Research Advancements of Compression Equipments in Sports Science

The utilization of sports compression equipments has widely attracted the attention of researchers with the need to maintain muscle functions, reduce sport injuries, and improve athletic performance. It has become a heated issue in research field of sportswear since the beginning of the new century. Methods of literature review, logic analysis and mathematical statistics were used to analyze the study of compression garments from hardcopy journals and online databases. Although a series of studies showed the benefits of compression garments, however, the underlying mechanisms have not been confirmed yet. Moreover, no research referring compression equipments have been conducted in China, which also restricts our native people from getting a further understanding about the potential mechanism of compression apparel. Based on more advanced compression materials, the future study of compression garments will focus on the vibration characteristics of muscle (soft tissue), especially on proprioceptive sensation, neuromuscular control, injury prevention, and performance enhancement.