Compression socks are a special piece of clothing that applies mechanical pressure to the lower leg, which helps stabilize, support, and compress the tissues. Compression therapy started as a form of treatment for varicose veins in the mid-15th century.

Since the late-1980s, compression apparel has been used by elite athletes for training, as they enhance and accelerate recovery and improve performance during long-distance endurance events, such as marathon running and road cycling.

Compression socks during exercise

The primary benefit of wearing graduated compression socks (CS) is their ability to speed up recovery.

Wearing CS while exercising or engaging in sports, generally doesn’t improve performance, but there are a few exceptions. It should be stated plainly, however, that the main benefit of compression socks is faster recovery, whether you wear compression socks during or after training.

Compression Socks: Endurance Based Sports and Hills

For endurance-based sports, such as long-distance running and cycling, wearing compression socks during the activity will lead to slight increases in performance. The main benefits though, show up in the following days, as you will have less muscular pain/soreness and better flexibility.

When running or cycling long distances, particularly if it’s hilly, your muscles will experience micro-trauma and inflammation. As you continue running while fatigued, your jogging mechanics become sloppier. Running while wearing compression socks will increase your muscle temperature, reduce muscle pain & muscle damage, all resulting in less inflammation. This leads to slight increases in performance, but more importantly, this will speed up the recovery process after the activity.

Wearing compression socks while running has shown to improve running efficiency and mechanics, equating to good strides throughout and consistent foot strikes.

Resistance Exercises, HIIT & Power-Driven Movements

Exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) from weight lifting and resistance training results in tiny tears in your muscles. Wearing compression socks as you weight-lift, will reduce the amount of muscular micro-trauma. While this will not allow you to lift more weight or for longer, it does speed up recovery, so you won’t be as sore and can lift more often (#MoreGains).

It’s also beneficial to wear CS during High-Intensity-Interval-Training (HIIT) style workouts, such as CrossFit, spin-class, or sports like tennis and basketball. There are good reasons why Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, and Kobe Bryant all wore compression tights before then-NBA-commissioner David Stern banned the functional apparel from games. Basketball, for example, is a HIIT-style activity with intermittent power-movements, such as jumping and frequent accelerations and decelerations during normal gameplay. This leads to significant muscle damage and muscle soreness, which causes poor shooting and play during back-to-back games, especially on the road.

Compression socks after exercising

The vast majority of studies researching compression socks and sports look at compression socks post-exercise. Compression socks won’t hinder performance, and in some cases, will provide a slight boost. All sporting activities and exercise routines that are intense will be aided in recovery and reductions in pain by wearing graduated compression socks following the activity.

If you are sore or fatigued from the activity, especially over the following couple of days, then it’s intense enough where you will benefit from wearing compression socks.

wearing compression socks during & after exercise

Athletes regardless of sport/exercise will benefit from wearing compression socks during training and once it has finished because nearly every sporting-activity is endurance or power-based, unless you are a leisurely exerciser.

However, during certain activities, like marathon running, it’s very important to wear compression socks during and after the race.

Intense, prolonged activities, such as marathon running, has long been known to increase your risk for transient activation in blood coagulation (clotting), platelet aggregation, and fibrinolytic activity. Which is medical speak for your blood gets more “clumpy” and is the reason that 1 in 1,000 endurance-based contestants will experience a post-exercise blood clot.

• Dehydration - Makes your blood thicker.

• Travel - Many marathon runners and triathletes travel long distances to compete. Sitting in a car, train, bus, or plane for more than 4 hours doubles the chances your blood will clot.

• Repetitive Microtrauma - When you cut yourself, your blood cells (platelets) join together at the cut and form a clot to stop the bleeding. During a 26+ mile run and 20,000 strides later, your muscles are receiving micro-tears, which are like miny papercuts on the inside of your muscles, and your body will increase the thickness or coagulation effect of your blood in an attempt to heal the muscle damage.

• Thick Blood - Endurance athletes, from training, have more oxygen in their blood than most people, which is good for performance. However, these extra red blood cells make your blood thicker.

• Endothelial (arteries) Damage - During exercise, each beat of the heart pushes out more blood than it would at rest. This results in increased pressure that causes damage to your arteries, especially over the distance of 26.2 miles while going as fast as humanly possible.

Once you compound all these factors together and add in additional factors, such as medications (like birth-control) and genetics, it’s easy to see why AirHealth.org says “about 85% of air travel thrombosis victims are athletic, usually endurance-type athletes like marathoners.”

While marathon running disturbs your coagulation and fibrinolytic balance, which is the equilibrium between clotting too much and not clotting at all. The wearing of compression socks maintains this balance, by increasing blood flow and circulation, speeding up the rate of blood purification, detoxification, and re-oxygenation.

How long should you wear compression socks?

Wearing the socks for just 1 or 2 hours isn’t long enough to provide significant benefits.

You should aim to wear the socks for 6+ hours after you have finished the activity.

If you just completed a marathon or long-distance activity, you will want to wear the socks for 6 to 12 hours per day and continue to wear them for the next couple of days after a super intense workout.

In the studies that don’t show positive results, the users didn’t wear the socks long enough to gain any benefits. As the socks speed up blood flow, just increasing circulation for a couple of hours isn’t enough to make a difference, especially considering a super-intense workout can leave your sore for 4 or 5 days.

Also, keep in mind, after the event or workout, you might want to change into a fresh pair of compression socks. As you can see from the picture below, when wearing compression socks in the great outdoors, there are many complex factors in play, which can affect the level of compression.

Compression socks: Travel & sports performance

Flying, Jet Lag, & performance

Following intense training or competition, athletes are at higher risk for deep vein thrombosis (DVT)pulmonary embolisms and jet lag, while flying.

• Limited Space

• Cramped seating arrangements

• Minimal bodily movements

• Hypobaric hypoxic environment (less oxygen)

“Jet lag” or circadian dysrhythmia manifests as a general feeling of tiredness, sleep disruption, a lack of concentration and motivation, and/or decreased mental and physical performance and will persist until re-synchronization to your new environment occurs.

It only takes 2 hours of airplane travel to disturb your normal circadian rhythm.

A 2019 study out of Australia researched elite female volleyball players during an 8-hour flight and the effects of compression socks. The research team concluded, “ sports compression socks maintained exercise performance, and reduced lower-limb swelling” when worn in-flight. The researchers also noted, “this also coincided with improved subjective ratings of alertness, fatigue, muscle soreness, and overall health in participants assigned to wearing compression socks.” 

A general rule of thumb, it takes one day of recovery per time zone crossed. However, when wearing compression socks, the recovery time is 1/2-day or 50% faster, as the resting circulation is improved, leading to increased oxygen in your muscles, improved muscle repair from confined stress configurations, and improved sleep your first night in your new destination.

quick summary

If your an endurance athlete, weight lifter, or involved in HIIT activities, you will benefit from wearing compression socks during and after. For everyone else, if you exercise intensely enough to have lower-body muscle soreness, wear compression socks once finished, for at least six hours. Also, for long-distance road trips or flights, wear compression socks, regardless of the reason for the trip.

Jesse is Director of Pedal Chile and lives in Valdivia, Chile. Jesse has a Master of Science in Health & Human Performance and a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology. Hobbies: MTBing, snowboarding, reading, taster of craft beers, researcher, & compression sock wearer.

More articles from Pedal Chile

1. Ali, A., Creasy, R.H. and Edge, J.A. (2011). The Effect of Graduated Compression Stockings on Running Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(5), pp.1385–1392.

1. Araujo, A.M., Cardoso, R.K. and Rombaldi, A.J. (2018). Post-exercise effects of graduated compression garment use on skeletal muscle recovery and delayed onset muscle soreness: a systematic review. Motricidade, 14(2–3), pp.129–137.

2. Areces, F., Salinero, J.J., Abian-Vicen, J., González-Millán, C., Ruiz-Vicente, D., Lara, B., Lledó, M. and Del Coso, J. (2015). The Use of Compression Stockings During a Marathon Competition to Reduce Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage: Are They Really Useful? Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, [online] 45(6), pp.462–470.

3. Armstrong, S.A., Till, E.S., Maloney, S.R. and Harris, G.A. (2015). Compression Socks and Functional Recovery Following Marathon Running. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 29(2), pp.528–533.‌

4. Beliard, Samuel et al. “Compression garments and exercise: no influence of pressure applied.” Journal of sports science & medicine vol. 14,1 75-83. 1 Mar. 2015

5. Broatch, J.R., Bishop, D.J., Zadow, E.K. and Halson, S. (2019). Effects of Sports Compression Socks on Performance, Physiological, and Hematological Alterations After Long-Haul Air Travel in Elite Female Volleyballers. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 33(2), pp.492–501.

6. Brown, J.R. and Brown, A.M. (1995). Nonprescription, padded, lightweight support socks in treatment of mild to moderate lower extremity venous insufficiency. The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, 95(3), p.173.

7. Engel, F.A., Holmberg, H.-C. and Sperlich, B. (2016). Is There Evidence that Runners can Benefit from Wearing Compression Clothing? Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), [online] 46(12), pp.1939–1952.

8. GOTO, K. and MORISHIMA, T. (2014). Compression Garment Promotes Muscular Strength Recovery after Resistance Exercise. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 46(12), pp.2265–2270.

9. Hettchen, Michael et al. “Effects of Compression Tights on Recovery Parameters after Exercise Induced Muscle Damage: A Randomized Controlled Crossover Study.” Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM vol. 2019 5698460. 8 Jan. 2019, doi:10.1155/2019/5698460

10. Kim, Jieun et al. “Effect of compression garments on delayed-onset muscle soreness and blood inflammatory markers after eccentric exercise: a randomized controlled trial.” Journal of exercise rehabilitation vol. 13,5 541-545. 30 Oct. 2017.

11. Liu, R. and Little, T. (2009). The 5Ps Model to Optimize Compression Athletic Wear Comfort in Sports. Journal of Fiber Bioengineering and Informatics, 2(1), pp.41–51.

12. MacRae, B.A., Cotter, J.D. and Laing, R.M. (2011). Compression Garments and Exercise. Sports Medicine, 41(10), pp.815–843.

13. ‌‌Priego, J I et al. “Long-term effects of graduated compression stockings on cardiorespiratory performance.” Biology of sport vol. 32,3 (2015): 219-23. doi:10.5604/20831862.1150304

14. Pruscino, C.L., Halson, S. and Hargreaves, M. (2013). Effects of compression garments on recovery following intermittent exercise. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 113(6), pp.1585–1596.

15. Zadow, E.K., Adams, M.J., Wu, S.S.X., Kitic, C.M., Singh, I., Kundur, A., Bost, N., Johnston, A.N.B., Crilly, J., Bulmer, A.C., Halson, S.L. and Fell, J.W. (2018). Compression socks and the effects on coagulation and fibrinolytic activation during marathon running. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 118(10), pp.2171–2177.

16. Zhang, Jun-Ming, and Jianxiong An. “Cytokines, inflammation, and pain.” International anesthesiology clinics vol. 45,2 (2007): 27-37. doi:10.1097/AIA.0b013e318034194e