Dress for the Occasion! How clothes can make or break your workout

“Clothes make the man” are the famous words of renowned author Mark Twain stating that people are judged based on how they are dressed. This remains true even today. Whether you are going to the office, college, a party, or gym, clothes can be settling or unsettling depending on how you have dressed and how you are feeling in them.

A great way to tackle this problem is to adopt minimal lifestyle clothing like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs (RIP). Stick to a couple of basic colours and categories and you are set for life.

But unfortunately, this strategy is limited to lifestyle clothing. Performance clothing is a different ball game. Every single activity calls for its own activewear clothing. Running, Swimming, Weightlifting, Cycling, Strength Training, all these activities have different needs when it comes to the apparel. You can choose to have the same colour but you will still need to buy specialized performance wear for these activities.

Let's take running for example. Runners need to wear light, breathable clothes so the shirts do not become heavy due to sweat and, lighter clothes allow extra efficiency while running. Having fast-wicking technology in running t-shirts helps in reducing the sweat absorbed by clothes and prevents bad odour, chafing, and rashes which are hindrances to a good endurance run. 

Runners can have the best running experience with shorts, especially when running long distances like 5K or more. Joggers and longer variants are ideal for other shorter workout sessions as they do not require the knees to be constantly engaged like a run. 

Clothes - The make or break factor for any workout.

Zymrat's training t-shirts, cotton touch t-shirts, training vests, and shorts are exclusively popular with long-distance runners. Many Zymrat users ran Mumbai Marathon 2019 wearing one of the above-mentioned products without any worries.

Zymrat has had its own learnings with making its products suitable for running. In the beginning, the first 50 samples were made with cotton and poly-cotton materials, but it was immediately rejected by the test athletes. Post that, we started focusing on specialized and engineered performance products. As of today, every piece of clothing is made with engineered performance fabrics with fast wicking, anti-odour, and cotton touch technology that enables the users to exercise for long and hard intervals without any irritation or any skin issues.

The typical performance wear and activewear products available in the market are also notoriously famous for causing skin issues. But this happens only when the brand is using cheap fabric to cut costs.

Zymrat identified this problem early. This is why we spend at least 3 times more than all other Indian brands on raw materials and technologies to ensure the best fabric quality for every product. This way, the user gets a great experience while working out without any issues.

Another popular form of workout is yoga. Yoga practitioners often perform asanas that require a lot of flexibility. Though you might possess the ability to fold in half, the wrong clothes worn might undergo a significant amount of stress than originally intended to withstand. Yoga apparel is generally restricted to leggings and clothes that are not loose to allow for flexible asanas without any issues.

Clothes - The make or break factor for any workout.

The typical stretchable products available in the market have too much lycra embedded into them, which can make the products too skin fitting or too thin. Especially for men, products with high lycra content don't get preference because of fit issues.

Zymrat wanted to make something that was usable across activities. That is why we came up with lycra free fabric for shorts and joggers. This fabric has the perfect amount of stretch for performing any body bending activities while still looking fit and fine. Since there is no lycra content in these products, Zymrat joggers and shorts look like just other products, but we made them for all purposes including yoga, deep squat, and running. The stretchability allows maximum movement and a wide range of motion. This translates to better exercise performance in any exercise be it yoga or heavy compound lifts like the squat. 

Among the various activities that have been listed here, strength & conditioning training can be done in a variety of clothing types, as long as it is made for an active lifestyle. Competition specific weight lifting like clean & jerk or snatch or powerlifting movements still require specialized suits, but day to day fitness, weight lifting and gym shenanigans can be sailed through in multiple types of active and performance wear.

A compound exercise like a squat or deadlift puts a tremendous amount of stress on the clothes which most everyday clothes cannot handle, especially with regular washing. The raw material used in Zymrat clothes can not only endure the stress of exercise, but it can also endure regular washing without losing any size, shape, colour, or feature; which means you never have to compromise on pushing yourself for one extra rep.

It is completely fine to just get up and start working out in your regular pyjamas and night suit, but if you are serious about exercising, you will soon start to realize that having the right set of tools for the trade by your side can make a real difference in performance and benefits that you ultimately reap.


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