Activewear might be big business, but that doesn’t mean you should skip the performance fabrics the next time you go to the gym. Performance fabric is any fabric intended for use during athletics of any kind. Whether you’re running a marathon or taking a relaxing restorative yoga class, performance fabrics can provide the support, fit, and flexibility you need to do your best.
Why is it worth paying more for athletic gear made with performance fabrics? Athletic gear provides compression support to keep your blood flowing, antimicrobial and sweat-wicking properties to keep you cool and smelling fresh, and sun protection for your skin. It can help prevent muscle soreness and injury, and even help you stay cool and comfortable during your workout.
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Keep Your Blood Flowing
Performance fabric often has compression qualities, which are important for maintaining optimum blood flow throughout your workout. Compression fabrics squeeze your veins, applying pressure that keeps blood flowing properly and supports a healthy heart. Circulation support can ensure that your tissues get more oxygen, which helps your muscles function at their peak and keeps you from feeling fatigued during your workout.
Prevent Soreness and Injury
Avoiding fatigue is important for maintaining good form during a workout, too, and that can prevent injury. When you’re doing exercises properly and using good form, your muscles get the best workout possible and you’re less likely to injure yourself.
The compression qualities in performance fabric also help prevent muscle soreness the day after your workout. Muscles get sore because of lactic acid, which builds up in the muscle as part of glycolysis, a metabolic process by which your body creates energy. Compression fabrics keep lactic acid from building up in your muscles by encouraging optimum blood flow. That way you’ll feel less sore the day after a workout.
Wick Sweat
You’re going to work up a sweat during most of your workouts. It’s just your body’s means of regulating its temperature. The right performance fabric will be highly attractive to water and fast-drying, which means it will wick sweat away from your skin and allow it to evaporate quickly. That keeps you cool.
Many performance fabrics also use antimicrobial technology to kill bacteria that might cause body odor. When you’re wearing activewear made with sweat-wicking antimicrobial fabric, you won’t have to worry about smelling during your workout.
Avoid Sunburn
If you exercise outdoors, you need protection from the climate, and performance fabrics can offer it. While you need some exposure to sunlight to make vitamin D, too much sunlight can cause freckling, sunburn, age spots and wrinkles, and even skin cancer. Getting sunburned repeatedly or even tanning over and over can increase your risk of skin cancer significantly. You need fabric that can protect your skin from the sun.
Cotton t-shirts don’t offer you the ultraviolet (UV) protection you need. Performance fabrics are treated to provide sun protection. The sun protection factor (SPF) of regular cotton fabric is perhaps five, but the SPF of a shirt made out of performance fabric might be 50 or higher. Performance fabrics are often woven tighter to provide more sun protection.
Stay Active in the Rain
Performance fabrics aren’t just for protecting you from the sun. You might also experience rainy weather while exercising outdoors, and performance fabrics can help you stay comfortable even when it’s wet. Their sweat-wicking properties also help to keep environmental moisture away from your skin, and they dry quickly so you’re not getting waterlogged. You can maintain your performance and continue enjoying your time outdoors.
Feel Better
Putting on nice workout clothes made from performance fabrics can be just the thing for getting into the mood to workout. Starting your routine by putting on your specialized clothing can help you build the habit of working out regularly. Your workout clothes can help you feel motivated, confident, and even cute. Of course, to make this work it’s best if you only wear your workout clothes when you’re working out, so your brain begins to associate them with the endorphin rush of the exercise. That way they’ll become an ingrained part of your exercising habit.
It’s worth the extra money to buy activewear made with performance fabrics. Modern performance fabrics are made to wick sweat and moisture, support the muscles, enhance blood flow, and promote flexibility. You’ll get a better workout if you workout in performance fabrics. You’ll learn a lot more and you’ll have a lot more fun on your fitness journey.