Like regular bras, many women simply don’t wear the correct sports bra for their body type. Whether you’re mashing your “girls” into a bouncing uniboob, or doubling up with two sports bras just to get the support you need, there’s a lot of confusion around what a sports bra can even do.
The women behind Diane’s Lingerie discovered this at their booth at the BMO Marathon health and lifestyle expo last spring. Vancouver’s go-to bra-fitters heard runner after runner complaining that the sports bras they ran in didn’t do enough heavy lifting. So, this year, the South Granville intimates experts teamed up with Anita Active – a sleek, award-winning German sports bra line with more than 130 years of design expertise – to host a free, educational sports bra fitting for the participants at the race.
While the closest I’ve come to running a marathon was stopping by the booth, this what I learned:
1) Not every sports bra is built the same. Low-impact bras offer enough bounce reduction to carry you through light activities like yoga, while high-impact bras for running or CrossFit are engineered with higher bustlines, strategic seams and wider shoulder straps to offer targeted support.
2) The right sports bra makes you want to work out, while an ill-fitting sport bra can constrict your breathing, cause muscle tension, and lead to tissue tearing, chafing and even nipple bleeding.
3) There is never any reason to wear two sports bras. Anita sports bras can fit all the way up to an H-cup, and Anita won a Red Dot design award for its racer-back DynamiXstar bra ($95), with straps that clip in along tracks in the front to offer personalized support.
4) Sports bras can actually look and feel like bras, with sculpted, feminine cups and convenient back closures. No more uniboob. No more struggling to pull a restrictive swath of fabric over the shoulders. It’s enough to make a girl march home and start burnin’ stuff!
• For more information, head to DianesLingerie.com
