About this episode

Trudy Gardner interviews Nichola Renwick about the science behind sports bras and their impact on women's physical activity.

What Makes a Sports Bra Actually Work? A conversation with Nicola, senior researcher in bra and breast biomechanics at the University of Portsmouth In this episode, I speak with Nicola about the science behind sports bras, breast movement, and what actually contributes to support during activity. Nicola works in breast and bra biomechanics, a field that looks at how breast tissue moves, how that movement changes during different activities, and how bras can help control that movement. We talk about why sports bras are much more than a comfort item: they are an important piece of equipment that can affect whether women feel able to run, train, compete, and stay physically active. A major focus of the conversation is a University of Portsmouth study looking at how different sports bra design features affect performance. The study tested 98 sports bras on 77 women in 34B and 34D sizes to understand which design features reduced breast movement during running. The paper identified five key sports bra characteristics linked to performance: Bra style: Encapsulation and combination styles performed better than compression-only styles. Material: Bras made primarily from nylon performed…

People in this episode

Host: Trudy Gardner

Guest: Nichola Renwick

Topics covered

• sports bras
• biomechanics
• breast movement
• women's health
• athletic performance

Keywords

• sports bra
• biomechanics
• breast support
• athletic performance
• University of Portsmouth

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Portsmouth

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