Knee pain can be killer, especially if you’re an active person that moves around a lot. This is when knee sleeves can come in handy! This piece of equipment can give you the support and protection that you need during your heavy lifting workouts.
In this article, we’ll tell you everything that you need to know about knee sleeves –from how to use them to where to find the best knee sleeves for you!
What are knee sleeves used for?
Knee sleeves are specifically designed to support your knee area and prevent injuries, as well as reduce knee pain and swelling during and after exercise.
As the name suggests, you can wear knee sleeves by sliding them up your legs, just like sleeves. Once they’re at knee level, they will offer warmth and compression to keep your knee joints safe during your heavy weight lifting sessions at the gym.
While knee sleeves can offer great protection during heavy lifting and they’re more commonly used during heavy squats, other squat variations, and Olympic lifts.
Benefits of knee sleeves for lifters
We briefly mentioned why knee sleeves are a useful piece of equipment for your knees, but now let’s see exactly why they’re beneficial for you:
Improved control and stability
The warmth and compression offered by knee sleeves increase blood flow around your knee area. An increased blood flow enhances proprioception around the knee area, which is your body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location. This allows you to have better control over your movements.
Increased performance
Knee sleeves offer a tremendous amount of support to your knee area and help stabilize the knee, making lifting movements less strenuous on your joints. They also help reduce pain, discomfort, and even swelling in your knee area, particularly during heavy lifts where your knees are under a lot of tension.
Lower risk of injuries
Because of how tight and compressed the knee sleeve is, it helps limit knee cap movements to avoid overflexion, overextension, and any other kind of extreme movement by mistake. This helps prevent any possible injuries and lowers the chance of post-workout soreness.
Improved recovery
Knee sleeves aren’t only great at supporting your workouts, but they’re also an effective way to help improve and speed up your knee recovery post-workout. Because the compression helps increase blood flow, oxygen and necessary nutrients can reach damaged areas more quickly, aiding in pain relief and recovery.
Support for injured knees
While knee sleeves are mostly used to protect from injury, they can also help aid in past injuries. By keeping the knee compressed and stabilized, the strain and tension on the knee are reduced, making it a great alternative for those who have knee injuries and are trying to get back to lifting safely.
So… should you wear knee sleeves?
If you need knee support, want to improve control and stability, and increase training performance then yes! Knee sleeves are a great piece of lifting equipment that can help you train with heavy weights while supporting your knees and preventing injuries.
Something to keep in mind is that, like most fitness equipment pieces, knee sleeves have a time and a place to be used. It shouldn’t be a regular part of your lifting routine; instead, keep them in hand for when you need the knee support for heavy lifting exercises that actually involve knee movement!
How to choose the right knee sleeve for you
Most high-quality knee sleeves are made from the same Neoprene material, which works great at retaining heat and warming up your knees. The thickness of it is what will determine which one is the best for your style of training.
You can usually choose between three thickness levels - 3mm, 5mm, and 7mm. The thicker the knee sleeve is, the more warmth, support, and control it’ll provide during your workouts.
Those in CrossFit training and other kinds of high-intensity, high-mobility activities tend to prefer a 3mm thickness because it allows for a wider range of motion. But if your focus is on strength training, powerlifting, and other kinds of activities that involve heavy weights, 5mm to 7mm knee sleeves offer the best support.
Where Can I Buy Knee Sleeves?
You can buy the best knee sleeves for squatting at UPPPER! Our 7mm Weightlifting Knee Sleeves are highly-rated and widely-loved (seriously, they sell out fast) amongst new and avid lifters!
They are made from high-quality neoprene that provide optimal compression and warmth to the knee joint to help you lift heavier during your squats, leg presses, and more. Start elevating your heavy weightlifting sessions with UPPPER Weightlifting Knee Sleeves.
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