When To Wear Compression Socks

Audio Transcript

Coach Hayley: Hey Runners Connect fans. Welcome to Runners Connect Run to the Top Extra Kick Podcast.

I am here to answer your running and training questions so that you can train smarter, stay healthy, and achieve your goals. I hope you are having a great day and thank you so much for tuning in.

Today we have a great question from Alex.

Alex: When is the best time to wear compression socks. During your run or only after? If during, should you wear them on hard and easy days or just one or the other? What about while you sleep?

Hayley: That’s a good question Alex. Compression socks are great in theory. They help to encourage blood flow back up towards the heart and counter the effects of gravity that can cause blood to pull [00:01:40 in the faint the leg string] in ability.

[inaudible 00:01:43] medical practice for a while and now also fairly popular for improving sports performance and recovery.

Despite their popularity, evidence isn’t conclusive. Research has suggested that they do receive perceptions [inaudible 00:01:54] in your races. They’ve also been shown to have a slight positive effect on endurance performance.

However, some experts argue that this might be due to the perceiver effect of wearing their socks.

Research has indicated that the socks don’t directly improve recovery time or physiological parameters of recovery.

However, as there aren’t any known negative effects, you just had to try them and having slightly less sore legs is very welcome as a runner.

One real world study showed, the athletes who raced in compression socks recovered more quickly and had less muscle damage. So worth a go.

Back to your question on when to wear them. The author of The Real-World study that showed improvements to recovery, suggests that athletes wear the socks for long or hard sessions, and for 24 hours following them.

As some studies have shown benefits in performance, it doesn’t hurt to wear them during your quality workouts and long runs.

Wearing them on your easy days probably isn’t necessary as the easy one should be about recovering and not to [inaudible 00:02:59] anyway.

Regarding wearing them afterwards based on how they work, it does make sense to put them on after harder sessions or long runs.

It might help to stop the blood pooling in the legs and help the blood flow back up towards the heart and therefore system recovery.

If you’re sitting a lot for your job, I think it’s going to be even more helpful and it’s not harmful.

With that in mind, wearing them during sleep could be helpful. Evidence hasn’t proven conclusively that wearing them during sleep can offer any sorts of benefits. But again, it doesn’t hurt and there’s no reason not to try.

I hope that has given you some ideas on when to wear your compression socks or tights. I think you might see a benefit although as far as I’ve heard, it’s individual between runners.

In terms of racing in them, it doesn’t benefit me.

I find them quite annoying but I often want to after a race and think that does stop some of the soreness I get in my calf, the day after a race like a cross-country. So worth a go.

I really like that question and thanks so much for asking. For those of you listening and want to have your questions answered by one of the Runners Connect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and click the record button to send your question over.

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Have a great day and be sure to tune in next time.