It’s no secret that I live in workout clothes all day, every day. Definitely one of the perks of being a fitness instructor as my main gig 🙂
Over the years I’ve gravitated towards different workout clothes, depending on what workouts I was doing. Back in the day when I did way more spin and bootcamp type classes I preferred cropped pants for sure. During my running days, I was all about the racerback tanks.
Lately the only workouts I’ve really been doing (besides lots of walking around NYC) are Bar Method and hot yoga at Y7. Hey, gotta take advantage of those work perks and exclusively workout for free!
I like to wear slightly different stuff for yoga vs. barre.
A quick note: I know that 99% of these picks are Lululemon. Can I be anymore basic? Whenever people ask me about my favorite fitness brands I’m always really embarrassed to admit that I pretty much stick to Lululemon for most of my fitness attire. My reasons being:
- I’ve found their fit works for my body
- the clothes LAST (I’ve had some of my favorite yoga pants for 5+ years now. And that’s with frequently wears)
- They offer a variety of styles and cuts
- I get a sweet discount as a fitness instructor.
So yes, most of these suggestions are Lululemon. But I wouldn’t want to lie to ya and share something that I don’t actually love, wear all the time, or own in multiple colors.
Favorite All-Around Leggings:
My favorite all-around leggings are the Align Pant in the 25″ inseam. I’ll wear them for yoga, barre, plane rides, brunch, you name it.
If you’ve never tried on the aligns they are buttery soft. I hate using a food description for leggings but there’s really no other way to describe them, they are SOFT. The material is super thin so they still feel good when I’m sweating profusely teaching/taking hot yoga. But not so thin that they’re see-thru while I’m teaching in a very well-lit Bar Method class.
I’m a fan of the 25″ inseam as there’s still enough fabric for me to pull under my heel for barre (for some reason I really like having my leggings pulled under my heel for barre) but I can also have the extra fabric at my ankle for yoga. For reference, I’m 5’2″. Heads up these are not the leggings I’m wearing in these photos. They’re the 28″ Super High Rise version. Hope that’s not confusing 💗
If you prefer your leggings shorter Lululemon also does free tailoring, a service I’ve used many many times.
What I Wear For Hot Yoga:
For hot yoga, I prefer fabrics that are thin and don’t feel super gross once I get sweaty.
My go-to leggings for hot yoga:
I’m a big fan of the Fast and Free cropped pants and full-length tights. They’re on the pricer side, even by Lululemon standards, but they hold up. I’ve had a few of mine since September 2018. I wear them to teach or take every week which means they both get disgustingly sweaty and washed every single week. Over a year later they still look good as new.
For me, I’d always rather invest in a few really great workout clothes than constantly be buying clothes that don’t hold up over time.
My go-to sports bra for hot yoga:
I’m a big fan of the Energy Bra and own easily 5 of the same black bra. Hey, if it works, it works! I’m somewhere in between when it comes to chest size: I’m not flat-chested but also definitely don’t have a big chest. I find that the Energy bra is the right combination of supportive without feeling suffocating.
What I Wear For Barre:
For barre, I like to feel a bit cozier. More often than not I’m going to teach and take a class in the same outfit at some point during the day. I dig thicker fabrics since it’s not a super sweaty class. I also like to avoid wearing an uncomfortable sports bra when I can and instead opt for shirts with a built-in bra or my favorite tank bra from Everlane.
My go-to leggings for barre:
If I’m not wearing aligns, I’m probably wearing Wunder Unders. They’re thicker than aligns so I don’t love them for hot yoga, but for barre they’re perfect. I also like to wear them “dressed up” with a cute sweater and booties. When I travel they’re the best because I find them to be the most versatile to dress up or down.
I also recently purchased a pair of the SUPER high rise align pants in a 28″ inseam (shown in all these pictures on this post) and I gotta say I’m pretty obsessed. They kind of give me Steve Urkel vibes because I could pull my pants up to my bra if I really wanted 😂 but it also means I can wear crop tops to teach without my hella pale belly showing when I raise my arms.
My go-to tops for barre:
I’m less particular about what I wear on top for barre. In general, I gravitate towards tanks (I’m a sweaty gal, what can I say…) but lately I’ve also been digging cropped T-shirts like this one from Lululemon shown in all the pictures. I also bought it in black.
I’m a fan of the classic Power-Y tank top from Lululemon. As I said earlier, I’m not super “well-endowed” but I do have some boobage in the chest department. Since barre is super low-impact I’m good to go in a Power-Y, but I wouldn’t recommend if you’ve got a bigger chest or are doing more high impact workouts.
I wear a lot of Spiritual Gangster crop tanks with various cutesy sayings like this one (omg I know, something that’s NOT Lululemon…). Sadly Reverence Apparel no longer exists which is where I bought a lot of my muscle tanks from.
I also end up just finding cute cotton tanks at places like American Eagle that I end up wearing for barre.
OUTFIT DETAILS:
TOP // Train To Be Short Sleeve in Lavender
LEGGINGS // Align Super-High Rise Pant 28″ in black
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