Placebo Tights
Would like to see some hard evidence they have any real benefit whatsoever, as in research papers.
Nice pair of bib shorts for riding. Get home and go stand in the ocean for a while or sit with your feet elevated = same effect as skins.... But if you wanna pay money to look like a triathlete go ahead
Its more that alot of study has gone into this technology and i can say it does work.
I paid $119 for my normal knicks, so an extra $20 for the proven technology might not be that bad?
I call them Placebo tights. Everyone always says they feel better after wearing the tights for recovery and untill recently, it seemed there wasn't really any hard and fast studies either way (that I could find). I can see how they could benefit; compression garments have shown to increase blood flow, something that I think has been known in the medical profession for ages (they put bassically compression stockings on old people and bed patients in hospital) so on that front, it's understandable that wearing tights will help get more nutrients and flush waste products from your muscles and hence, aid in recovery.
I'm with MacBeth though, lots of things you could do without skins to help achieve the same thing. The skins site even backs that up:
Effectiveness of post match recovery strategies in Rugby players
- N D Gill, C M Beavan and C Cook
Published in British Journal of Sports Medicine 2006; 40: 260-263
This study compared recovery strategies after elite rugby union games and found that ice baths, Skins™ and active recovery improved recovery rates by a similar but substantial amount.
The effect of 4 recovery techniques post competitive rugby matches plasma creatine kinase
- N Gill
This study conducted in NZ examined different recovery modes on blood CPK, a marker of muscle damage. This study showed similar reductions in CPK with all recovery strategies, including wearing Skins™, compared with no intervention.
http://www.skins.net/au/en/Research/Studies
Ie, no matter how you chose to recover, you get the same result. For years they had a bunch of references to studies I personally could never find (not to say they didn't exist). It's also fairly recent stuff compared to the life of the product.
there are alternatives, I think 2XU stuff is similar and the cheapy products. Or like macbeth said go stand in a cold pool, ocean, warm down properly etc....
I have a pair I bought to wear on the plane going over to canada. Did they help? dunno, I didn't exactly do double blind but I'm mildly skeptical. In combination with other recovery methods I'll use them though. Like I said, I can understand how they can help, add on the placebo affect and what harm could they do! at worst they do nothing, at best they'll provide me with some miracle recovery
Arey they worth $139? well... you have to ask yourself, is recovering better the next day really that important or necessary to you? If you're training hard or racing day after day, possibly....
*shrug* YMMV
Cheers
Gonz