Why the ‘Athletic Breast Shape’ Isn’t Natural and What’s Really Causin

The so-called “athletic breast shape” - also known as the jogger’s or runner’s breasts - is described as a chest with a higher proportion of underlaying muscle and less breast tissue.

It’s important to note that breasts come in many shapes, volumes and sizes. Therefore, “athlete breasts” might look different on each person. Some may have no breast tissue at all, while others may have a flat top with a heavy bottom, or quite the opposite.

Depending on one’s fitness activities, some women might have a muscular look while others might lack it. Athlete breasts are not a one-size-fits-all. The term often describes breast shape changes caused by long-term unsupported bounce.

Other known characteristics are:

Less volume or fullness
More compact, firm, and muscular appearance
Wider-set and lower on the chest wall
Conical or tubular shape rather than rounded or pendulous
Less natural breast tissue, sometimes appearing “perky” but less full
May have broader roots (where breast tissue attaches to the chest)

They can be pictured similarly to the images below.

Property of Tigers Eye*

The root cause

Many brands seem to be focusing on making sports bras that fit the shape of athletic breasts without asking the more important question: why does this shape develop in the first place? It's often the result of repeated, unsupported breast movement, a symptom of poor support, not athletic performance. By focusing solely on creating a bra to fit this particular shape, they are looking to treat a symptom rather than cure the root cause of it all, therefore allowing more women to suffer.

The term ‘athletic breast shape’ is often just a polite way of describing sagging caused by stretched skin and ligaments as a result of repeated unsupported breast movement. In other words, every time you do activities that make your breasts bounce, your ligaments and skin are taking the toll. Jumping and running are known as being high-impact activities, but it can really vary as bigger breasts can bounce even from walking alone.

Saggy Breasts

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Most women understand sagging as a consequence of old age. While it’s true that our skin loses elasticity with time, it’s also true that unsupported breast movement will put a strain on the breast ligaments and skin – being the only natural support system of the breast - causing them to lose their elasticity completely over time. It’s important to note that breast ligaments don’t snap or break off from exercise, nor can they be built up like muscles; but they loosen up so much that they become unable to support the breast. Training the chest muscles will have no aiding effect on this because the breasts sit on top of the chest muscles, and because ligament damage is irreversible. “Athletic breasts” can only be ‘fixed’ through breast augmentation surgery, where the breasts are filled with implants or fat transfer to regain the fullness/volume. However, surgery does not fix the damaged ligaments and therefore does not address the root cause of sagging and the lack of support. Even after breast surgery, there’s a risk of losing the breast tissue again unless there’s external breast support to minimise breast bounce. Doctors usually advise breast augmentation patients to take up low-impact activities like yoga, swimming and walking for this very reason.

The health consequences

It’s implied that some women’s self-esteem would suffer when developing “athletic breasts”, but what most don’t know is that unsupported movement isn’t just a cosmetic issue; it’s a structural one with real health consequences. While sagging itself isn’t a health risk, the effects of chronic unsupported movement can include upper body pain, skin irritation, poor posture, and ultimately reduced performance. For many athletes, this discomfort becomes a silent barrier to training or competing at their full potential. Addressing this at the root, with proper, high-impact support, is essential not just for comfort but for protecting long-term physical function, confidence, and participation in sport.

Trendy Threats

As big sports-fashion brands emerge and grow, their online influence across the world multiplies day by day. Unfortunately, some of these brands promote strappy crop tops like the ones pictured below, marketing them as ‘sports bras’. Despite their websites labelling them as low impact support, a lot of these designs have become popular in fitness communities like the gym, sports and running, due to big influencer-led campaigns that encourage women to buy, and even to ‘double up’ (wear multiple bras on top of each other) which causes a lot of additional health problems. As a company rooted in science, it is highly concerning to us that such designs are promoted without regard to the long-term health consequences to active women.

Been there, Done that

The industry’s lack of real sports bra solutions often drives these women to “buy what everyone else is wearing”, disregarding the need for breast support. There’s a real problem with medium and high impact sports bras being almost unusable due to high amounts of compression, which limits breathing and causes pain. One such woman who fell victim to these trendy sports bras is our founder, Rebeka Polgar. While in professional martial arts training, Rebeka tried all sorts of sports bras but found the compromise between support and comfort to be too extreme. As a result of inadequate support, she had lost her breast volume, leading her to undergo a fat transfer surgery to reconstruct her breasts.

After a long and hard recovery process, her doctors were telling her the only way to keep her breasts from sagging and damaging again was to give up her passion for sports and opt for yoga and walking instead.

Unaccepting of this ridiculous trade-off, Rebeka started her journey of researching what makes a great sports bra, and she found the research done by the world-leading experts at the Research Group in Breast Health at the University of Portsmouth. Partnering with them, she created the world’s first sports bra that’s backed by scientific research and provides a balance of support and comfort - the first Tigers Eye bra. This bra was in development and testing for over 2 years and is now classified as a high-impact sports bra, ranking 1st in support and comfort amongst 60 big brands. Our mission now is to reach as many women as possible and to educate them about the importance of a proper sports bra, while providing them with the solution that Rebeka wished she had.

Summary

“Athlete breasts”, “jogger’s breasts”, “runner’s breast” - are fancy terms for saggy breasts caused by wearing unsupportive sports bras. The repeated breast bounce during exercise causes the breast skin and ligaments to lose elasticity over time, resulting in saggy breasts.

We believe big companies that prioritise fashion over functionality are partly to blame for promoting inadequate sports bras that are causing women (eg. in the running community) to develop the so-called athlete breasts.

The only way to prevent developing saggy breasts at any age is to wear a high-impact sports bra during any activity that you feel is causing you breast bounce.

Final words

If you take anything away from this blog, let it be this. Keep the strappy crop tops for extremely low-impact activities, like yoga, despite what you see influencers wearing them for. Pretty and trendy is nice, but support is essential for your health. We created the solution, so you don’t have to go through the same suffering our founder went through. Sports bras are essential equipment, and they are an investment in your health.

Why the ‘Athletic Breast Shape’ Isn’t Natural and What’s Really Causing It. The truth about joggers’ and runners’ breasts.