Technical Apparel and Function

“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.”

Louis Sullivan - Great American Architect

No question – clothing design and aesthetics often play a key role selecting running apparel. We all want our running clothing to perform, but we all want our clothes to look good on us while we are performing. Right? I get it – I have started a running apparel company. Yet – I subscribe to the theory that form follows function and that running apparel design should be based on its intended function or use. In this post, I am going to focus on function because clothing design is a personal preference. Look at women’s options for running shorts these days. There are skorts (shorts with a flap of fabric in front designed to look like a skirt), “buns,” tights, regular old running shorts and a number of other options. Some women swear by skorts. My wife who was also a middle distance runner growing up would not be caught dead in a skort. Like I said, design is a personal preference!

So, let us discuss function. When you run, the most important function of your clothing is to stabilize your core body temperature because you will ultimately be more efficient, more comfortable and perform better. Decreasing or increasing your core body temperature to extremes is not good for your health. When running in hot weather, you want clothing that promotes heat loss. When running in cold weather, you want clothing that prevents heat loss.

How does this work? The function of clothing is to trap a thin layer of air between your skin and the fabric of the garment. The thin layer of air will match the temperature of the body. Since air is a poor conductor of heat, it will act as a layer of insulation.

Light, thin, porous fabrics will circulate air more quickly in between your body and the fabric (promoting heat loss) as where heavier fabrics, less porous fabrics obviously will have the opposite effect (preventing heat loss). Regardless of the fabric’s thickness, it needs to allow for breathing and it must allow for sweat evaporation (the ability of the fabric to move sweat from the skin to the outside of the fabric where it can evaporate). The ability to promote heat loss or prevent heat loss relies on your garment’s ability to keep the area between your skin and the inside of the fabric as dry as possible. When you run, your clothes are bound to have a certain amount of sweat on them. You just want a high rate of sweat evaporation. Some fabrics do this better than others.

At Fire in the Gut, we have chose Cocona Fabrics as our partner because of the moisture management capability of the fabric.

More to follow later...

Fired Up!

Tim