This Post-Workout Habit May Ease Soreness, But There's A Catch
You finish a long run, your legs are heavy, and you reach for the compression socks you've come to associate with recovery. Maybe they make your legs feel better while you're answering emails or making dinner.
Compression garments have become a familiar part of endurance athletes' post-workout routines, but it's less clear whether that comfortable, snug feeling translates into faster physical recovery.
A recent systematic review and meta-analysis1 looked across several controlled trials to see whether compression actually helps athletes feel less sore and perform better the next time they exercise.
About the review
Compression garments are thought to support recovery by applying gentle pressure to the body, which may influence circulation and how the muscles feel after exercise.
To see how well that theory holds up, researchers pooled nine controlled trials involving 158 adult endurance athletes, including runners, cyclists, and multisport athletes.
The studies compared different types of compression, from below-the-knee socks to full-body suits, with either no compression or placebo garments designed to look and feel similar.
The researchers focused on two practical questions: did compression reduce muscle soreness, and did it help athletes perform better during a later exercise test?
Compression may help with soreness, but the evidence is shaky
About 24 hours after exercise, athletes who used compression generally reported less soreness than the comparison groups, with a smaller potential benefit in the first few hours.
But researchers rated the evidence as very low certainty, meaning there's little confidence that compression itself caused the improvement. The trials were small, used different garments and recovery protocols, and didn't all find the same thing.
Performance was even less clear. A few studies reported better results on a later time trial, but the research varied too much to pool into one reliable estimate.
In some trials, athletes wore the garments during the performance test, so a recovery benefit couldn't be separated from the effect of wearing compression while exercising.
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Why the results are difficult to interpret
One of the biggest issues is that most participants knew whether they were wearing real compression. That's important when the outcome is something like soreness, which people have to report themselves and which isn't a reliable marker of progress in the first place.
If you believe a recovery tool is helping, whether that's compression or post-workout cold plunges, that expectation can influence how you perceive your symptoms.
Only a couple of the trials used a true look-alike placebo garment, while most compared compression with no compression or regular clothing.
The studies were also small, with some including as few as 10 participants. Across the review, 10 of 11 outcome assessments were considered at high risk of bias.
So while the findings point toward a possible benefit, they're not strong enough to treat compression as a proven recovery strategy.
Putting compression into your recovery routine
If you enjoy wearing compression after a hard workout, there's no need to ditch the habit. The research doesn't suggest it's harmful, and feeling less sore can be useful in its own right.
Just give it the right place in your recovery routine. Compression is an optional extra, not a substitute for the recovery fundamentals that help your body repair and adapt to training.
- Prioritize sleep: This is when much of your physical recovery happens, so adequate rest should come before recovery gadgets.
- Refuel after hard sessions: Getting enough protein and carbohydrates helps replenish energy stores and supports muscle repair.
- Use compression if you like it: If socks or tights make your legs feel more comfortable after exercise, there's little reason not to wear them.
- Don't expect a performance boost: Current research doesn't show that compression reliably helps you perform better in your next workout or race.
The takeaway
Compression garments may make post-workout soreness a little more manageable, but we don't yet have strong evidence that they speed up recovery or improve your next performance.
Think of them as a comfort tool that can complement, rather than replace, the basics of good recovery.
