Under Armour Recovery Sleepwear for Exercise Recovery
What Is It: Pajamas for athletes and active people designed to temporarily improve blood flow to your muscles so you sleep better and recover from exercise faster. Under Armour Athlete Recovery Sleepwear is available for men and women.
What You Might Not Know: Exercise recovery is one of the fitness industry’s latest trends even though the concept is nothing new—elite athletes have been practicing it forever. In fact, NFL Quarterback Tom Brady collaborated with Under Armour on these recovery pj’s.
Feelin’ the Love: For this test-drive, Under Armour gifted me four pieces from their sleepwear line: long pants and shorts plus a short-sleeve and a long-sleeve top. Everything is meant to be worn as jammies, but they work equally well as around-the-house loungewear, which is how I wore mine a lot.
What’s the Technology That Makes Under Armour Sleepwear Good for Exercise Recovery?
Each garment has bioceramic material printed on the inside. You can see the material because it has a slight pattern (see pic below), but you can’t feel it when you’re wearing the recovery sleepwear.
The idea is that when the body emits heat, the print absorbs the heat and bounces it back to the body as a type of infrared energy. That’s a boring way of saying the high-tech fibers in this sleepwear recycle your body’s natural energy to speed up muscle recovery and help you sleep better. If the potential for improved health, fitness and wellness in a pair of pajamas is all the explanation you need, skip to the next section on comfort. If you’d like to geek out further on the fabric’s technology, read the next paragraph.
(that’s the less vibrant shade in the image above).
The technology in these pj’s is powered by Celliant®, which helps you recover faster from physical activity and sleep more restfully. There’s clinical research to support this claim, but you probably already know that a good night’s sleep improves just about everything in life, including exercise performance. What’s more, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went on record to say it determined that Celliant increases temporary localized blood flow, which restores muscles faster. And JSYK, the FDA recently designated Celliant-engineered products as medical devices.
Are These Recovery Pajamas Comfortable?
You’d think that pj’s with all this tech-engineering might feel stiff or scratchy. Nope, not these pajamas from Under Armour. When I first pulled them out of the packaging, I was stoked at how luxe and lightweight they felt. The fabric is soft and has stretch to it, so they’re equally comfortable to wear.
Considering the sleepwear’s exercise recovery technology recycles your body’s heat, you might wonder if you’ll be burning up in them. No, the technology doesn’t work like that. Even still, there are features in the moisture-wicking garments that’ll help keep you cool anyway, such as mesh inserts in the bottoms and cut-out details in the tops.
Does Under Armour Athlete Recovery Sleepwear Work?
Under Armour recommends wearing these pj’s six hours a day for at least two weeks. I mostly wore the pants and long-sleeve top to lounge around in the evenings and then switched to the tee and shorts at bedtime. (I’m basically a furnace when I sleep, so I won’t ever wear long pants/sleeves to bed regardless of fabric).
OK, so do they work? I think the only way I could tell you for sure if this sleepwear worked would be if I replicated the exact activities, routines and recovery techniques during two separate weeks, with and without the pajamas. Obviously unrealistic.
Here’s what I can tell you though, anecdotally: I’ve been sleeping better than usual lately (although I’m not currently using a sleep-tracking device to prove it with metrics).
Exercise-wise, I’ve been working out harder than normal in the last 45 days because I just completed a 30-day media pass at Orangetheory Fitness (blog review here), and I committed to exercising for 31 consecutive days to support the Workout to Conquer Cancer fundraiser.
Even though I’ve amped up both exercise volume and intensity lately, my workout performance on most days has felt great! I ran my fastest 1K ever last week, according to my Vi AI running coach. And throughout it all, I’ve barely noticed any delayed onset muscle soreness. I definitely believe the pajamas played a part in all that.
If I Could Change One Thing: Under Armour needs more tank-top styles in the pj shirt for furnace-sleepers (I can’t be the only one).
Also, the waistband on both the shorts and pants is quite thick and sturdy, almost like what you’d find on a performance track pant; something slightly more supple and relaxed around the waist would create a better jammie vibe.
Should You Try It? Yes! I love these pajamas and will continue to wear them. They come in various styles and colors for men and women with a fit that’s true to size. Available from Under Armour, sporting good stores, and Amazon and Amazon Canada (that’s an affiliate link).
