We Tried It: Adidas TechFit Gear

It’s a difficult time of the year for fitness-apparel testing.

The items in stores are all designed to keep you warm and toasty on chilly, 40-degrees-Fahrenheit runs. The new items that I see as an editor are all for the steamy, sweaty runs of summer and won’t be coming out until next spring. With today’s morning temperature of 71 degrees in New York City, the weather does not want me to test either kind of item, and of course the climate-controlled gym is no place to try out high-tech fabrics.

Except, of course, for my gym.

The air conditioning in my apartment building’s gym has been broken for about two weeks, and my well-insulated building keeps the non-regulated temperature hovering around 85 degrees in there (provided it’s above 50 outside). The gym has become a perfect practice ring for warm-weather apparel, which some people are lucky enough to still need into October and beyond.

So this week I tried out Adidas’s TechFit sports bra and tank. The back panels of both the bra and the tank are sweat-wicking mesh, and it was heaven-sent in there. The worst thing about the lack of AC is that the air is stale and stagnant, and the mesh panels actually made me feel like there was a breeze hitting my back as I glided back and forth on the elliptical.

Beyond the performance, the tank was actually really flattering: fitted in the shoulders and looser down toward the waist. If I’d left the house, I would have felt cute.

Despite the sweat-wicking technology, the 85-plus degree temperature meant I still managed to leave behind some unsightly sweat stains on the pieces, which I had sort of hoped to avoid.

But overall, if you’re working out anywhere slightly warmer than you’d prefer, I learned to go for something with a mesh back! I washed the tank that night and used it again the next day, because I didn’t think I could go back to life before the breeze.