RY400 is part of the SKINS recovery range, so I wear the leggings and top after sport and sleep in them. The best test so far was when I wore them on Sunday evening after my 2 best effort attempts at 10km in a single day. One best effort attempt at 10km normally causes me some mild aches the day after, so 2 best effort attempts at 10km only 4 hours apart should cause some fairly extensive aching. At least that it what I was expecting to feel.
When I woke up on Monday morning after going to sleep in the RY400s, I only had a very mild ache in my calf muscles. In fact it was more of a tightness than an ache. It is too early to say whether that was thanks purely to the SKINS, and I would like to do some tests with and without them after doing similar workouts and compare how I feel the day after on each occasion. For now though I will give them the benefit of the doubt, as I was feeling much better the day after than I was expecting to.
How do they claim to work though you might ask. According to the SKINS website:
"When you apply compression to specific body parts in a balanced and accurate way, it accelerates blood flow. This gets more oxygen to your working muscles – and boosts your performance.
Better blood flow also helps your body to get rid of lactic acid and other metabolic wastes – which helps you work at a higher rate for longer. Plus, improved oxygenation reduces the effects of delayed onset muscle soreness and accelerates muscle repair. So engineered gradient compression and dynamic gradient compression play a big part in helping you recover from exercise too."
This jury is still out on whether they boost performance, but they seem at first glance to aid recovery, so I want to give them a go during exercise and see if they give me any performance boost. I plan to purchase some SKINS A400 leggings and a a SKINS A400 long sleeved top for use when running. I will let you know how I get on with those in due course. In the meantime though, I will be sleeping in my RY400 leggings and top after each tough workout.
Tomorrow should be another good opportunity to see if they really do aid recovery, as today I did a CrossFit class with lots of American style kettlebell swings. The last few times I have done kettlebell swings I have had serious DOMS in my lower back the following day. So let's see if I get any DOMS in my lower back tomorrow after having slept in my SKINS. Nighty night for now.
