Gear Review: Retrospec Yoga Mats

I nonetheless keep in mind the primary time I attempted yoga. A number of cute ladies in my sophomore highschool class had began a “yoga membership” after college, and a buddy and I believed that becoming a member of up can be a surefire strategy to get into their good graces.

An hour of sweat, gritted enamel, sore muscular tissues later, I threw within the towel. Yoga was arduous, I discovered. It additionally was considerably painful, as a result of whereas all the ladies had yoga mats, my buddy and I had been doing “yoga” (or our greatest imitation of it) on the arduous tile ground of the college hallway.

Quick-forward fifteen years.

I am on the cusp of thirty, and yoga has turn out to be a key a part of my morning routine. The distinction between a day after I’ve carried out 10 to twenty minutes of sunshine stretching within the morning and a day after I have not is fairly important. I’ve additionally discovered that yoga’s much more enjoyable when you will have a little bit of cushion between you and the ground. Enter the common-or-garden yoga mat.

Yoga mats aren’t simply good for yoga, both. My mats are among the most versatile and helpful items of “gear” in my closet. They’re good for just about any ground train, from push-ups to sit-ups, planks, mountain climbers, burpees, bicycle kicks… the record goes on. They’re additionally useful for savasana (mendacity down) meditation, and a thick(ish) yoga mat may even function a fairly first rate mattress for tenting. I usually use yoga mats to prepare climbing gear earlier than a visit, and greater than as soon as have slept at the back of my Subaru with a thicker yoga mat as a sleeping pad.

Yoga mats, in fact, are available in quite a lot of thicknesses and supplies. Thinner mats supply extra stability and a extra “grounded” really feel that’s usually most well-liked by severe practitioners (they usually’re additionally simpler to hold round city), whereas thicker mats supply extra cushion and alleviate stress on the joints, supreme for novices, aged practitioners, the arthritic, and so forth.

The mat I obtained to check on this evaluate was the retrospec Solana, their thickest (1-inch) mat. Priced at a really cheap $39.99, this mat is offered in a dozen totally different colours, and is constructed from soft NBR foam. However retrospec’s lineup of yoga mats is a flexible, inexpensive unfold. Additionally they have a thinner Solana (0.5″), constructed from the identical NBR foam, a 6mm mat, the Pismo, and a 5mm mat, the Laguna, which mixes a polyurethane higher layer with a rubber backside for grip.

Yoga mats are a reasonably easy piece of substances. By that I imply that except the producer does one thing significantly heinous—like infuse their yoga mats with poison ivy or asbestos–what you see is what you get.

A yoga mat would not have to reinvent the wheel, it simply must be steady, grippy, sturdy, and (relying in your choice) supply some degree of portability and luxury.

With that in thoughts, I am very proud of my Solana. It ticks all of the containers. These yoga mats supply strong no-slip assist, are simple to wipe clear on the finish of a session, include a carry strap to retailer and transport, and better of all, are very inexpensive. The Pismo and the half-inch Solana are simply $25, and all retrospec’s yoga mats are underneath $50.

That is the kicker right here, for me. That worth level is akin to what you’d pay for a knock-off yoga mat at Walmart or Goal, however the high quality here’s a noticeable step up. I have never observed any of the scuffing and ripping on my retrospec mat that I sometimes see on $20-$30 yoga mats. It is held up very effectively even after a number of months of normal use.

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