Boobs are back. And they never went away. This is part of “Boobs Week.” Read the full story here.
To be honest, I don’t really like to think about how much I’ve spent on running shoes. I have shoes for easy days, track training, long runs and tempo runs. I have trail shoes designed specifically for women, and of course I have SuperShoes, the same genre of carbon plate racing shoes that Eliud Kipchoge wore when he ran a sub-2 hour marathon in 2019. (Yes, I have two pairs.) You could say I’m neurotic when it comes to running shoes!
I bought these super shoes in 2021 and 2022 for two consecutive Boston Marathon qualifiers. At about $250 a pair, they have exploded in popularity in recent years among people like me who care deeply about running and want to maximize both the quality and performance of their running experience. In both races, I wore my worst bra. It just chafes a little, which isn’t a problem during the race, but it’s enough to make me scream in the shower after the race.
While I have high expectations for my running shoes, the same can’t be said for my running bra. A good sports bra is negligible, a bad one hurts and slows me down. The best I can hope for is… nothing.
But lately, I’ve come to believe that we can and should demand more from our sports bras. Just as there are shoes that do more than simply keep our feet off the ground, we should all have sports bras that actually feel good in. A small but interesting study suggests that a well-designed, properly fitting bra may even improve your running performance. Enough with the super shoes. Where’s my super sports bra?
When Kelly Roberts returned home recently from a 15-mile training run across New York City, she noticed she was bleeding. And a lot of it. “It was so raw and scraped, it felt like I’d been shot. I had a big blood stain on my shirt,” she said. “I was so used to a slight burning sensation that I had no idea how bad it was. I didn’t even realize I was bleeding.”
Roberts is a running coach with a sizable following on TikTok and Instagram, where she regularly posts detailed reviews of the bras she tries out. She estimates she’s reviewed around 30 so far, joking about how each one performs and looks. (“If your nipples are hard, it shows. It’s weird,” she said of one bra in a recent review.)
When she was training seriously, she started suffering from tension headaches and jaw pain, to the point where opening her mouth hurt. Eventually, a physical therapist pointed out that her problems were linked to her sports bra. “The physical therapist said, ‘Hey, your bra is ruining your life,'” she says. Ill-fitting bras can compress the muscles around an athlete’s shoulders and neck, reducing blood flow and causing the kind of pain and discomfort Roberts experienced.
But for women, especially those with larger breasts, it can be hard to find a bra that won’t ruin your life. A 2015 study found that 17% of 249 women surveyed said their breasts kept them from exercising, agreeing with statements like “I can’t find a sports bra that fits” and “I feel embarrassed about my breasts moving around too much.”
Even bras that perform their basic functions can be a pain to wear. In a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise earlier this year, Olympian-turned-exercise physiologist Sharaya Kipp sought to quantify the impact that discomfort has on performance. Kipp asked competitive runners to take a treadmill test in three scenarios: once wearing their sports bra of choice, once with the band tight, and once with the band loose. The results: the looser condition improved oxygen consumption compared with both the self-selected and tight conditions, with improvements of up to 2 percent between the tight and loose conditions.
That means a tight sports bra makes it harder to breathe. Okay, I’m not kidding. But it helps make the point that we should take as much time choosing a sports bra as we do choosing a pair of shoes, instead of just ordering something online and hoping it works. Imagine going into a store that specializes in sports bras, having a professional examine your breasts, and then running around the store or on a treadmill for a bit to get a feel for the different options. After all, that’s how runners shop for shoes! While the sports bra selection may still be a bit lacking, it’s at least a good start.
And Kipp’s research is exactly the kind of research that could eventually lead to the development of performance-enhancing bras. (Kip’s work is funded by Lululemon, by the way.) Kipp estimates that the difference in oxygen consumption could shave three minutes off a three-hour marathon runner’s finishing time, reminiscent of the four percent improvement in oxygen consumption claimed by super shoe companies. “This is basic science,” Kipp says of the research. “It could help everyone on the field.”
(By the way, it’s not clear that supershoes will benefit everyone on the track. While it’s true that the technology has helped elite runners improve their finish times, the same may not be true for amateurs. I love the Alphafly, but the real performance benefits seem likely when I’m running much faster than my eight-minute marathon pace.)
When it comes to sports bras, even the slightest improvement is enough to earn the title “super,” says sports bra designer Laura Tempesta, former director of sports bra innovation at Nike and design consultant to other brands. “If you design a great sports bra, you’re solving all of the fundamental problems that haven’t been solved before,” she says. That means improving sweat control and preventing chafing while providing comfort and support. “I mean, those are really basic things, right? But there’s no other bra out there that can say it solves all of those things.”
There’s a reason brands don’t make them yet: “It costs a ton of money to make a really good sports bra,” Tempesta says. But brands can’t price bras as much as they can shoes. “So in the hierarchy of what they sell, in terms of how they allocate resources, bras will always be at the bottom, because to them, it’s just not worth it. There’s no money coming in there.” The sports bra, which started out as two jockstraps sewn together, has certainly evolved over the years. Today, you can buy sports bras with underwires, zippered fronts, adjustable Velcro straps, “no seam” bras, and even heart rate monitors. But a good bra is still very hard to find. Tempesta thinks most of the sports bra features touted as innovative are just gimmicks.
Part of the reason is the difference in consumer behavior regarding bras and shoes. Many runners keep their sports bras for years (my favorite bra is at least 10 years old, and the Nike swoosh is almost worn out by now). But most runners change their shoes every 300-500 miles. That’s about every few months to a few months, depending on your mileage habits. And super shoes really only last about 200-250 miles. After that, the cushioning wears out and you’re at risk of injury. That’s why I don’t recommend daily running in shoes with carbon plates either. In fact, elite and amateur athletes alike show up to races with nearly brand new shoes, usually only worn once to break them in. I’ve worn my Alphafly a total of five times, and the price per wear is insane.
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Now, Tempesta has taken a break from her consultancy to design her own Super Sports Bra, though she’s tight-lipped about details. But she and Roberts both mentioned appealing to the morality of activewear brands. “What we need are companies that are going to put resources into this for the long term and say, ‘We’re not worried about profits, we’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do,'” Tempesta said.
It’s a good idea, if not compelling (capitalism, etc.). Let’s offer sports brands a different proposition: Spend the time and money to make a great sports bra (one that you can tweak to fit your body, that absorbs sweat, and that doesn’t chafe), and combine it with a real, research-backed claim that it can shave precious minutes off a marathon. Capitalize on the growing interest in women’s sports, and make a splash by having someone like Emily Sisson or Keira D’Amato debut it while breaking women’s records. Then sell it to me and my nervous runner friends. They’ll pay top dollar for it, and would probably believe us if we told them it would only last a few uses. Then we’ll buy another one.
