I was extolling the virtues of plus size sports bras (yes, plural… I wear both the Activa Zip Front and the Enell) to a friend the other day. I said I don’t care if they give me the “uni-boob” look – I love the comfort and support.
She looked skeptical, saying that she’d heard that tight fitting sports bras can harm your respiratory tract.
Hmmm…that didn’t sound good. I did some research and found out that in 2005 the American College of Sports Medicine’s scholarly journal published an article on just this issue – the threat of sports bras on respiratory function.
The study determined that the sports bra “imparted significantly more pressure on smaller breasted females’ torsos when compared with the fashion brassiere, although this increased pressure did not appear to significantly affect measured lung volumes or brassiere comfort scores. They concluded that wearing a sports bra during does not harm your respiratory tract. In fact, their research indicates that wearing a sports bra during activity is beneficial to reduce breast motion and its related pain.
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