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Sections Home Page Local News AP News Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Since We Asked Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Readers Choice 2006 Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Our Valley Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend July 25, 2006 (photos.com) Ever since its modern inception in 1977, the sports bra has been waging war on gravity Engineering the sports bra By Janet Crowley Los Angeles Times From humble beginnings — the first modern sports bra was fashioned from two jockstraps sewn together — the sports brassiere has emerged as a high-tech apparel powerhouse. A triumph of engineering over gravity, these pieces of fabric are now researched to the minutest detail. Some are even tested in biomechanical labs with cameras rolling. Just one bra can include eight types of fabrics, with varying amounts of support, sweat-wicking properties and ventilation levels. As a category, they're made with microfibers to reduce friction. Even the straps are engineered, some with gel inside for cushioning. These advances have been fueled by the growing expectations — and changing needs — of active women and by researchers who have made breast bounce analysis and nipple-tracking a fine art. One of those scientists, LaJean Lawson, has been conducting sports bra research at Oregon State University's biomechanics lab for nearly 20 years. Today she is an adjunct professor in exercise and sports science and works with Champion Athleticwear to test and improve sports bra designs. Advertisement To test a bra, Lawson relies on volunteers with varying breast sizes. The women jog on a treadmill while cameras around them feed data into a computer. Lawson is able to track the motion of breast to the smallest detail. At the end of each trial, Lawson has simulated figures of the subject's body in motion and the breasts moving up and down. She can track in slow motion every twist and turn of breasts, which tend to move in a figure-eight pattern that reflects the arm swing and shoulder rotation during running. "We can tell you how fast the nipple is going as it changes direction," she says. "We can calculate velocity and acceleration." In fact, she says, some of the data are scary. "Think of when you play crack the whip," she says. "The skin and much of the underlying tissue in the breast is somewhat elastic, so when you have a breast traveling downward at a pretty good rate of speed, and then you change direction as your body hits the ground and begins to rise up again, you can get some pretty drastic acceleration as the breast speeds up to try to catch up with the rest of the body. The point of the sports bra is just to slow all that down." The average 36C breast is estimated to weigh about 10 ounces. Researchers calculate that a breast of this size, with minimal support, running at about 5.6 mph, will bounce as much as 4.7 inches up and down, relative to trunk movement. A good sports bra can decrease this by about half or more. Today, Lawson says, breasts are moving differently in the bras that she's used as control garments over the years. This is due, she suspects, to a higher ratio of fat-to-glandular tissue in the breast. As women have become larger, breasts have followed suit. In the last 10 years, breasts have increased from an average bra size of 34B to 36C or 38C. The new bras, of course, follow the demand, with better engineering for the bigger breast. To fully understand the breast, one must start with the connective tissue, called Cooper's ligaments, that separate its lobules. Researchers believe that these ligaments, along with collagen and skin tissue, give the breast its gravity-defying structure. Over time, however, as tissues become less elastic, breasts lose their perky resilience. A sports bra, in theory, should slow the advent of sagging. Not everyone is convinced. Dr. Jaco Festekjian, an assistant clinical professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles, has performed more than 1,000 surgeries on breasts, including reconstructions, augmentations and reductions. Genetics and pregnancies, he says, are most likely the biggest determinants of sag. "The bra can't control the inherent elasticity of the ligaments," he says. "The ligaments that hold the breast up loosen over time, with or without a bra, and once they succumb to gravity, they don't want to bounce back." Whether bouncing causes sag may be debatable, but comfort isn't. Artwork and relics from Greek and Roman antiquity suggest that active women through the ages have addressed the problem of bouncing breasts, says Kevin Jones, a costume historian at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum in Los Angeles. "We know from mosaics in A.D. 340, for example, that women in Sicily exercised in gymnasiums, with barbells, in what looks like sports bras," he says. "Women at that time did participate in athletics, which ended with the Medieval era, when women's roles in society became more regulated and restricted." The first sports bra in modern history was born in 1977, when Lisa Lindahl of Vermont got fed up with breast pain while running. Inspired by her husband's jockstrap, she teamed with Polly Smith, a costume designer, and Hinda Schreiber Miller, now a Vermont state senator, to fashion a sports bra from two athletic supporters cut apart and sewn back together. The three launched a modified version, the Jockbra, then quickly renamed it the Jogbra. Sports retailers were skeptical. Women weren't. "We rode the growing wave of women participating in college sports," recalls Miller, linking the emergence of sports bras with the passage in 1972 of Title IX. That landmark legislation prohibited gender discrimination in schools receiving federal assistance, with much of the impact felt in athletics. The sports bra, in short, helped open a door for all women to exercise comfortably and without feeling foolish. Today, sports bras are an essential piece of equipment. Between 2000 and 2002, the most recent figures available from Mintel, a market research group, sales of sports bras grew from $300 million to $400 million, a whopping 33 percent increase in sales. Traditionally, sports bras have fallen into two design types: "compression" or "encapsulation." Many new bras are hybrids, stealing a little from each design, using compression to restrict movement and encapsulation to lift and support. But those choices are just the beginning. High-performance offerings, some already on the market and some coming this summer, include: Moving Comfort's "nippleproof" bras featuring nipple camouflage and protection; Hind's new high-tech molded bra, and Under Armour's Duplicity bra with ultra-smooth mesh for dryness. Even Victoria's Secret is getting in on the action with the "Sexy Sport" line. Champion Athleticwear says some of its biggest growth is in full-support styles, up to size 44DD. Moving Comfort, which offers a sports bra for mastectomy patients, is developing a sports bra for women 34DD through 46F. Researchers say that large-breasted women benefit the most from a good-fitting sports bra and that, for them especially, the wrong bra can be a disaster. How to choose a sports bra Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems California Casinos Men's Clothing Southern Oregon Loans --> GMAT Prep Fundraisers Send Flowers Entertainment Guide --> Casinos Canada Trunks, Footlocker Online Casino Reviews Advertisement s Advertisement