Compression garments did not improve running performance in 33 pooled trials

Compression garments do not appear to make people run faster. A 2025 systematic review that identified 51 eligible studies covering 899 participants, with 33 studies entering the meta-analysis of primary outcomes, found no significant improvement in race time (standardised mean difference −0.07, 95% CI −0.22 to 0.09, p = 0.40) or time to exhaustion (SMD 0.04, −0.20 to 0.29, p = 0.72) [s1]. The recovery case — the other half of the pitch — is not settled either way: the most recent review of post-exercise compression rated its own evidence very low certainty [s2].

The performance question is close to answered

The 2025 review searched Web of Science, EBSCOhost, PubMed, Embase, Scopus and Cochrane from inception to September 2024 for randomised trials comparing running performance with and without compression garments worn during running [s1]. Risk of bias was assessed with RoB 2 and certainty with GRADE [s1].

Beyond the two null primary outcomes, moderator analyses found no effect of garment type, race type or contact surface [s1]. Secondary outcomes — running speed and race pace, submaximal oxygen uptake, tissue oxygenation — showed no performance benefit either [s1]. One measurable effect did survive: compression significantly reduced soft tissue vibration (SMD −0.43, 95% CI −0.70 to −0.15, p < 0.01) [s1]. The garments do something mechanical. It does not translate into a faster race.

Certainty of evidence across the analysis was rated low to very low [s1], so this is a null result on a shaky base rather than a definitive one. But it is a null result that has now held across an updated search of the whole literature.

The recovery question is genuinely unresolved

A systematic review published in July 2026 looked specifically at wearing compression after exercise, in adult endurance athletes [s2]. From 503 records screened, nine studies met inclusion — six crossover and three parallel-group designs — covering 158 participants in total [s2]. Ten of 11 risk-of-bias assessments came back high [s2].

At approximately 24 hours, soreness favoured compression but the estimate was uncertain (four studies; Hedges' g = 0.62, 95% CI −0.57 to 1.82; I² = 74.0%) [s2]. Immediate to two-hour post-exercise soreness or discomfort was also uncertain (three studies; g = 0.38, −0.67 to 1.42; I² = 51.0%) [s2]. Performance findings were not pooled at all, because of heterogeneity and because recovery effects could not be isolated [s2].

The authors' framing is worth quoting in substance: the estimates were directionally favourable to compression, but the evidence was very uncertain, statistically imprecise, and vulnerable to expectation effects because blinding was limited or poorly credible [s2]. That last point is not a technicality. You cannot blind someone to whether they are wearing a tight garment, and soreness is a self-reported outcome.

A larger recovery analysis reports small effects

Set against that, a 2025 meta-analysis using a three-level random-effects model across 27 studies reported that compression garments had significant restorative effects on muscle strength (Hedges's g = −0.21, p < 0.01) and power (g = −0.23, p < 0.01) after exercise-induced muscle fatigue [s3]. Subgroup analysis found compression effective at mitigating strength decline at rest intervals of 1 to 48 hours and over 72 hours, and power decline at 1 to 24 hours [s3]. Effects were more pronounced in trained than untrained individuals [s3].

Those effect sizes are small by conventional thresholds. And the two reviews are not measuring the same thing: one pooled objective strength and power in mixed populations, the other pooled self-reported soreness in endurance athletes. Both can be right. Neither supports a strong claim.

The mechanism does hold up, partially

The usual explanation for compression is improved blood flow. A 2023 meta-analysis of 22 studies tested that [s4]. Overall, compression garments improved peripheral blood flow (SMD 0.32, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.51, p = 0.001), venous blood flow (0.37, 0.14 to 0.60) and arterial blood flow (0.30, 0.01 to 0.59, p = 0.04) [s4].

But the effect depended entirely on when it was measured. At rest, overall peripheral blood flow was not improved (0.18, −0.02 to 0.39, p = 0.08), though venous flow was (0.31, 0.02 to 0.60) and arterial was not (0.12, −0.16 to 0.40) [s4]. During a physiological challenge, flow improved (0.44, 0.19 to 0.69), venous and arterial alike [s4]. Immediately after a challenge, nothing changed (−0.04, −0.43 to 0.34) [s4]. In recovery, overall flow was not improved (0.25, −0.45 to 0.95, p = 0.49), while venous flow was (0.67, 0.17 to 1.17) and arterial was not (0.02, −1.06 to 1.09) [s4].

So the proposed mechanism is partly real and narrowly specified: mainly venous, mainly during exertion, and absent in the window immediately after exercise when the recovery claim would most need it.

What this adds up to

The performance claim has been tested widely and does not hold [s1]. The mechanism exists but is smaller and more conditional than the marketing implies [s4]. The recovery claim rests on small trials, high risk of bias, and an outcome — how sore you feel — that is unusually exposed to expectation when the intervention cannot be concealed [s2] [s3].

None of that makes compression garments useless to a given athlete, and none of the reviews reports a safety concern. It does mean the evidence cannot currently distinguish a physiological recovery effect from the feeling of wearing something tight and being told it helps.

This article is informational and is not medical advice. Medical-grade compression prescribed for venous or lymphatic conditions is a different intervention from sports compression wear and is not covered by this evidence.

Sources

• Do compression garments enhance running performance? An updated systematic review and meta-analysis — Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2025-01-20
• Effects of post-exercise compression garments on subsequent endurance performance and delayed-onset muscle soreness in endurance athletes — Frontiers in Physiology, 2026-07-31
• Effects of Compression Garments on Muscle Strength and Power Recovery Post-Exercise: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis — Life, 2025-03-11
• Do Sports Compression Garments Alter Measures of Peripheral Blood Flow? A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis — Sports Medicine, 2023-01-09