Skinny Jean and Compressive Garment Injury

The news of a “skinny jean injury” hit the press this morning. This is just one type of issue that can arise from garments that compress areas of your body. You move through your environment, but remember, your environment can also move you right back. In this case, the environment is sixty-five-pound capacity pants for an eighty-pound lower body.

I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again, and I’ve even gone on record in an interview on how compressive garments can do physical harm. From Should You Wear Spanx While Pregnant:

Katy Bowman, a biomechanist and author of Move Your DNA, points out that even non-pregnant women can suffer side effects from constricting garments, so pregnant women would be smart to steer clear. "In non-pregnant women, support wear has been shown to negatively impact digestion, breathing, and continence," she points out. "Why? You’re not a Nerf ball, you’re a person. Pressing your belly in toward your spine means your guts have to go up toward your diaphragm, making breathing or digestion more difficult, or down, increasing the strain on the pelvic floor."

What I mean by “you’re not a Nerf ball” is, you don’t come with extra space, like the foam used to make a Nerf toy. Compressing your parts comes with consequences, and pushing on one part pushes on another and another and another. Compressive garments don't only push on the larger pressure chambers of your thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities, they push on what's inside of these chambers.

You are body full of tubes—tubes with important jobs. When you push on a tube, the fluid inside of it has to move elsewhere, and the flow through the tube changes.

Here is a list of tubes that live inside your pants:

Arteries

Veins

Lymphatic tubes

The digestive tract

Stomach

Small intestine

Large intestine

Tubes through your privates*

 

Here is a list of potentially compressive garments:

Skinny jeans

Compressive garments that are advertised as compressive garments

Tight underwear

Belts

Tights

Tight pants

Pants that are too small or tight

Pights

So anyhow, seems like kind of an expensive tax to pay for your outfit. And now, back to finishing my upcoming book on Diastasis Recti, that includes EVEN MORE geekery on pressures, injury, and how we can change things--like our pants--for a better physical outcome.

*I just wanted to see what typing that sentence felt like.