In addition to our current series of Buying Guides, we’ve put together a few pointers on what to look for when buying a new pair of Compression Shorts for MMA.
What to Look For
The main aims of this garment is to provide support for your muscles, helping to prevent injury and improve blood flow and reduce lactic acid. In simple terms, they achieve this by being tight fitting and helping to ‘compress’ the muscle tissue in your gluteus, hamstrings and quads.
Moisture Wicking Fabric
We’ve covered the properties of moisture wicking fabric in previous posts for other kinds of MMA apparel, but basically moisture wicking fabric is really beneficial especially in close fitting garments like Compression Shorts.
By wicking away the sweat from the surface of your skin to the outer layer of the fabric, the aim is to keep you as cool and dry as possible.
Moisture wicking fabric works by exploiting the natural capillary action of that occurs when liquids flow through narrow spaces (the minute gaps in the fabric) without the aid of any external forces such as gravity.
Integrated Cup Pockets
Not all Compression Shorts feature a built in cup pocket, but if you are planning to wear a cup it’s always worth looking out for this feature as it will provide extra comfort, convenience as well as protection.
Wide Waistbands
This is a personal preference, but with Compression Shorts being purposefully tight fitting, a wide waistband can help evenly distribute the pressure and reduce the cutting feeling you can get with compression wear with smaller waistbands.
Dye Sublimated Graphics
Whilst this may not be so important in terms of performance, dye sublimated graphics (where designs are fused in to fabric of the shorts) as opposed to printed or stitched on, will help to keep the shorts sleek, light and rule out any fading or chaffing caused by stitching.
A Note About Sizing
It is important to note that we’ve highlighted some of the main points, but one thing to be aware of that we can’t really generalise about is Sizing.
It is important that you refer to each individual brand’s Size Guide before deciding on which size is most suitable for you as there can be variations between brands.
If you found this Buying Guide useful, you may also want to check out our MMA Rashguards Buying Guide, as there are similar features and functions that are common to both kinds of apparel.