Posted on 09/01/2018 1:01:51 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
In the bottom corner of my overstuffed dresser drawer of running clothes is a 9-year-old sports bra. Its once-fiery orange has faded to a dingy, tepid coral. Two of its hooks are bent in directions that make it impossible to wear. The Velcro straps—adjustable for comfort on this Cadillac of bras—don’t stick together anymore, which means that if I were to put it on, my breasts would loll out like a pair of microwaved Peeps. This nearly decade-old bra is the opposite of lingerie. Frankly, it’s a little gross that I still have it, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
I’m not the only one with an inordinate attachment to this type of garment. Comedic storyteller Robin Gelfenbien, 46, of New York City retired one of her veteran bras like a Michael Jordan jersey. The bra emeritus now sits in a place of honor in the middle of an acrylic case, surrounded on three sides by Gelfenbien’s race numbers. “It represents my journey with endurance events and how much my bra supported me through those experiences,” she says.
Running’s ubiquity in modern American life started in 1972, when American Frank Shorter won the men’s marathon at the Munich Olympics. From there, jogging went from fad to full-on craze. Jim Fixx’s 1977 The Complete Book of Running flew off bookstore shelves. Jogging clubs formed. Even President Jimmy Carter got into it.
1972 also saw the passage of Title IX, which mandates gender equality in education and, by extension, equal funding of men’s and women’s college athletics. Girls and women flocked to sports. But there was no such thing as a sports bra. Women just ran in regular bras. (Wince.)
It wasn’t until 1977 that Lisa Lindahl, Polly Palmer Smith, and Hinda Schreiber Miller joined forces to change women’s athletics forever. Lindahl was a runner, Miller was a costume designer from Canada, and Smith was Lindahl’s close friend. Working out of the costume department at the University of Vermont, the trio produced the great-great-grandmother of the modern sports bra: a medical gauze–colored garment that looked like two jockstraps sewn together (because it was two jockstraps sewn together). They called it the JockBra, which changed to JogBra before it hit the market. In 1979, the three were granted U.S. Patent 4,174,717.
Lindahl insisted that the sports bra belonged in athletic stores rather than in department store lingerie sections alongside lacy nightgowns. This confused some people. Why would women want to be anything but sexy? Why would a bra be in an athletic supply store? Store owners who overcame their skepticism were rewarded financially. The JogBra proved so popular that the company made a profit in its first year. It turned out that breasts weren’t merely decorations attached to the female body for men to enjoy, and that there was a market for a functional garment that held the chest in place so that people with breasts could go about their daily routines of kicking ass in a high-impact manner. It turned out that women wanted to run.
As a woman, a feminist, and a runner, I find the sports bra fascinating and revolutionary. It’s a product that came about during the height of the culture wars then known as “women’s lib”—the movement in the 1960s and ’70s for equal rights and pay—and was actually designed for women’s comfort during an activity that makes us feel good, not to please the male gaze.
Style-wise, sports bras have come a long way from the two jockstraps of yore. They’re now functional fashion pieces, with a huge array of patterns and cuts. I often see all-women’s running groups making their way through Central Park in the summer, shirts off, their colorful, strappy bras on display. Designers from Stella McCartney to Kanye West have attached their names to high-end sports bras.
But while sports bras now look cooler, they still have a job to do. And some do that job better than others, as Claire Wyckoff, 37, a writer in Los Angeles, discovered the hard way. For years, she wore a snazzy sports bra that was all form and no function. “My boobs were flopping around,” she says. Only when she finally bought a properly supportive sports bra did she realize she could have been running in comfort all this time. “My mind was blown,” she says.
I once experienced a similar awakening. I was a mediocre high school cross-country runner, and stopped running in college. This was in part because I was sure I was having more fun partying with people I’d never speak to again after the age of 21 than I would running around the twin lakes on Notre Dame’s campus clutching my purple, outdated-even-for-2002 Discman. But I also abandoned running because I couldn’t find a good sports bra.
To put it delicately, I’d grown since high school. To put it indelicately, when I ran in my old stretched-out Target bra, I looked like a slow-mo shot from a bad sex comedy, the one where the horny teenage boys’ eyes boi-oi-oi-oi-oing out at the sight of breasts undulating beneath a tank top. It felt like I had two water balloons strapped to my chest. It was, socially and physically, very uncomfortable.
When I took up running again in my mid-20s, I went in hard. I started running in January of 2010, ran an 8K in March, and decided after I finished that I’d be running the Chicago Marathon that October. (I finished that first marathon in just under 4:40, but couldn’t walk down stairs facing forward for days.) I sought out the proper equipment before I embarked on my adventure of hubris, eventually finding myself in a Chicago running store holding the formerly bright-orange number. It looked nothing like the sports bras I’d worn before. Its straps were adjustable. It was constructed like a regular bra, with hooks in the back, and sized by band and cup. It also cost about three times as much as the Target and Old Navy versions I’d worn in high school. But who was I to question the very nice woman working at the specialty store, who said I needed it? I spent what I then thought was a silly amount of money on it and took it home. And it changed my life.
Suddenly I didn’t feel like two pectoral counterweights were working against me. Suddenly I didn’t feel pinching on the sides of my ribcage. I could focus on what feels good about running—the air in my lungs, the power of my legs pushing the ground back, the meditative thump of my feet. I didn’t spend the entire run waiting for it to be over. I relished it. I woke up at 5 a.m. for my weekend long runs, and jogged past bars that were just closing, past couples hailing cabs after last call, my day beginning as their night was ending, past a version of myself I wanted to leave behind. I’d make it to the path that runs along Lake Michigan as the sun rose. Every time I broke a mileage milestone, I felt a sense of wonder. I’d had no idea I could do any of this.
The relationship between women and their sports bras isn’t all feminist kumbayas. It’s still hard for some women, including new moms and those with larger cup sizes, to find a bra that fits.
Lauren Cook, 37, a writer and actor from Los Angeles, found that her breasts made it frustratingly painful to exercise after she’d given birth. “Everyone told me to stick to walking, Pilates, or barre class,” she says. But by the third month after her daughter was born, she was bored with low-impact exercise. It took two tight sports bras and a maternity tank to start jogging comfortably.
According to bra industry statistics, the average bra size has jumped from 34B to 36C in a single generation, partly because Americans, overall, are getting larger. Women with larger breasts often cite breast discomfort as a reason to avoid exercising. Companies like Enell, Bloom Bras, and SheFit aim to remedy this. Enell offers sizes up to 52GG, and custom sizing.
But for women of all cup sizes, an ill-fitting sports bra can have painful consequences. There are only a few distinct variations of pain I have felt in my life that I still can conjure up years later. One was pinching my upper thigh between two marble tables I was trying to push together at a restaurant. One was breaking my finger on a spiraling football. And one was showering after a 20-miler, my sweat running down into the chafed skin below my armpits, rubbed raw by the twisted band of my sports bra.
Other body issues can factor into our abilities to fully enjoy our sports bras. When Jenny Scherer, 30, of Madison, Wisconsin, first started racing at the elite level, her obsessive focus on results developed into anorexia. In 2015, she completed treatment and recovered, but when she was struggling with her illness, wearing a sports bra without a shirt was fraught. “I used to run with my shirt on on the hottest days because I deemed myself not skinny enough for anyone to have to see my stomach.”
This is why events like New York City’s Sports Bra Challenge, where women rode spin bikes in their sports bras, exist—to encourage more women to go bras-out when they exercise. In April, journalist Bryony Gordon and plus-size model Jada Sezer ran the London Marathon wearing only their sports bras, underwear, and shoes to promote body positivity.
The sports bra has become much more than an undergarment—it’s a part of American culture. Who could forget soccer player Brandi Chastain scoring the winning goal in the 1999 Women’s World Cup, ripping her shirt off, kneeling on the pitch, and roaring in her sports bra like a warrior? Or the role of the sports bra in street fashion, from TLC to Aaliyah to Rihanna? Athleisure, anyone? The Smithsonian has even featured prototypes and photos from the early days of the JogBra, donated by Lisa Lindahl and Hinda Miller.
But more importantly, the sports bra has had an immeasurable, cumulative impact in the lives of ordinary women. Without a garment designed to support our bodies properly, millions of us wouldn’t have taken up running. And running has become the foundation of what makes so many of us feel confident and formidable. If I can run 5, 10, 26, 50 miles, who’s to tell me I can’t switch careers, move to a new city, tackle motherhood, persevere through tragedy and loss? To run is to prove to yourself that you can.
In our personal lives, careers, and even in our political rights, things can be taken from us—by bad judgment, bad luck, or other forces beyond our control. But not in running. Every mile run is a mile that cannot be erased, every finish line crossed is a line that cannot be uncrossed. It may be an undergarment that started as two jockstraps sewn together in Vermont, but by enabling women to run, the sports bra has given us access to indelible achievements. It’s given us power beyond the fleeting bliss of consumption.
Maybe I’ll hold onto that dingy orange bra in my drawer for a little while longer.
Back in the 60’s, 70’s, women burned their bras then asked for support. Go figure.
Thanks for the uplifting post!
Admit it. You clicked on this thread for this picture.
I couldn't forget because I didn't even know. That said, the image of a girl "roaring like a warrior" is slightly laughable.
I do appreciate the sports bra! Would not want to work out without them!
It would have been more impressive if she’d taken off that black top.
But doesn’t look like it would have been too very impressive.
I'm glad Kanye has a hobby.
Uh, no....LOL
But I forgot how bad that pic actually is.
I just tuck mine into my waist band, zip up, and I’m good to go.
[It wasn’t until 1977 that Lisa Lindahl, Polly Palmer Smith, and Hinda Schreiber Miller joined forces to change women’s athletics forever. Lindahl was a runner, Miller was a costume designer from Canada, and Smith was Lindahl’s close friend. Working out of the costume department at the University of Vermont, the trio produced the great-great-grandmother of the modern sports bra: a medical gauze–colored garment that looked like two jockstraps sewn together (because it was two jockstraps sewn together). They called it the JockBra, which changed to JogBra before it hit the market. In 1979, the three were granted U.S. Patent 4,174,717. ]
Sounds like two “hyphenated women”. Though no hyphen there.
Actually I clicked on this thread to see if they were going to fix your title.
;)
The Greatest Invention in Running—EVER—Is the Sports Bra
Thanks.
Ouch! Ha Ha Ha!
I don’t care for them and prefer to run in free form.
It was the pic above!
Oh, side view too.
Nice ..
You obviously have too much free time
I disagree - yoga pants are much, MUCH more important.
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