I still remember the first time I tried yoga. A few cute girls in my sophomore high school class had started a “yoga club” after school, and a buddy and I thought that joining up would be a surefire way to get into their good graces.
An hour of sweat, gritted teeth, sore muscles later, I threw in the towel. Yoga was hard, I learned. It also was somewhat painful, because while all the girls had yoga mats, my buddy and I were doing “yoga” (or our best imitation of it) on the hard tile floor of the school hallway.
Fast-forward fifteen years.
I’m on the cusp of thirty, and yoga has become a key part of my morning routine. The difference between a day when I’ve performed 10 to 20 minutes of light stretching in the morning and a day when I haven’t is pretty significant. I’ve also learned that yoga’s a lot more fun when you have a bit of cushion between you and the floor. Enter the humble yoga mat.
Yoga mats aren’t just good for yoga, either. My mats are some of the most versatile and useful pieces of “gear” in my closet. They’re good for pretty much any floor exercise, from push-ups to sit-ups, planks, mountain climbers, burpees, bicycle kicks… the list goes on. They’re also helpful for savasana (lying down) meditation, and a thick(ish) yoga mat can even serve as a pretty decent mattress for camping. I often use yoga mats to organize climbing gear before a trip, and more than once have slept in the back of my Subaru with a thicker yoga mat as a sleeping pad.
Yoga mats, of course, come in a variety of thicknesses and materials. Thinner mats offer more stability and a more “grounded” feel that is generally preferred by serious practitioners (and they’re also easier to carry around town), while thicker mats offer more cushion and alleviate pressure on the joints, ideal for beginners, elderly practitioners, the arthritic, and so on.
The mat I received to test in this review was the retrospec Solana, their thickest (1-inch) mat. Priced at a very reasonable $39.99, this mat is available in a dozen different colors, and is made from cushy NBR foam. But retrospec’s lineup of yoga mats is a versatile, affordable spread. They also have a thinner Solana (0.5″), made from the same NBR foam, a 6mm mat, the Pismo, and a 5mm mat, the Laguna, which combines a polyurethane upper layer with a rubber bottom for grip.
This sun-dappled, lithe and limber model is most certainly not the author….
Yoga mats are a fairly straightforward piece of gear. By that I mean that unless the manufacturer does something seriously heinous—like infuse their yoga mats with poison ivy or asbestos–what you see is what you get.
A yoga mat doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, it just needs to be stable, grippy, durable, and (depending on your preference) offer some level of portability and comfort.
With that in mind, I’m very happy with my Solana. It ticks all the boxes. These yoga mats offer solid no-slip support, are easy to wipe clean at the end of a session, come with a carry strap to store and transport, and best of all, are very affordable. The Pismo and the half-inch Solana are just $25, and all retrospec’s yoga mats are under $50.
That’s the kicker here, for me. That price point is comparable to what you’d pay for a knock-off yoga mat at Walmart or Target, but the quality here is a noticeable step up. I haven’t noticed any of the scuffing and ripping on my retrospec mat that I typically see on $20-$30 yoga mats. It’s held up very well even after several months of regular use.
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