Support guy

A researcher is out to change the view of sports bras as apparel rather than protective athletic equipment.

- Nicky Pellegrino

A lot of science has gone into developing footwear that provides runners with optimal support so they can avoid injury. However, there is another part of the body that requires extra support. The female breast contains no muscles and has only two weak support structures, the skin and the Cooper's ligaments. When a woman runs, unrestrained breasts move independently, stretching the ligaments and skin, causing tension and often pain.

Like many sports medicine experts, Douglas Powell, of the University of Memphis, was focused on how footwear affects running biomechanics. Then one day he asked researcher Hailey Fong to run on a treadmill for one of their studies and she replied that she couldn't because she wasn't wearing her sports bra.

"I asked her how much it really mattered," recalls Powell. "And every woman in the room looked at me with daggers in their eyes." Powell learned this was an area where comparatively little research had been done. UK scientists had looked at how much the breasts move when a woman runs - for an average-sized person, it's about 15cm of independent movement. Powell was interested in investigating how this may impact on the rest of the body. That is what he and his colleagues are now busy doing at the Breast Biomechanics Research Centre. 

Their most recently published research confirms that the type of sports bra makes a difference. Using motion capture photography and an instrumented treadmill, they asked 12 participants to run without any breast support, and in two different bras, one high support and the other low.

They found the type of bra influenced more than breast movement. Compensations occurred across the entire body. Basically, without adequate support, the women unconsciously ran in a different way as they tried to minimise bouncing and discomfort.