Your Stretched-Out Sports Bras May Be Doing More Harm Than Good

There are lots of reasons to enjoy going to the gym apart from, you know, those minor details of improving your strength, increasing your lifespan, and reducing the likelihood of cardiovascular disease. First and foremost, it's an excuse to dress up in your favorite workout gear. Got a new pair of yoga pants that just need to be gym-flaunted? Girl, work it. Have you been cranking up to higher weights and want all the gym bros to see? Just do it. Have you ditched the gym bag for the designer bag? Bling, bling! Of course, our favorite reason is buying a new sports bra that makes your "ladies" look bodacious.

We love bras that make us feel confident. But here's a prevailing question about sports bras: Are they just making you look good without providing the kind of support you need? Do you have a trusty old sports bra ready to go in your gym locker — without giving much thought to whether or not you should still be using it? Have you ever done the unthinkable by wearing your (gasp) Victoria's Secret lingerie bra to the gym? Glam has entered the chat to make you rethink everything you know about keeping your "blouse boulders" in place while working out. 

If you're busty, you've probably noticed that when you work out, your juicers tend to jiggle if they're not supported fully by a great sports bra. It turns out that all of that jiggling could lead to the advancement of sagging, and your breast tissue may not recover. Speaking with Allure, Adrienne Lofton, the senior vice president of brand marketing for Under Armour, said that her company performed extensive research to understand the power of a good sports bra and revealed, "our research showed that after each workout, regardless of cup size, your breast tissue stretches, and this sagging is irreversible."

So if you want to put your breast, ahem, best foot forward, you need to switch up your sports bra often. "If you're not wearing a sufficiently supportive bra to work out, bounce isn't the only thing you have to worry about," Dr. Darria Long Gillespie told Women's Health. "If you have a moderate to large chest, the movement can lead to upper back and shoulder pain post-workout."

Lofton says her research suggests switching up a sports bra every six months as soon as your bra starts to feel a little less snug.

We all look and feel good in our sexy Victoria's Secret lingerie, but that's just not suitable for a workout regimen, especially if you incorporate HIIT, cardio, or even weight-lifting or yoga class. As SwoleClass points out, you perspire when you work out, and lingerie is not designed to absorb sweat. So what happens when your lacy bras get sweaty? They can cause a whole host of problems, like friction with the skin, causing rash, itching, or even small lacerations. The Voice of a Woman also points out that sports bras have wider straps than regular bras, allowing the weight of your chest to evenly distribute across your shoulders and back, reducing back pain. If you have a larger chest, you already know the pain of bra straps digging into your shoulders. A wider strap will also prevent this. 

Perhaps the worst thing to wear to the gym is a bad attitude. One woman recounted how a gym bro told her she needed to wear a bra in an attempt to shame her, per Indy100. "So I'm now really annoyed and also kind of uncomfortable that this guy I've never spoken to in my life thinks he's helping me and then has the audacity to tell me how to dress," she said. Ladies, no matter what you choose to wear (or not wear), live your best life and do what's best for you.