Longevity.
That’s what we’re all going for right? We all want to preserve our bodies by working out so that later in life we won’t need to rely on things like wheel chairs or canes to get by. Your knees take a lot of punishment day to day, so why wouldn’t you want to invest a bit in keeping them safe? You could just stop working out, but who’s going to do that?!
Knee sleeves, I’ve used them all. Expensive ones usually run for about $40 a piece, to cheaper ones that end up being $40 for the pair. Some are thicker, some are shorter, some have contouring, but for the most part, they all do the same thing: stabilize and keep the knee warm. Personally, I keep different pairs in my gym bag for different purposes. 5mm sleeves for metcons, 7mm sleeves for heavy lifting, and knit sleeves just to keep the knees warm. I know most people aren’t going to have 5 pairs of knee sleeves, so when it comes down to it, I like to recommend 7mm sleeves as the ones to buy. As far as what to spend, just get whatever is in your price range. Appearance is all up to you. Philip over at KASP approached me to do review on his knee sleeves, so naturally, being the equipment geek that I am, I obliged.
The KASP knee sleeves only come in the 7mm size and are constructed with triple stitched neoprene material with no outer shell. Build quality is very good with no loose stitching or seams to be found. The sleeves are slightly contoured for a slightly better fit. Using the supplied sizing chart, I fit around a medium-large, so I opted for the large as typically all my sleeves are mediums and they all fit tight nowadays. Fitment is excellent, just right for me to be able to do both heavy squatting and metcons in. If you don’t do CrossFit and mainly deal with static lifts, you might want to size down for a more compression like fit. Also, if you’re sensitive to the smell of neoprene, you’ll probably want to wash these or let them sit out for a while before you wear them.
In all my time using the KASP knee sleeves, I never once even thought of my plethora of other sleeves. From everything to heavy squatting, to metcons, to just needing a little bit of knee protection for 16.1, I found that the KASP sleeves worked fine. Extraordinary, no, but perfect enough so that I never found myself longing for another pair of sleeves. The contouring works well enough so that the sleeves fit around your knee comfortably enough, but do enough running and jumping around and you will need to adjust your sleeves from time to time as they will slide down. Mainly the top part, causing the middle to bunch up a little bit. This seems to be a problem on just about all knee sleeves, so I’m not going to knock the KASP sleeves for this. For all you heavy sweaters, never fear, the KASP sleeves are actually pretty breathable and dry fairly quickly. Best of all, they don’t stink! (Under normal use, I’m sure if you got really sweaty and just threw them in your bag you could get them stinky.)
There isn’t a whole lot wrong with the KASP knee sleeves. The logo could use a redesign and it could be a little smaller, as well as the option to have other color choices. If you’re short like me, they might feel a tad on the long side, but it’s minor. The best part about the sleeves is that a PAIR will only set you back $50 and you can get Prime shipping on them! Philip also provided me a 10% off code for my viewers, so you can snag yourself a pair at a slight discount. Code: XAUZG2MV