NormaTec compression boots are used with athletes to speed up the recovery process by allowing the lactic acid, that burning sensation in muscles, to push out to get back to training the next day. The boots are unique in that they can be customized to push lymphatic and metabolic waste out of muscles using both static compression and pulsing.
What are NormaTec compression boots?
Dr. Jan Kasprowicz: NormaTec compression boots, it’s a compression garment. They actually make a couple different ones. They make compression garments for your legs, they make compression garments for your trunk area, which goes over your glutes, your core, and your quads. They also make a compression garment for your arms as well. What they do is, there are bladders inside which are hooked up to a machine, a state-of-the-art air compressing machine that fills up and what it does it will actually push out lymphatic waste out of a muscle.
How do the NormaTec compression boots work?
Dr. Jan Kasprowicz: There’s lots of different kind of compression boots out there on the market. We’ve tried a lot of them and by far the most impressive is the NormaTec boots. You have to first understand the whole idea of trying to get this lymphatic and metabolic waste out of your muscles. What takes the body naturally 24 to 36 hours to do, can be achieved in about an hour to an hour and a half using NormaTec boots. Some of the boots out there, not NormaTec, they use a thing called static compression, where it’s going to be different chambers. Let’s say we’re using the boot. It’s going to be four chambers or five chambers, one chamber over the foot, one over the ankle, one over the thigh and one over the upper thigh. Each one is going to statically compress and try to push up lymphatic waste out of your muscles and up towards your groin, where there are a lot of lymph nodes where you could actually send them out through the lymphatic system, which is like the sewer system of the body. The beautiful thing about NormaTec, not only do they create an underlying static compression, but there’s also a pulsing.
The static compression that is constant will actually make sure that the lymphatic and metabolic waste doesn’t go back into the areas it was just compressed out of. It slowly pulses that metabolic waste out of the muscle, and it’s much more effective than just regular, ordinary static compression.
Who typically would use these compression boots?
Dr. Jan Kasprowicz: It matters what kind of sport you’re doing. The arm compression sleeves that we have are pretty much good for people who are utilizing and training their arms or their shoulders. You have baseball players, football players, quarterbacks, and pitchers most likely. The trunk is basically anybody can use the trunk, especially if you’re working out glutes, hamstrings, if you’re doing heavy dead-lifts, if you’re doing heavy squats.
The most popular one are our boots. We are fortunate enough to work with a lot of cyclists. We work with the Renegade Sports with their Farm to Fork Fondo where there are a lot of cyclists there and we actually treated the elite performance team recovery zone, which is right as soon as the athletes cross the finish line. We have six pairs of boots set up for them so once they do their 30, 60, 90 or 100 mile bike ride or race, they could actually put their bikes to the side and go right into the boots. This way they could actually speed up the entire recovery process of the boots. Other people have come into the office to use the boots. There are also post surgery patients who have lots of swelling in their arm or in their legs and they just want to increase and speed up that entire recovery process.
What does it feel like to use the compression boots?
Dr. Jan Kasprowicz: The great thing about the NormaTec boots is there are a lot of different protocols in the actual boot. You can just do a regular flushing, which is it’s basically going to push out the metabolic waste. There’s also a pulse action as well. You could also customize it to exactly how much pressure and how much time that you want to spend in each chamber. To my knowledge, none of the other competitors have that option. There are five chambers in the actual boot. If you have more inflation or you need more compression to a certain area, let’s say the ankle, you can increase the time and the amount of pressure in that zone.
This way you could change it from having 30 to 40 pounds of pressure all the way up to 80 pounds of pressure in one single chamber area while maintaining static compression throughout the entire area. Basically it’s just compression, so if you notice that the areas it’s compressing a little bit too much, then what you can actually do instead of turning the machine off, you could actually just reduce the amount of pressure to a certain area.
Can the compression boots be used after every workout, or should sessions be limited?
Dr. Jan Kasprowicz: Absolutely. You could. It would be ideal to use the boots after every heavy workout or if you’re a cyclist, if you’re doing long distance cycling, or if you’re doing interval cycling, which is basically bringing your heart rate up really high, you’re building a lot of lactic acid. That’s the key. If you’re building up a lot of lactic acid, that burning sensation in your muscles, you’re going to want to try to push that lactic acid as quickly as you can out of the muscles. This way you can get back to training the next day.
The other way to use the NormaTec boots is also you could do it prior to doing your activity as well. This way you get circulation going. You don’t need to use as much pressure as you would do post training or post competition, but using the NormaTec boots prior to an activity will increase the circulation to that area, give you that fresh leg feeling, get the dense leg feeling out. This way, you’re going to be more competitive, and you can increased sports performance for your activity.
If you are interested in speaking with Dr. Jan Kasprowitz, visit www.chiropracticandsportsrecovery.com, or call 917-748-2902 to schedule an appointment.
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