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For Chantelle Lott, it’s a problem rarely discussed. The lack of sports bra options for women with fuller breasts prevents many from working out and maximizing their health. That’s where Bounceless comes in.
“We’re more than a sports bra company. We want to make sure people can lead healthy lives without having to modify workouts,” Bounceless founder and CEO Chantelle Lott told The Black Wall Street Times.
Designed to give women the confidence to workout without worrying about their breast movements, Bounceless provides a website where women can order Lott’s patented, custom sports bras to support their journey toward a healthy body, according to the Bounceless website.
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Giving birth to Bounceless
The seeds of Bouncelss were planted in Chantelle Lott’s own personal experience. Moving from Houston to Tulsa 20 years ago for a track scholarship to the University of Tulsa, Lott set two national records as a student athlete.
“I was fast,” Lott said.
Like many women with a fuller bust, Lott was forced to navigate through activewear that rarely fit her comfortably.
Though her studies led her into education and social worker, the flame igniting her passion for working out continued to burn. So, in 2008, she pivoted towards developing sports bras for fuller women.
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By 2015, Lott entered product development, launching a lengthy trial of designs and modifications. In 2018, Lott worked with a team in Dallas who helped her craft the design and released her first low-impact sports bra a year later. By 2020, she was working with yet another Dallas team to patent her design and get it into manufacturing.
When it comes to finding sports bra for D-cup or larger, “it’s very challenging,” Lott told The Black Wall Street Times.
Centered in community
For her, becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t just about making money, it was about solving a problem many people don’t talk about or understand.
Discomfort, shoulder pain, pain of the breast bouncing, back pain, neck pain, and “feeling embarrassed by the bounce” are just some of the obstacles fuller bust women face when working out and in their daily lives.
“You don’t want to pay for a membership when you’re not gonna be using it,” Lott said.
That didn’t sit well with the decorated, former college track star. Lott wants to free women to reach their full potential in the areas of exercise and health.
“It was me just wanting to solve the problem for myself initially. Then, talking to other women, I realized it was definitely a larger problem than myself,” Lott said.
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Bounceless sports bra enters University of Houston study
As a mother of three children, Lott is actively involved in the Tulsa community and recently held a mammograms mimosa event to highlight October as breast cancer awareness month.
The fact that Lott birthed her company in Tulsa, home to the original Black Wall Street in historic Greenwood District, isn’t lost on her.
“To be able to walk down these streets of Black Wall Street keeps me intentional about how our history is remembered and making sure the community is part of the rebirth,” Lott said.
Over the summer, Lott entered her sports bra design into a study with the University of Houston. Wrapping up by the end of October, the study gathered data on 20 participants who compared Lott’s sports bra to the leading competitor. The goal is to better understand how bounce reduction can help reduce pain among women while working out.
“I want to be a leader in how we approach health. I want to make it fun to be active. That’s how I want people to view Bounceless. Go back to those workouts you thought you couldn’t do, but now do them with the Bounceless sports bra.”
To learn more about Lott’s patented sports bra designs, visit bounceless.com or Instagram.
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