Breast Biomechanics: What Do We Really Know?

Although half the world’s population will develop breasts, there is limited research documenting breast structure or motion. Understanding breast structure and motion, however, is imperative for numerous applications, such as breast reconstruction, breast modeling to better diagnose and treat breast pathologies, and designing effective sports bras. To be impactful, future breast biomechanics research needs to fill gaps in our knowledge, particularly related to breast composition and density, and to improve methods to accurately measure the complexities of three-dimensional breast motion. These methods should then be used to investigate breast biomechanics while individuals, who represent the full spectrum of women in the population, participate in a broad range of activities of daily living and recreation.

Breast Support Garments are Ineffective at Reducing Breast Motion During an Aqua Aerobics Jumping Exercise

The buoyant forces of water during aquatic exercise may provide a form of ‘natural’ breast support and help to minimise breast motion and alleviate exercise induced breast pain. Six larger-breasted females performed standing vertical land and water-based jumps, whilst wearing three breast support conditions. Underwater video cameras recorded the motion of the trunk and right breast. Trunk and relative breast kinematics were calculated as well as exercised induced breast pain scores. Key results showed that the swimsuit and sports bra were able to significantly reduce the superioinferior breast range of motion by 0.04 and 0.05 m, respectively, and peak velocity by 0.23 and 0.33 m/s, respectively, during land-based jumping when compared to the bare-breasted condition, but were ineffective at reducing breast kinematics during water-based jumping. Furthermore, the magnitude of the swimsuit superioinferior breast range of motion during water-based jumping was significantly greater than land-based jumping (0.13 m and 0.06 m), yet there were no significant differences in exercise induced breast pain, thus contradicting previously published relationships between these parameters on land. Furthermore, the addition of an external breast support garment was able to reduce breast kinematics on land but not in water, suggesting the swimsuit and sports bras were ineffective and improvements in swimwear breast support garments may help to reduce excessive breast motion during aqua aerobic jumping exercises.