impact sports bra is just as essential as a pair of trainers when exercising. You definitely wouldn’t go for a run in a pair of sandals, so why go out for run in a low impact sports bra.