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Workout Wednesday’s First Workout Gear Review!

The Real Working Girls here at Not a Corporate Fashun Blog strive to provide our readers with helpful advice.  While we often will link to products that we haven’t purchased, those recommendations are thoroughly vetted prior to posting in order to ensure that we’re recommending products that we personally would use and/or buy.  However, there are instances where we’re just not comfortable recommending products based upon assumptions alone.  Today’s workout gear review is one of those instances.  Why? Because we’re discussing running underwear which, if you read Katie 2’s post about chafing, you know that proper running underwear is key to preventing chafing, especially when training for a long distance race.  

Workout underwear is one of those products that you really don’t know how it’s going to perform until you try it.  This is why we came up with a pretty scientific method of trying different brands although our ultimate recommendation is based upon very unscientific data. 

So, what was our methodology? We bought 3 different brands of running underwear at 3 different price points.  We then tested said underwear by running the same route (5 miles) in similar weather conditions while wearing the same running clothing (crops, tank, socks, shoes, and sports bra).  We tried to control for everything that we could in order to provide the best data. How did we determine the winner? We asked ourselves which pair we reach for when dressing for our long runs. 

We purchased the following pairs of running underwear:

Once the underwear was purchased, we tested it wearing the following items: Sweaty Betty Zero Gravity Run Crops, Lululemon Swifty Tech Racerback, Lululemon Speed Socks, an older version of the Lululemon Run On Bra, and Asics Gel-Kayano 22 Running shoes. 

We ran an approximately 5 mile loop in somewhat humid summer weather, typically with temperatures in the low 80s.  While running we paid particular attention to the following things: (1) did the underwear stay in place? (2) did we notice it while running? (3) did any of the seams rub us in weird ways? (4) any post run chafing or discomfort?

How did each product do?

The Under Armour Pure Stretch Sheer Bikini performed well in all areas. Plus, it didn’t bunch in any weird places while we were getting dressed. We honestly didn't notice it at all while running. The Lululemon Namastay Put Hipster did well in all areas but for the staying in place (it bunched a little bit as we got dressed and would gravitate towards our crack by the end of the run) and we were definitely a little more aware of the underwear while we ran. The Sweaty Betty No Show Briefs also did pretty well in all areas but the staying in place. They didn't stay in place at all and we noticed the existence of the underwear throughout our run.

Our winner? The Under Armour Pure Stretch Sheer Bikini are the running undies we reach for when we're getting dressed for our long runs.  They stay in place, are super comfortable and breathable.  The only downside is that they're kind of hard to find (we bought ours at Fleet Feet which is outside of our normal errand route).  As a result, the Lululemon Namastay Put Hipster has become our go to running underwear for daily use.  We don't love them as much as we love the Under Armour but we're at Lululemon more frequently and they often has random colors on sale so we've stocked up. While the print and color of our Sweaty Betty No Show Briefs is our favorite by far, the performance just isn't there so they're not in frequent rotation.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on running underwear.  Any favorites that we should try out?  Let us know in the comments!
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