News

Time and time again we see woman hitting the pavement with bras that offer zero support. When they start moving they are lucky that they don’t lose an eye as there is so much action going on under the top....so why do they invest in other things and not in supporting the girls when they run or even walk 🤷‍♀️

Unlike other muscles in the body, once the supportive tissues in the breasts stretch, they cannot revert back to their original position. However avoiding irreversible sagging is easier than it sounds.

Norris and her colleagues have found that breasts move in a figure eight pattern. Not just up and down—that vertical movement is what most runners think of—but side to side and forward and backward as well. “[Breast is] just a mass of tissue, not a muscle,” Norris says. “It is not rigid structure. It can move in all three dimensions when we run.” And it does.

When you add all that movement in three planes together, Norris says, breasts—unsupported—move about 15 centimeters during running. (Different labs report different numbers, depending on the cup size of the cohort they’re testing.) About 50 percent of the movement is in the vertical, and then 25 percent is side to side movement, and the other 25 percent is anterior-posterior motion.

Portsmouth University’s Research Group in Breast Health (RGBH) calculated that the breasts can move 15cm during a run.

“According to the NHS website, research suggests 70% of women are wearing the wrong bra size. What’s more, as the breasts are composed of fat and fibrous tissues, as you eat better and exercise more, your breasts may decrease in size, meaning your sports bra might not be supporting them as well as it once did. Your sports bra also loses it's support overtime, with experts recommending you change it after 30-40 washes.....

Comfort and support are foremost but also Is Breathability.

To keep you cool when you start sweating, most sports bras are made from blends of moisture-wicking fabrics. Materials like nylon, spandex, and polyester fare better than standard cotton, which gets heavy and takes a while to dry. Plus, many brands have even implemented ionized and UPF fabrics for odor control and UV-ray sun protection. Outside of fabrics, keep an eye out for bras with mesh panels or keyhole cutouts. These features do a great job at ventilating sweat to keep you cool and comfortable. At MUMMACTIV we get specific fabric that is moisture wicking, breathable, quick dry, 4 way stretch and is a nylon/spandex combo making them a great choice. 

Did you also know that in a 2014 study showed running beats walking for breast cancer survival rates....(An interesting finding) Vigorous exercise was better than moderate exercise for the women in the study. Breastfeeding also reduces her risk of breast cancer by 4.3% for every 12 months a woman breastfed.The study compared mothers who breastfed to those who didn't. (Study conducted by the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer)

All the more reason to hit the road—with a good bra, of course.

Support in bras is oh so important.

Did you know:

That a pair of D-cup boobs weigh in at 7 to 10kg. “That’s more than enough to pull your trunk forward, force you into a hunched-over running posture, decrease your stride’s efficiency, and up your risk of injury,” McGhee says.

If you haven’t noticed, pretty much the only thing keeping your breasts up during a run is your bra’s shoulder straps, which take a lot of weight. When straps are thin, the pressure can be so great they not only leave dents in your shoulders but hit the brachial plexus nerve group, causing numbness in the pinky fingers.

We recommend a razor back or full back and should support for high-intensity exercise.

How much your boobs bounce depends almost entirely on breast size and elasticity of the skin covering your breasts, McGhee says. However, skin tends to lose its elasticity with age and “excessive breast bouncing.” So, the more your breasts bounce, the more they will bounce during future runs. Add in breastfeeding or post breastfeeding and your lady friends could be dragging on thin ice mid run….

How much do breasts bounce? Measuring the bounce of both bare and bra-covered breasts during treadmill workouts, McGhee found the average 38D moves about 13cm from top to bottom during running. Smaller breasts bounce about 7.5cm, which can still be uncomfortable. And breasts don't just bounce in an up and down motion; some larger breasts bounce in figure-eight shapes.

While they can’t completely eliminate bouncing, high-support sports bras can cut the range of motion in half (approximately), McGhee says. The goal is for the breasts to move in unison with your torso and not bounce independently of one another.

During pregnancy there is evermore of a concern. When you're pregnant, your body has very high levels of oestrogen and progesterone, hormones that stimulate your breasts' milk glands and milk ducts, respectively. The result of all this can be a big change in bra size, but growth usually slows or stops at the end of the first trimester. No special foods, massages, exercises, or creams affect breast growth during pregnancy, so spend your money on a good supportive bra instead.