I know absolutely nothing about going to the gym or working out and I need some help choosing some actual good quality sports wear.
The clothes I currently have don’t seem suitable at all for exercise in that theyre not particularly flexible, breathable or lightweight.
I’m mainly looking to lose weight and improve cardio fitness as I haven’t done proper exercise in a very long time.
My priorities are durability, longevity and breathability. I’m not bothered about fashion brands unless they can do all three of the above and I don’t mind spending a little more money to get something thats good quality.
I’m in the UK but if you can point me towards the good stuff, even if it’s not available in the UK, it’ll help me pick similar stuff!
Thanks very much for any help in advance!
Cheers!
Unsure about what exactly the market is in the UK, but this post reminds me of a old /fit thread. Just go to any discount clothing retailer and grab a few pairs of “good enough” shorts, shirts, etc. You don’t need to do much research if you’re just looking to get into basic regular exercise. I think a lot of people experience a sort of analysis paralysis when theyre just getting started with working out and theyve never had to consider what clothes to wear. As long as you’re not showing up in jeans and boots, you’ll be fine; I workout in a pair of old jogger sweatpants I got a few Christmases ago, some old sneakers, and whatever old band shirt I pull out of the closet. What matters is that you get out there!
If you experience any catastrophic failures in your clothes, then you’ll know what the weak points are, but odds are, you’ll probably find that the cheap stuff can handle quite a bit of use.
I’d argue that unless your goal is to look good at the gym, there’s isn’t much need to bother with getting pricier/higher quality clothes. Some of my most comfortable gym shirts cost less than a quarter of my “objectively” higher quality shirts.
Light and breathable gym shirts doesn’t cost much and there isn’t much comfort to gain by going pricier either. It’s mostly about the looks in my experience.
In the US it probably depends mainly on the gym. Mine is very casual and comfortable - tee shirts, stretch pants or shorts. At other gyms you may see more flashy clothing. Don’t worry- just make your best guess and go. The most important thing is to go regularly. Clothing can be adjusted along the way.
Go to a store, try things on, see if you get a good range of motion and if the fit is comfortable. I prefer to work out in 100% cotton, but I do also have some lycra blends. My workout clothes are mostly tshirts, some muscle tanks, shorts, and joggers.
You really don’t need anything fancy for the gym. It sounds like your problem is that you don’t have comfortable clothes in general.
Not ashamed to say that I use a lot of gym clothing from Myprotein (UK). Nothing to write home about, but generally decent enough.
Problem is that they’ve refreshed some of their ranges for worse over time.
Their older power shorts were great. I’m currently wearing a pair of their training joggers. Their velocity joggers were cracking but they’ve updated them very recently to have annoyingly angled and shallower zip pockets.
the aforementioned power shorts have since been phased out, along with their form hoodies (possibly one if my most favourite zip up tops ever).
Typically pick something up as needed whenever I’m placing an order for whey isolate.
