Activewear and How It Affects Workout Performance

Activewear and How It Affects Workout Performance

Summary

Explore the science behind the importance of good workout gear to learn more about your workout gear. This way, you can learn how to choose the right workout clothes.

Activewear and How It Affects Workout Performance
sportswear
In recent years, activewear has become a sprawling industry built from high-end brands and specialty stores alike. While it's growing in popularity, leading many to buy their first activewear, it's more of a fashion movement than anything else. The concept of athleisure is on many people's minds these days, combining comfort and style.

Although sportswear can be stylish, it was originally designed as performance clothing. Many developments in activewear have made leggings, shorts, tops, and jackets more functional than ever. Even though consumers prefer to wear activewear as streetwear, there's no denying that their many features make these garments perfect for your workouts.

A defining feature of sportswear is the material. Made from synthetic materials, these fabrics are more flexible and responsive to the body than natural fibers. Features like the ability to dry quickly contribute to your workout in a variety of ways. Additionally, workout clothes can take many forms. It can include sports bras, leggings, shorts, tank tops, jackets, and long-sleeved shirts. These pieces are made from the same performance fabrics to help you get the most out of your workout.

All in all, activewear helps prevent injury, enhances breathability, protects you from the elements, and inspires your fitness mindset. Explore the science behind the importance of good workout gear to learn more about your workout gear. This way, you can learn how to choose the right workout clothes.

1. Injury Prevention

Proper clothing can ensure you don't get injured during your workout. Specifically, compression gear ensures your blood flow remains normal and you don't experience excessive lactic acid buildup. Read on to learn more:

Low Blood Flow

A defining characteristic of sportswear is its compression quality, and one of the reasons for its existence is circulation. These types of clothing put gentle pressure on the veins, promoting more blood flow and keeping the heart beating. This phenomenon is the same reason people use compression stockings when they have poor circulation or work with their feet all day.

With increased blood flow, your heart sends more oxygen to your muscles. When you exercise, oxygenation is critical to maintaining energy levels and reducing fatigue. Often, low oxygenation during exercise can cause you to feel fatigued while exercising. If you burn out, you're more likely to drop your form.

Exercises such as keeping your core engaged, maintaining a wide stance, and maintaining your posture are critical to effectively building your muscles and protecting your spine. If your posture is loose, you are more likely to experience back injuries and muscle strains. While the poor form can be the result of inexperience, even the most experienced fitness guru can fall prey to extreme fatigue.

Blood flow is even more critical in cold weather. If you decide to run in the cold winter, your body will try to conserve heat, so blood flow to your extremities will decrease. As the arteries constrict, it becomes harder for the heart to pump blood throughout the body. Plus, cold weather can cause your muscles and joints to shrink. This tightness limits the range of motion and increases the likelihood of pinched nerves and muscle strains.

Lactic Acid Accumulation

Low oxygen levels can also lead to lactic acid production. While lactic acid isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can lead to fatigue and stiffness, especially the day after an intense workout. This substance can make your muscles stiff and sore, requiring a recovery period.

What is lactic acid? It is a by-product of glycolysis. Normally, your body uses oxygen to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a main source of energy. When oxygen levels are low, the body looks to another process to produce ATP, called the glycolysis system. This system leads to glycolysis, which produces pyruvate, which accumulates into lactate and is converted to lactate in the muscle cells.

The burning sensation you feel in your muscles during anaerobic exercise is a sign that lactic acid is building up. This burn may even cause you to lose shape. With tights, you can boost oxygen levels to reduce lactic acid buildup with each workout. Keep in mind that lactic acid may still be produced during high-intensity interval training when you're trying to improve your endurance.

How Fitness Gear Can Help

Adding compression gear can make blood flow easier to your body. If you enjoy exercising outdoors in winter, you should especially make sure you have compression garments on hand. Maintaining proper blood flow is one of the top reasons you should wear workout clothes.

When it comes time to pick out a pressure suit, be sure to do some research. Check that your leggings or leggings are the right sizes, as too much pressure can be uncomfortable. Shop around to find clothes that work out safely.
2. Sweat-Wicking and Breathable

No matter what type of exercise you enjoy, chances are you'll be sweating while exercising. This process is your body's natural way of cooling itself, but it can also lead to overheating. The best gym clothes should have moisture-wicking properties to facilitate the body's cooling process.

Increase Heart Rate

While cold temperatures can have detrimental effects on your body while you're exercising, overheating can also take its toll. As a way to cool yourself down, your body circulates more blood through the skin, allowing blood to flow away from the muscles. Reduced blood flow to muscles can lead to increased heart rate. These conditions can lead to heat-related illnesses.

The increased heart rate caused by heat can cause cramps and dizziness. These experiences may be minor, but they can still affect your focus during a workout and cause you to put less energy into your workout. When you want to work out your body and build muscle, a lack of focus reduces the value of your workout.

Overheat

Remember to wear clothing with wicking fabrics to help your body manage moisture. While sweating is an important aspect of the body's thermal response, many factors can limit its effectiveness. In an ideal environment, your body would sweat as it heats up, and the evaporation would cool your skin. This physical principle is called the heat of vaporization.

This evaporation doesn't always happen when necessary. The humidity of the air determines how easily sweat evaporates. If you work out in the humidity, your sweat will stick to your skin. This excess sweat can make you feel clammy and uncomfortable during a workout, but it can also lead to overheating.

To cool the skin, evaporation must take place. If sweat stays on your skin and you continue to heat up, your temperature will rise faster than usual. These temperature spikes are more likely to cause muscle cramps and dizziness. In severe cases, fever may require treatment.

How Fitness Gear Can Help

In environments where you sweat a lot and can't evaporate, sweat-wicking fabrics can save the day. Specifically, performance-tested workout apparel will use the Moisture Management Tester (MMT) to determine how well the fibers respond to sweat. These fabrics need to have a high wicking rate, good absorbency, and fast drying time in order to create a comfortable microclimate for your body.

When you sweat in moisture-wicking activewear, the sweat moves quickly through the fabric to the outside of the fibers. Removing sweat from the skin prevents heat build-up due to insufficient evaporation. Plus, the fibers dry quickly to prevent new layers of moisture from forming in your garment.

These sweat-wicking fabrics are porous, allowing air to flow through the fibers, and adding an extra layer of cooling mechanism. Ultimately, the best gym and workout clothes will improve the overall feeling you get when you work out. Keeping your body cool makes it easier for your body to work hard so you can perform at your best.

While moisture-wicking fabrics are most valuable in the heat, they're also helpful in the cold. The breathable outer layer provides breathability during winter outdoor activities. You can keep your muscles relaxed without disrupting your body's temperature regulation, rather than overheating your insulation.

3. A Better Mindset

There are several features of activewear that can improve the physical activity experience, but the importance of good activewear extends to your state of mind. It can also prompt you to keep exercising when you understand how your workout gear affects your performance. The best workout gear will make you feel motivated and confident.

Stick to the Habit

Habits are routines you follow subconsciously and you use to your psychological advantage. Forming a habit begins with a series of steps. These movements enact a routine in your brain that makes it easier for you to perform the routine over time.

First, you have a trigger or cue that lets your brain know it's time to start a behavior. From there, you develop the routine. This behavior could be flossing, taking vitamins, or something else every day, but we think of it as a habit. After the action, the last move is the reward your brain loves, so it will remember to respond to the habit later.

If you want a glass of water in the morning, your trigger might be going into the kitchen when you first wake up. The habit is to drink water and then rehydrate as a reward. When you want to build a workout habit, your workout clothes can serve as your habit cue, and the post-workout endorphins will act as a reward.

When you want to create an exercise habit, your brain doesn't yet have instructions to follow. A study of habit formation in the brain has revealed a pattern in the striatum, part of the basal ganglia. When a habit first begins, neurons in the striatum fire continuously to maintain the habit. As a behavior becomes a habit, neurons fire in clusters only at the beginning and end.

These neuronal patterns make habits hard to break. Breaking the cycle can be challenging when it's unhealthy behavior. Once it's a healthy behavior, it's easy to keep it up.

How Fitness Gear Can Help

If you're looking to get into the habit of exercising, workout clothes are a great way to start. When you start building your habit, put on your gym clothes before you want to work out. It could be first thing in the morning, or it could be the first thing you do when you get home from get off work. Once you're dressed, it's important to keep exercising so your neurons can form their own patterns.

This habit-building technique is a valuable tool for anyone, but it's important to think of your workout clothes as unique to your exercise routine. While athleisure has become popular in recent years, wearing stylish workout gear during the day can mess with the meaning of a habit in your brain. Dedicate your exercise gear to working out so your habits develop over time.

Putting on workout clothes immediately sends signals to your brain once you get into the habit - and you might be surprised to learn that you're ready to work out once you've put on the sweat-wicking fabric. While the endorphins from exercise act as a natural reward for daily activity, you can also buy yourself some new gear every now and then to develop a healthy habit mindset.

Optimize Your Workout With Essential Workout Clothes

Does sportswear matter? The answer is yes. Whether you're working out at the gym or out and about completing your daily routine, activewear can transform your performance. It reduces your risk of injury, regulates your body temperature, protects you from the elements, and creates a habit of wearing activewear. If you are looking for high-quality sportswear, welcome to contact us.

YOYOUNG is a professional custom sportswear manufacturer. We manufacture higher-quality sportswear to help your brand optimize brand value and customer loyalty. Each raw material has been carefully selected and inspected by our professional team to ensure its high quality. In addition, inspections during and after production further ensure the quality of the garments.