Ill-fitting sports bras, a new puzzle for fitness girls

A good-fitting sportswear is a big motivator to get out on the playing field, but female sports enthusiasts face a dilemma – choosing a well-fitting sports bra is not easy.

Thin chest pad underwear is comfortable but has the risk of convex spots, and thick chest pads are very pressing; Big-breasted people have to sacrifice their good looks for functionality, and good-looking sports bras can't wrap up "anxieties about accessory breasts"; There are even some sports bras that don't peel off the skin and can't take it off at all.

Before encountering the discomfort of the body, you first have to go through the problem of sports bra size selection. The traditional underwear size adopts the expression form of 75B and 80A "bottom circumference + cup", but in the selection of sports bras, it is often faced with wider sizes such as S, M, L or international sizes such as 32B and 34C, and different size standards also increase the difficulty of choosing sports bras.


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The difference in size is not only reflected in traditional underwear and sports bras, but also between sports brands. For example, an athlete who wears a size 8 underwear at lululemon may need to wear a Nike XXL sports bra, which is almost the largest size on the market.

As a close-fitting functional garment, sports bras can be fitted to make sports bras play a role in support and protection. Because of the difference in size standards and sports bra styles, sports bras can only know the fit after trying them, and even, wear them several times to determine whether they fit.

The difficulty of buying sports bras also stems from the difference in women's chest shape. In European and American countries where fitness is more developed, the average female cup is in the C cup, while the average Asian cup is A cup, and there is a more insensitive "side breast anxiety" of European and American actresses. Therefore, when sports bras meet Asian women as a "foreign product", it is inevitable that they will not adapt to the soil.

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Secondly, the public's understanding of sports bras has not yet been popularized - sports bras need to give chest support during exercise and reduce chest shaking chest protection, which is why sports bras are difficult to have the comfort of ordinary underwear, and generally wearing "naked" sports bras may not be suitable sports bras.

Choosing the right sports bra has become a compulsory course for many women to step into the sports field. For the selection of sports underwear, you can start from the exercise intensity, sports scene, functionality, size, and focus on trying on and feeling.

The selection of sports bras requires more investment, because well-fitting sports bras are a protection for the body, on the contrary, an ill-fitting sports bra will become a burden on the body.

 Sports bras are not easy to pick

Sports bras are a rigid need for female sports enthusiasts, but they are also one of the most difficult sportswear to choose.
GymSquare learned from several female sports enthusiasts that it is difficult to choose the right sports bras; The one-piece lightweight sports bra feels comfortable, but it accidentally "bumps"; The style of the good-looking I-shaped vest, the extruded auxiliary milk directly dissuades the retirement; The shoulder straps on both shoulders pressed the trapezius muscles painfully, and the flesh printed on the back shoulder straps was like a five-flower tie, and even too tight to breathe after wearing it.


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As for the style of sports bras, brands are working hard to improve them, launching sports bras with "natural curve bra pads", "breast covering", "front zipper", and "back button".

For sports bras, sometimes the honey of A and the arsenic of B, every sports girl has an indescribable bitterness.

The halterneck model meets the thin back is a "pure desire weapon", and the wide shoulder back becomes the "King Kong Barbie". Lorna Jane's underwear has always been known for its supportiveness, and the dumpling-shaped bra pads eliminate the "bump crisis" and make the breasts fuller, but for big-breasted girls, the thickened dumpling bra pads are a big thunder point.

When it comes to well-fitting sports bras, even collector girls will choose to start from the beginning. Sports girls Xiaofen and Xiaoke both said that they have no less than 10 pieces of the same treasure sports bra.


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If it is said that the style design varies from person to person, as long as there are many choices, it is not a problem, but the issue of sports bra size has always been a mystery.

First of all, the size standards of traditional underwear and sports bras are not the same. Among the female athletes interviewed, a large proportion of the traditional underwear size 75B was wearing sports bras of different sizes corresponding to the same brand of S/M/L, although they were the same chest size.

Secondly, there will be differences in sizes between sports brands, and even between different styles of the same brand. Fitness enthusiast Xiao Zhi told Jing Lian that when he bought sports bras in CK, the bottom circumference size of the suspender model needed to be larger than that of other styles.

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The elusive style and size make offline try-on a necessity for sports bra purchases.

Often, every time you try on sports bras, it is the most painful part of buying clothes: calmly entering the fitting room, sweating profusely, especially if the size is small, and falling into the dilemma of "wearing in but not out". Athletic girls have less and less hair, and hard-to-take sports bras have a lot to do.

It is difficult to find a suitable sports bra, and it is difficult to choose a style and tired of trying a size.

Why are sports bras so hard to buy?

It's not like buying a top, buying a big one is oversize, buying a small one is a hot girl style, and sports bras are only suitable and inappropriate.
The right sports bra is hard to find because of the difference in women's chest shape. According to Google targetmap data, European and American countries with more developed fitness culture have an average cup of C per capita, and Asian women have an average A cup. Academic studies have found that Asian women have smaller cups on average than European and American women, but their nipples are larger on average. Therefore, bumps in Asian countries and para milk buy underwear are two key points that need to be evaluated, but in Europe and the United States often do not care.
In the European and American markets, some sports bras or swimsuits are still designed with a single layer without bra pads, focusing on chest support and less breast wrapping. As a foreign product, sports bras are still unadaptable. lululemon's early thin breast pads received a lot of feedback from users, so the new Asian version of the underwear has thickened the chest pads, increased the height of the sides to better absorb the side breasts, and increased the gathering effect on the chest.
In addition, buying the wrong sports bra is a misunderstanding of sports bras - sports bras are functional clothing, and "naked" sports bras may not be suitable for sports.
The biggest function of sports bras is to fix and compress the chest, give external support, and reduce the pulling, damage and sag caused by the displacement of the chest during exercise.
It is precisely because of the need to compress the chest and provide support that the body feeling on sports bras is usually tight, and if you choose sports bras according to the comfort of traditional underwear, it is likely that you have bought a larger size.
Not only the size, but also the sports scene is also a factor to consider when buying sports bras. The range of movement of the body in different sports is different, and the strength of the sports bra required is also different.
Taking high-intensity running as an example, women will have a figure-of-eight movement of their chests up and down, left and right, and back and forth during running. Studies have found that women's breasts can move anywhere from 4 cm to 15 cm when running. And for every kilometer run, a woman's chest shakes about 85 meters; Running a marathon, the trajectory of the chest can reach 3,500 meters.
But with a sports bra, the chest is significantly stabilized. According to research data from the Chest Health Research Centre at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, sports bras can reduce chest shock amplitude by 78% at the greatest extent.


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For low-impact exercises such as strength training, yoga, Pilates, etc., you can wear lightly supportive sports bras for greater comfort. However, if you wear a lightly supported sports bra when jumping rope, you will face the possibility of chest escape and chest shaking violently.