Why is it so important to wear a decent sports bra for running?

Did you know that when you run, your breasts move in a figure of eight shape? Most of the movement is up and down, but they also move side to side. This creates a swinging motion that can increase as your breasts get bigger and also as we age and our skin loses its elasticity.

Because we all love stats - for context - this can result in between 4cm to 14cm movement in your breasts when you run!! Remember this number as I give you some more in a moment. Our boobs are heavy and unsupported by muscle – only skin, glands and fatty tissue to their make-up. This means that they will move out of sync with our torso when we run, and can be the cause of pain for lots of women. Add to this that the average cup size in the UK is a DD, which is approx. 1.1kg of unsupported weight, now you can see why boobs can literally be a pain in the back!!

Let’s recap… 1.1kg swinging around with approx. 9cm movement. The argument for investing in a well fitted high impact sports bra designed for your comfort becomes very strong!! Especially when you realise that all this movement can actually shorten your stride length whilst running and therefore increase the amount you cover over a distance! Research has found that marathon finish times increase by as much as 4.6-8.6 minutes for each increase in cup size. This means a woman wearing a 32DD sports bra could finish a marathon over 18 minutes behind a woman wearing a 32A, even if their fitness levels and training experience was similar. This difference is more pronounced with larger underband sizes.

So if I have your attention based on the research and stats, read on with our other blogs to let us help you reach that PB by making sure you a) have the right bra size and b) have the best support to minimise that bounce and gain an advantage, or just feel a bit more comfortable running!