In general, there is no rule about exactly how long you should wear calf sleeves. It’s more important to know when you should and shouldn’t wear them. Which is covered in the next section.

If you are injury free and exercising, you can wear calf sleeves during exercise and up to 12 hours after if necessary. This depends on the intensity level during your exercise and your activity levels after.

If you have a calf strain, you will most likely be using a calf sleeve to control pain and swelling, especially in the early days.

You can follow the general timelines mentioned above but make sure your calf sleeve fits around your leg properly. Follow the user instructions carefully and make extra sure that the sleeve doesn’t constrict your blood flow at any time.

In the early phases of calf strain, you may not be moving around much while you rest your injury.

When you wear calf sleeves you should be moving around or sitting in an upright position. If you’re going to be lying down or resting in a more horizontal position for more than 2 hours (injured or not), you don’t need extra compression and you should remove any compression gear (unless a medical professional tells you differently).

If you’re sitting, your blood flow can be slowed down by gravity and pool in your legs. This means your veins could do with the extra help of getting the blood back to your heart. This is why people are told to wear compression socks when flying.

Can I Wear Calf Compression Sleeves All Day?

No. Compression sleeves put constant pressure on your circulatory system. While this level of pressure may be safe during exercise, it is too much for your body at rest.

Do not wear compression sleeves or socks while sleeping.

When you’re lying down, or not moving around, your veins don’t have to fight gravity. They don’t have to work very hard to get the blood back to your heart. So, your circulatory system doesn’t need the extra pressure.

Pressure applied to your veins when you are resting can block your circulation. This can cause a pooling of blood in that area and lead to a blood clot known as a deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

This is why it’s not safe to wear your calf sleeves when you sleep. Even if you are wearing them to help you recover after an athletic event, big training session or injury.