Evaluating the effect of sports compression tights on balance, sprinting, jumping and change of direction tasks

Figures & data

Table 1. Participant details.

	Males (n = 12)	Females (n = 12)
Age (years, mean ± SD)	26 ± 2	27 ± 3
Height (cm, mean ± SD)	179.2 ± 5.2	170.5 ± 8.7
Body mass (kg, mean ± SD)	80.0 ± 6.7	68.6 ± 6.9
Menstruation status (no. of participants)		NM days 1-5 = 2
		NM days 6-14 = 2
		NM days 15-21 = 3
		OCP (active pill day) = 2
		IUD = 2
		Contraceptive implant = 1

IUD: intrauterine device; NM: naturally menstruating (cycle length between 21–35 days and at least 9 consecutive periods in a year); OCP: oral contraceptive pill.

Figure 1. Front (left) and back (right) view of compression tights used in the present study, incorporating additional lycra elastomeric panels across the anterior thigh and posterior calf.

Figure 2. Layout of Y-shaped change of direction task using three sets of timing gates.

Table 2. Applied garment pressure for CON and COMP tights by bodily landmark.

	CON	COMP
Ankle (mmHg)	2.5 ± 1.6	11.7 ± 4.7
Calf (mmHg)	8.7 ± 2.6	25.4 ± 4.5
Thigh (mmHg)	4.7 ± 2.3	10.7 ± 3.8

Figure 3. Example of centre of pressure (CoP) trace and corresponding 95% confidence ellipse areas for one participant. AP = anterior (+) posterior (-); ML = Mediolateral; COMP = compression; CON = control.

Figure 4. Comparison of balance time (a) and path length (b) for a single-leg visually occluded balance task between conditions. COMP = compression; CON = control; S = small effect size. Bars represent group means (± SD) and lines represent individual results.

Figure 5. CoP range in both directions during single-leg balance task with visual occlusion. AP: anterior-posterior; ML: mediolateral; COMP = compression; CON = control.

Table 3. Summary of measures for control (CON) and compression tights (COMP) conditions (presented as mean ± SD).

				COMP v CON interaction
	Measure	CON	COMP	p-value	ES (d) ± 95% CI
Balance and CoP measures (single leg balance task)	Balance time (s)	30.1 ± 20.4	34.5 ± 22.3	0.16	0.21 ± 0.22, small
	CoP M-L range (mm)^	60.6 ± 28.0	60.2 ± 36.5	0.97	−0.01 ± 0.44, unclear
	CoP A-P range (mm) ^	95.2 ± 28.7	92.4 ± 27.3	0.70	−0.09 ± 0.38, unclear
	Path length (mm) ^	2823.5 ± 1551.8	3167.9 ± 1627.6	0.21	0.22 ± 0.27, small
	Path velocity (mm/s) ^	91.5 ± 19.9	86.4 ± 17.5	0.56	−0.25 ± 0.26, unclear
	95% confidence ellipse area (mm^2) ^	4611.6 ± 3378.5	3348.8 ± 1204.0	0.05	−0.30 ± 0.28, small
Countermovement jump	Concentric duration (ms)	303.0 ± 65.2	286.9 ± 54.2	0.32	−0.24 ± 0.31, unclear
	Concentric mean force (N)	1372.9 ± 232.6	1401.5 ± 227.7	0.05	0.12 ± 0.09, trivial
	Eccentric duration (ms)	520.9 ± 146.1	528.1 ± 103.6	0.69	−0.05 ± 0.32, unclear
	Eccentric mean force (N)	738.1 ± 87.3	732.1 ± 87.1	0.30	−0.07 ± 0.11, trivial
	Flight time: contraction time	0.62 ± 0.2	0.63 ± 0.1	0.60	0.09 ± 0.24, trivial
	Jump height (cm)	31.4 ± 6.2	32.1 ± 5.8	0.12	0.15 ± 0.16, trivial
Drop jump	Contact time (s)	0.23 ± 0.02	0.23 ± 0.03	0.49	−0.16 ± 0.37, unclear
	Jump height (cm)	20.4 ± 8.1	20.3 ± 7.1	0.89	−0.01 ± 0.19, unclear
	RSI (Height/contact time)	90.1 ± 36.7	90.6 ± 31.7	0.93	0.01 ± 0.16, trivial
10 m straight line sprint	Total time (s)	1.97 ± 0.15	1.94 ± 0.15	0.03	−0.18 ± 0.14, trivial
Change of direction task	Time (s)	2.76 ± 0.25	2.71 ± 0.29	0.03	−0.20 ± 0.16, small

A-P: anterior-posterior; CoP: centre of pressure; M-L: mediolateral; RSI: reactive strength index; ^{^}Not including 8 invalid trials which were excluded.